Almost every state closed its TB sanitoriums in the late 70's. Pity. A wealth of medical expertise is now gone as most of the TB doctors are dead or very elderly and few new ones have taken up the gauntlet.
"Illegal aliens cross America's borders medically unexamined. We shrug. We do not know what Illegal Aliens carry in their backpacks. We do not know what they carry in their bodies.
Long ago we knew what legal immigrants brought with them.
When my grandpa came to America, he kissed the ground of New York's Ellis Island, then he stripped naked and coughed hard. Every legal immigrant before 1924 was examined for infectious diseases upon arrival and tested for tuberculosis. Anyone infected was shipped back to the old country. That was powerful incentive for each newcomer to make heroic efforts to appear healthy.
Today, legal immigrants must demonstrate that they are free of communicable diseases and drug addiction to qualify for lawful permanent residency Green Cards.
But Illegal Aliens stop at no medical checkpoint. Whoever walks through our foolishly open Golden Door comes in healthy or sick. If a border patrol sentry catches a healthy Illegal Alien he might be sent back home immediately. However, if we catch and detain a sick Illegal Alien, who after examination by physicians in a detention center proves to have a serious disease, we keep him!
Foolish compassion makes us fear that his home country has neither adequate medical resources nor modern wonder drugs. So we release sick Illegal Aliens to the American streets, to infect others if their diseases are contagious, or we place them in our Medicaid program where we pay for their expensive treatments.
Foolish medical generosity encourages clever Illegal Aliens to exploit free medical care that EMTALA, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, provides.
Foolish medical graciousness encourages cynical Illegal Aliens to take and take and take again. Only a foolish guest will refuse what a foolish host offers. Our wide-open Golden Door guarantees that Illegal Aliens in their own self-interest will use and abuse our medical system.
Our Golden Door also is propped open thanks to advocacy and legal aid of Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Foundation, National Immigration Law Center, Southern Poverty Law Center, and similar open border groups. America is fast becoming Hospital to the World.
Horrendous diseases that long ago America had conquered are resurging. Horrific diseases common in Third World poverty and medical ignorance suddenly are appearing in American emergency rooms and medical offices. Along with the visible invasion of Illegal Aliens across our borders is an invisible invasion of deadly diseases.
Many illegals who skulk across our borders have tuberculosis (TB).
That disease had disappeared from America thanks to excellent hygiene and powerful modern drugs such as Isoniazid and Rifampin.
TB's swift, deadly return now is lethal for about 60% of those infected. The culprit is the new Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis (MDR-TB). Until recently MDR-TB was endemic to Mexico.
The mycobacterium tuberculosis is resistant to at least two major TB drugs. Ordinary TB usually is cured in six months with four drugs (that cost about $2000). MDR-TB takes 24 months with many expensive drugs with toxic side effects (that cost around $250,000).
Each Illegal Alien with MDR-TB coughs and infects numerous people who will not show symptoms immediately. Latent disease explodes later, like a time bomb."...snip
In this same article, she also exposes other nasty diseases our friends from down South are bringing to us. We have a problem..
sw