Another Border Bio-threat?

At first glance the Rutherford Institute report "Ticking Time Bomb: Diseases That Cross American Borders" is a major pre-Christmas "Do I feel like I have a fever?" downer. It's not bad enough to allow millions of illegals into the country every year, along with who knows how many Islamic terrorists and Hispanic gang members, while the powers-that-be cluck merrily along singing "It's a Small World, After All." It looks like our leaky border is also conducive to bad health.

But on second thought it's possible that this is the issue that might prompt a public outcry and a reasonable response from the federal government because it has the advantage of being a humanitarian response. We'll explain in a moment, but first get a taste of the report:

Further details can be found in a report entitled “Immigration’s Silent Invasion, Deadly Consequences” where the authors state: “The invasion of illegal aliens pouring over the borders of the United States is taking an ominous turn.

They are not alone! Their bodies may carry Hepatitis A, B & C, tuberculosis, leprosy and Chagas Disease. Chagas is a nasty parasitic bug common in Latin America where 18 million people are infected and 50,000 deaths occur annually.”Illegal aliens, by avoiding health screenings at U.S. borders, carry TB, the most serious being MDR, a multi-drug resistant tuberculosis with a higher death rate than cancer. According to the New York Academy of Sciences, Update, January 2002, “TB bacteria readily fly through the air, as when an afflicted person coughs. It’s estimated that each victim will infect 10, 20 or more people—in whom the disease will likely remain latent, creating the potential ‘time bomb’ effect.”To make matters worse, in excess of 7,000 new cases of leprosy have been diagnosed in the U.S. in the past three years. ...

Chagas, called the kissing bug disease because the parasite favors the face as a route of infection, comes in acute and chronic forms, which can damage your heart and intestines. This parasite now threatens our blood supply, yet no means to test the blood is currently available. Ironically, the public health community has been aware of this danger for years. “Hundreds of blood recipients may be silently infected,” writes Donald G. McNeil, Jr. in the New York Times (November 18, 2003), “and there is no effective treatment for them. After a decade, 10 to 30 percent of them will die when their hearts or intestines, weakened by the disease, explode.”

Three people received Chagas infected organs in 2001, the first such cases ever reported in the United States. Two of those three died. Moreover, “Dengue Fever, reports of polio, and now, the first case of malaria in Texas trickle into the United States as the invasion of illegal aliens increases in numbers.”

Are you feeling light-headed yet? A little nauseous perhaps?

To be fair, you don't have to wait for an immigrant to bring the disease to you. You can always go visit, as the Arizona Republic reports today:

Phoenix's chief financial officer was the consummate professional, a straight-laced and quiet man who was a genius with numbers.That's why the bizarre manner in which Kevin Keogh died Wednesday - apparently by climbing out the window of his moving Mercedes-Benz on a crowded
Scottsdale street - left many not only grieving, but shaking their heads in disbelief. Keogh's last moments were so completely uncharacteristic of his day-to-day persona that only an equally strange explanation seemed to bring some kind of sense to his death.

City officials say they believe that their finance director was suffering from brain damage caused by a rare parasite that he picked up while traveling in Mexico a few years ago. The damage impairs a person's social decision-making abilities. The city was not aware of Keogh's illness until Wednesday, when Keogh's wife, Karlene, informed them that the parasite had affected his brain and other parts of his body.

... Dr. Christina Kwasnica, director of brain injury rehabilitation at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, said in rare cases a parasite, called cystercosis, can cause frontal lobe disinhibition, which can make people do crazy things.

How frequent or rare cystercosis may be the article does not tell us, but the message comes through loud and clear. There are serious maladies in the world with which we are neither familiar nor prepared. Americans are complacent about health issues and the government is asleep at the wheel on controlling illegal immigration. It's a bad combination.

A better combination would combine realistic border controls with health screenings. We are sympathetic to immigration arguments citing the economic aspirations of our neighbors to the south. Let's let a good number of them immigrate, legally. Let's also screen their health. To do so would be humane.

If Vincente Fox wants to accept American help, let's come up with a joint U.S.-Mexican program to improve health care south of the border. Put the ball in his court and see if for once Mexico can operate a program that gets results instead of produces graft and corruption. At the same time let's make sure that the people who cross over into the United States are bringing nothing more dangerous than their aspirations for the future. For decades we have screen livestock for diseases like brucellosis and anthrax. People are so much more important than cattle.

Our complacency must end. Will it take an epidemic to spur us into action? Think about it and get involved. It's time to let our congressmen know that they must take invasive threats seriously: all of them. If you need just a wee bit more convincing, we'll leave you with this paragraph from the Rutherford Report:

As the “Silent Invasion” report concludes: “It means your children are at risk when attending school or going to the movies. It means that when a classmate from a foreign country sneezes or coughs, your child may be at risk for any number of diseases. If you eat at a fast food restaurant, a person infected with hepatitis could prepare your food. If you need a blood transfusion, the blood could be infected with Chagas Disease.”

Sleep well tonight.