Nearly 2,200 immigrants and refugees headed for America have tested positive for tuberculosis under a more-sensitive exam that, before bolstering, would have missed the illnesses, U.S. health officials said Monday.
In 2012 alone, overseas physicians using the tougher screening identified 629 additional cases of TB among people bound for U.S. borders, according to a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The article does not say they would be prohibited from coming to America at some point in the future.
See our archive on TB,here. And see our Ten Things your town needs to know if considering “welcoming” refugees. Health issues will be a major concern for your local health department (Who will be responsible for monitoring them to assure they stay on their meds?).
Our ‘health issues’ category is here. See 269 previous posts on mental and physical health issues affecting refugees and immigrants.
I like this photo of Gov. LePage holding the Heritage Foundation’s copy of the US Constitution.
Update!Reader Dana sent us this link. 16 Test positive for TB at Sacramento area high school—wonder where it came from???
Not physically slapped around, but verbally in the Bangor Daily News which apparently wants to debunk his claim. Note the first sentence of the story by Christopher Cousins—if you don’t read beyond that, you have been told what the media wants you to believe.
….however, there are a large number of ACTIVE TB cases in Maine!
Regular readers may remember that Maine has become the go-to state for asylum seekers—migrants who got into the country one way or another and are now seeking ‘refugee’ status. In Maine, while they are waiting for the decision, they can get various social services that are not available elsewhere.
There may be other states that give out welfare to asylum seekers, but I haven’t read about those. Gov. LePage has been attempting to remove the sweetener that Maine has been providing.
AUGUSTA, Maine — The consensus among public health experts regarding Gov. Paul LePage’s comments linking illegal immigrants to the spread of infectious diseases during his State of the State address on Tuesday is that they have seen no data to back up his claims.
Officials from the LePage administration have provided no substantiation for the comments and have not responded since Wednesday to the Bangor Daily News’ requests for data and comment on the matter.
Here’s what the governor said:
“When a refugee comes here from a foreign country, they get a medical assessment, and we know their health. But when they come here illegally, they don’t get medical assessments. And one thing that we don’t want to see is the uptick of hepatitis C, HIV and tuberculosis. But it is here. We are dealing with it. And it is very costly. So if nothing else, they should be getting a medical assessment when they get here.”
By the way, even if a refugee gets a medical assessment before entering the US, the presence of TB or HIV is not a bar to entry.
So, after many paragraphs of making light of the governor’s comments we come to this one (below) on TB. I was blown away by the number of ACTIVE Tuberculosis cases diagnosed in Maine. Do you remember when one guy with active TB got on a plane somewhere a few years ago and all hell broke loose in the media — well, heck, why isn’t there a lot of news about these ACTIVE cases in Maine? How many are there in other states?
The resettlement industry mouthpieces are quick to tell us that LATENT TB is no big deal. O.K. but what about all these active cases getting in here? Twenty plus cases of ACTIVE TB over three years is a lot of cases—and, you are paying for their meds!
Active tuberculosis cases were higher in 2012 and 2013 than they had been since 2009, with 15 reported cases in 2013. There were less than 10 new cases reported in 2014, according to Hannan’s data. The CDC also tracks latent cases, which means the tuberculosis bacteria is present but the patient shows no symptoms (untreated latent tuberculosis is a precursor to full-blown tuberculosis in up to 10 percent of cases). There were 433 latent cases recorded in 2013, up from 398 in 2012. The CDC report also includes the country of birth for people recorded to have latent tuberculosis. The top countries of origin for latent tuberculosis cases were Angola (41), Burundi (43), Congo (51), Iraq (41), Rwanda (38), Somalia (53) and the United States (78).The 2013 CDC report contains no information about how long the patients had been in Maine before their diagnosis.
See our‘health issues’category for more on diseases, mental health problems and other medical issues involving refugees. I’ve often said that health concerns are going to have a far greater impact on American attitudes toward immigration than the fear of terrorists getting in here.
The assumption is that the case involves an immigrant, but no word of that in this short AP story (posted at Drudge):
LYNN, Mass. (AP) — More than 30 Lynn Community Health Center employees and 800 patients are being tested to determine if they were exposed to tuberculosis after center doctors confirmed a case. [must be active TB or they wouldn’t be taking such measures—ed]
Center Director Lori Berry says after confirming the single positive test for tuberculosis in a male health care worker around Labor Day, center medical workers contacted and tested employees as well as patients ‘‘having sufficient exposure to warrant testing.’’
See all of our earlier posts (going back a couple of years) on the refugee and migrant overload in Lynn by clicking here. See especially this post from 2011 where the mayor was planning to ask the United Nations to stop sending refugees to the town. Refugees with TB are permitted entry to the US (see our health issues category).
The other day we reportedthat refugees were being screened more seriously abroad and treated before setting foot on US soil (or that is what we are told anyway).
States with the highest rates of TB in the US. A few years old but still useful. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6111a2.htm
Here is yet another article on tuberculosis—Hispanics and Asians have the highest rates of TB in America.
The article goes on to say how much this is going to cost us (the taxpayers!) going forward.
Though the rate of tuberculosis (TB) in the United States is dropping, among certain racial and ethnic groups that is not the case. According to recent data, immigrants and those who travel to other countries frequently have the highest TB occurrence.
This means Hispanics, Asians, African Americans, and non-Hispanic whites born outside of the United States carry the largest TB burden in the country.
The issues stems from high rates of tuberculosis around the globe, with the highest incidence reports coming from Eastern Europe and Central Asia. According to the World Health Organization, many of these cases–approximately 450,000–are the drug-resistant form of TB that has developed from improper medication usage and medical protocols.
Not only do we have ‘asylum seekers’ from Mexico, but the largest group of OTMs are Chinese and Indians. Are they being tested the minute they come across the border? I sure hope we are protecting our border guards!
In the United States, foreign-born individuals had a 13 times greater TB incidence than US-born persons and accounted for 64.6 percent of TB cases in 2013. Of these, more than half originated from one of five countries: Mexico (20 percent), The Philippines (12.6 percent), India (8 percent), Vietnam (7.4 percent), and China (6.1 percent).
Almost all of the drug-resistant TB in the US is among the foreign born!
The rate of tuberculosis among immigrant populations varies slightly from the country of origin, however. Among Asians in the U.S. who are foreign-born, there is a 95 percent rate of TB infection, compared to 75 percent of Hispanics, 40 percent of African Americans, and 23 percent of non-Hispanic whites born outside the United States. Foreign-born persons also accounted for 88.4 percent of the resistant TB cases reported in 2012.
Then this struck me as very funny—minority populations will have to be concerned with the cost of treatment going forward! What the heck! It is the US taxpayer that will have to bear the cost of treatment!
The latest data, presented through several Centers for Disease Control (CDC) studies, suggests there is a major dilemma minority populations in the U.S. will soon have to face; cost of treatment.
[….]
Marks suggests TB treatment on average can cost around $17,000; however, drug-resistant TB is another matter, costing approximately $134,000 (rising to $430,000 for extensively resistant TB ). Adding productivity losses to treatment costs brought the estimated per case cost for treating drug-resistant TB to $554,000 per case.
See our ‘health issues’ category with 206 previous posts on health issues involving refugees and immigrants.
A Tennessee reader sent me the 2012 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about the incidence of Tuberculosis in the US.
It is interesting to note that although the number of cases has dropped slightly from 2011, we still had 9,445 cases in the US and 63% of them are among the foreign-born population. (It sure is a good thing we have Obamacare to take care of the expensive meds for all these people!—right?)
Also of interest is that the states which have the highest number of refugees—California, Texas, New York, and Florida—also have the most TB cases (although the largest number of cases are from Mexico! not from the top-sending refugee countries).
In 31 states, ≥ 50% of TB cases occurred among foreign-born persons (Table 34).
In 8 states, ≥ 70% of TB cases occurred among foreign-born persons (Table 34).
In 3 states, ≥ 75% of TB cases occurred among foreign-born persons (Table 34).
In 10 states, ≥ 75% of TB cases occurred among foreign-born persons (Table 34).
Scroll to the bottom of Table 34 and note that Wyoming, which takes no refugees! and is likely the least diverse state in the country, has the fewest cases. BTW, Vermont which has here-to-fore been the least diverse state (and still may be) won’t be for long because the refugee contractors are busy resettling refugees there.
Also from the summary:
In 18 states (Arizona, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington), ≥ 70% of TB cases occurred among foreign-born persons
When you visit Table 6, note that Mexico is the top sending country for TB to America. And, of course the Mexicans are not arriving as refugees but as illegal aliens.
Does anyone know if when they do those questionable studiesof how much immigrants contribute to the local economy whether they factor in the cost of treating difficult diseases?
And, when refugees and migrants move around the US, does anyone track them to be sure they stay on their TB meds? Maybe it’s in the full report, here (200 plus pages), but I didn’t read the whole thing.
Update: Superbugs could erase a century of medical advances, here.
The assumption is that the case involves an immigrant, but no word of that in this 
