Tag: tuberculosis

Vermont's Watchdog.org tells us more about VT Health Dept. response to TB in the state

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is a great website—Watchdog.org—I wonder how many other states have a Watchdog site like this which goes around the politically correct media spin and digs deeper into important stories effecting citizens in their states.

Patsy Kelso
Vermont state epidemiologist attempts to downplay seriousness of active TB in refugee population. Photo: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patsy-kelso-97290a78

Here is more on TB following the revelations we reported from Breitbart two days ago here.
Watchdog.org is reporting that the Vermont Health Department may not be diligently alerting and testing those who might have come in contact with the recent cases of ACTIVE TB.

Information not disclosed by the Health Department includes how many contact investigations are underway to identify the disease’s potential spread among the general public. Also not disclosed was how many people will need to undergo testing due to contact with the active TB patients.

In January 2015, state epidemiologist Patsy Kelso and Health Commissioner Harry Chen led a well-publicized TB control effort to isolate a single teacher at Charlotte Central School diagnosed with active TB disease. That effort, covered by VPR and WCAX, ultimately tested 500 students and co-workers exposed to the teacher, and identified 19 children and two adults to whom the tuberculosis had spread, according to Stateline.

Kelso, speaking Thursday on VPR’s Vermont Edition, offered a much different response regarding TB disease among refugees.

“It’s not a concern of mine,” Kelso said.

[….]

During the interview, Kelso shared data that show refugee populations are exhibiting a considerably higher rate of TB disease compared to native born Vermonters. “Looking at 2003 to 2015, we’ve seen 77 cases of (active) TB in people in Vermont, and 26 of those were in U.S.-born people and 15 of them were in refugees,” she said. Kelso added that the other 36 cases involved immigrants living in Vermont.  [Of the 26 U.S.-born people, how many were living in the household of an infected immigrant?—ed]

[….]

While Kelso’s response may have been aimed at allaying public fears about the disease’s spread, the epidemiologist noted that up to 10 percent of latent TB cases advance to active TB disease. That means Vermont’s infectious disease teams can expect to diagnose many more active TB cases as a result of the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program.

For more click here.
I know I’ve said this before, but until Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart began his investigation of Tuberculosis in the refugee stream to American towns and cities, we had no idea it was this bad.  Repeatedly those involved in the resettlement industry have said, oh, only latent TB-infected people can get in and now we learn that is not true.  And, if 10% of those with latent TB become active, will they become active in your child’s school one day, or working next to you in a meatpacking plant or serving you food in a restaurant. Are they ticking TB time bombs just waiting to go off?
Go here for our very large archive on ‘refugee health’ (our posts on Leahy’s previous stories are there). 310 previous posts are listed in that category addressing the many health concerns refugees bring to America (for you to pay for!).

Breitbart: Wisconsin is (for now) the new TB capital of America

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Michael Patrick Leahy has published one more investigative report on Tuberculosis in the US refugee population. Go to our ‘health issues’ category by clicking here to see his previous reports.
Here is the latest, hot off the presses this morning:

Twenty-seven recently resettled refugees were among the 117 cases of active tuberculosis (TB) diagnosed in Wisconsin in 2014 and 2015, according to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. That makes the Badger State the new refugee TB capital of the United States.

TB_poster
Will we soon have to mass produce up-dated posters like this one from the 1920s to alert the public in refugee resettlement target cities? https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:TB_poster.jpg

Wisconsin replaces Louisiana as the state with the most reported cases of active TB among recently resettled refugees in the country.

As Breitbart News has reported previously, twenty-one cases of active TB were diagnosed among recently resettled refugees in Louisiana between 2011 and 2015.

Six other states have reported recently resettled refugees have been diagnosed with active TB: Florida (eleven), Colorado (ten), Idaho (seven), Indiana (four), Kentucky (nine in one county), and North Dakota (four in one county).

Wisconsin may not be the actual leader, though. Only eight of the forty nine states that resettle refugees under the federal refugee resettlement program have responded to Breitbart News requests to provide this important public health data, which resettlement agencies are required by law to monitor and report in each state.

Lots more here!
One more HUGE example of the secrecy surrounding the Refugee Admissions Program in America!
Endnote: I’m going to ask again if anyone knows if volunteers working with the resettlement contractors are given any information on how to stay safe from health risks associated with refugees coming here directly from the third world.

Vermont Health Dept. hiding data on active TB cases in refugee population there

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Watchdog.org had to use public information request laws to try to get the information, but the effort by the Health Dept. to not answer the request is revealing and perhaps worse than just biting the bullet and supplying the information!

The public everywhere is sick of the secrecy surrounding the UN/US State Department Refugee Admissions Program and this is one more reason why!

patrick Leahy
The buck stops with Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy who has been one of the chief architects and ardent supporters of the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program for decades in Washington.

By the way, we have known for years that refugees were permitted entry into the US with latent TB.  In fact in our early months writing this blog in 2007, we were stunned to learn about how the large number of TB cases among refugees in Fort Wayne, Indiana were swamping the Allen County Health Dept.  However, we, like you, are shocked now to learn that refugees with ACTIVE TB are being permitted entry and quietly treated with your tax dollars.
Here is the latest on the Tuberculosis controversy in Vermont (hat tip: Joanne):

BURLINGTON, Vt. — Epidemiologists at the Vermont Department of Health are concealing the number of refugees with contagious active tuberculosis nearly a month after Watchdog reported that more than one-third of Vermont’s resettled refugees test positive for TB.

Earlier this month, Watchdog revealed that 35 percent of Vermont’s incoming refugees in the past four years tested positive for tuberculosis. How many of those cases are contagious and symptomatic, however, remains a secret, as state epidemiologists and top officials at the Health Department have spent weeks blocking efforts to obtain the data.

Refugees brought to the United States take TB tests as part of comprehensive health screening. For refugees resettled in Vermont, the Department of Health’s Refugee Health Program monitors test results and treats patients who have active TB disease. Unlike latent tuberculosis infection, active TB disease is contagious, symptomatic and even deadly.

According to documents obtained through a public records request, the evasions began May 27, when Watchdog contacted the Health Department to learn how many refugees tested positive for TB in recent years. The inquiry sparked private meetings among state epidemiologists, public health nurses and office staff, who proceeded to conceal the number of contagious active TB disease cases brought to Vermont through the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program.

Continue reading here to see the degree to which these health officials charged (presumably) with keeping all Vermonters safe and healthy are attempting to hide data on active TB in the state.

What Watchdog.org has done here is a model for what you should be doing where you live, not just on the subject of refugee health, but also investigate who is pushing resettlement and why among your elected officials (Twin Falls!) and expose them!  Find out who is benefiting FINANCIALLY in your town or city!

See our ‘health issues’ category by clicking here.  We have hundreds of posts there on issues of immigrant and refugee health (including the refugee mental health treatment you pay for).

Wisconsin has multi-drug resistant Tuberculosis in its refugee population

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It’s getting worse.  First we were told only refugees with latent TB are permitted entry into the US, then Michael Patrick Leahy writing at Breitbart reported that, no, active TB is coming in as well.  Now, we learn that even a more serious problem could be developing in your towns with multi-drug resistant TB in a few refugees and other immigrants.
We checked our archives and sure enough we reported on several cases of TB in a frightened Sheyboygen, Wisconsin in 2013, here.

Sheboygan nurses
In 2013, in Sheyboygan Wisconsin, nurses are being instructed in how to take care of themselves when caring for refugees infected with TB. Is this what your “welcoming” community has to look forward to? http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2013/07/18/200871130/tuberculosis-outbreak-shakes-wisconsin-city

Pay attention to the fact that you (local and state taxpayers) are footing the bill for all of the meds! Isn’t diversity worth it though!
Hot off the presses at Breitbart:

Two refugees and a foreign student on a visa brought multi-drug resistant (MDR) tuberculosis (TB) to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 2009 and 2011, according to a 2014 article in an epidemiology publication written with the cooperation of the doctors who treated them.

The introduction of MDR TB to the United States represents a serious public health threat, since its successful treatment is uncertain and very expensive. Active TB can usually be treated successfully in six to nine months at a cost of $17,000 per patient, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), but MDR TB treatment costs more than $150,000 per patient and can take between 20 and 26 months.

[….]

Twenty cases of MDR TB, all foreign-born, were diagnosed in Wisconsin over the eight year period between 2005 and 2012, according to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services.

Twelve of these cases were from the Hmong people in Laos (though Case 2 in the 2014 article was categorized as “drug resistant,” not formally MDR-TB, it was probably included among these 12, as well as Case 2’s “close household contact”), four were from India (including Case 3 from the 2014 article), one was from Burma (including Case 1 from the 2014 article), and one each were from China, Ethiopia, and Nepal.

State and local taxpayers in Wisconsin paid for the treatment of these twenty foreign-born cases of MDR TB. At a cost of $150,000 per patient, the total cost was an estimated $3 million.

Leahy has much more, I’ve only snipped a bit of the detailed report.

Let me ask all of you who plan to volunteer to help the new refugees as they arrive in Asheville, NC, Rutland, VT, Reno, NV, Charleston, WV, Ithaca, NY, Fayetteville, AR, Missoula, Montana and Radford, Virginia, do you know how to protect yourselves? And, how good is your local health department? Is it ready for this?

See our health issues category with 306 previous posts cataloged there.
 

Celebrate diversity at World Refugee Day today (diversity of diseases returning to US)

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

World Refugee Day 2016
http://tinyurl.com/zl6bcuy

In addition to Islamic terrorism fears we have, everyone needs to remember that as the Open Borders movement encourages the migration of millions around the world, fears that diseases, long believed eradicated in the civilized world, are returning.
So if you aren’t worried about being an unlucky soul in a terrorist attack, consider that you could meet these diseases wherever you live (and so could your kids in public schools in hundreds of US cities and towns).
From Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart who has been reporting on the established medical community’s silence on the growing threat, and refugee program administrators in many states keeping this information from the general public:

“Six diseases that were recently near eradication are making a comeback in the United States, as the taxpayer funded refugee resettlement industry launches a propaganda blitz about the so-called World Refugee Day this Monday.

The returning diseases are;

1. Tuberculosis
2. Measles
3. Whooping Cough
4. Mumps
5. Scarlet Fever
6. Bubonic Plague”

For details on each, continue reading here.
See Leahy’s complete series on the threat from communicable diseases entering the US with the refugee population and 300 other stories on refugee/immigrant health issues at RRW’s ‘Health Issues’ category.
Also, you have a state refugee health coordinator (contact information here), why not give them a call and get some information from them about the diseases (and PARASITES!) being resettled in your towns and what is being done to protect the public.
P.S.  You pay for all of this medical care!