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Tuomas -> RE: "U.S. isolates traveler infected with super-TB" (5/31/2007 11:07:33 AM)
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cyberdude611, I wasn't trying to imply that immigration does not account for diseases in the US, or indeed a significant protion thereof. If you consider total numbers, it's more than likely that an important portion of "new" cases and diseases in the US can be traced directly to immigration -particularly illegal immigration. The US has one of the most lax border control systems in the world, when it comes to minorities. While law-abiding citizens are subjected to a battery of bureaucratic restrictions and searches, the criminals are practically given a free-pass on pretty much everything. This is a serious issue that the US needs to address, and the law needs to be applied equally to everyone irrespectful of their origin. Singling out senior-citizens for body-cavity searches because they won't protest as much as a militant African family does nothing to solve the US's significant border control failures.
There, I do concur with you in that the US border disease control system needs to be applied better (there is no requirement to increase restrictions, but to enforce those already in place.) There are lots of countries that deny access to people with certain diseases, including HIV, TB and others.
However, two observations:
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ORIGINAL: cyberdude611
-Chagas Disease, which has no known cure and has always been rare in the United States, has risen by 28% over the past several years. This is a disease that was previously contained to locations in Latin America with poor hygeine.
This is not entirely true. Chagas is endemic in many tropical areas of Latin America. While Chile has taken great strides to irradicate the disease, it still remains latent in the desert. It's important to understand how the disease is transmitted, and that is namely through the feces of several different bettles of the Reduviidae family, who deposit next to open wounds. Chagas is not transmitted orally or in the air, but only through bodily fluids (in other words, it's a STD). Because the elimination of the vector bettle is vehemently opposed by environmental groups, it has remained impossible for Chile's Health Ministry to irradicate the disease, a situation that is agrivated by continual immigration from high-risk countries such as Perú and Bolivia.
Since the vector bettle is only found in Latin America, it is clear that the increase in cases in the US has only two causes: A) an influx of immigrants with the disease already contracted B) an increase in sexual contact with such immigrants. This is another disease that may be stopped wholy at the US border by the proper application of controls.
However, it's important to remember that Chagas is not a matter of sanitation, but of education and prevention. The worst case would be someone who illegally interred vector Bettles...
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ORIGINAL: cyberdude611
These bugs do not discriminate.
Although I understand what you are saying, I should also point out that "bugs" do discriminate. Certain races have genetic suceptability to certain diseases, while other have resistence to them. Diseases also manifest themselves differently in peoples of different races. Certain diseases are also endemic in specific races, and might be transmitted by contact in some, while they require fluid exchange in others. This is why different countries have to apply different health requirements at admission, or different people need different innoculations while traveling.
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