Hayworth: Americans should know TB, leprosy, polio, have been linked to illegal immigrants

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[hsmomx3]

"Americans should be told that diseases long eradicated in this country — tuberculosis, leprosy, polio, for example — and other extremely contagious diseases have been linked directly to" illegal immigrants, Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.) told the Business Journal of Phoenix last month.

[kellynla]

and lets not forget the dirty little secret that ONE THIRD OF ALL THE INCARCERATED IN AMERICA ARE ILLEGALS.
and at an average cost of 50k per, imagine the savings if all those with the exception of maybe those on death row were to be deported not to mention the slots that would be made available for AMERICAN criminals!!!

yes, those supposed savings in produce which actually amounts to about 6 percent is dwarfed by the cost of medical, food stamps, education and incarceration just to name a few are factored in...

[azhenfud]

So what's the difference between "highly contagious" and "highly infectious", as the CDC ascribes to leprosy?

[azhenfud]

...leprosy is "treatable" with Dapsone...

True, but I've heard there are strains of the bacteria that have become resistant to Dapsome and IMO, it is those that American physicians ought be especially conscious of.

[janetgreen]

Sent to O'Reilly asking him to PLEASE make this part of his commentary. This news needs to get out, but not many in the media have the guts to tell the story.

[Millee]

Good job! He may be (ok is) a blowhard, but he does do the stories no one else will touch. Let me know if you hear anything.

[PeskyOne]

Leprosy is NOT "highly contagious", and in fact is even difficult to contract when living in the same household as someone who has it. It is also now completely curable. If Hayworth wants to promote public health as a reason for cracking down on illegal immigrants, he'd do well to undertake 5 minutes of Google research before opening his mouth.

I did a Google search and found this information: The exact mechanism of transmission of leprosy is not known. At least until recently, the most widely held belief was that the disease was transmitted by contact between cases of leprosy and healthy persons. More recently the possibility of transmission by the respiratory route is gaining ground. There are also other possibilities such as transmission through insects which cannot be completely ruled out. I found this info at this website: http://www.who.int/lep/disease/Microbiology/micro.htm

I have no quarrel with what Rep. Hayworth had to say, except I wish he had referred to the people crossing our borders illegally as "illegal aliens" or "undocumented aliens".

[GovernmentShrinker]

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/hansens_t.htm

This CDC summary doesn't say anything about "highly infectious". It's bacterial, yet they've NEVER managed to get it to grow outside a living animal, so you can be pretty sure it's not growing on public toilet seats. Transmission is difficult (a lot like getting warts) and appears to require prolonged exposure. And about 95% people are flat-out immune to it (i.e. they can get technically "infected", but will never develop any symptoms of the disease). It is curable, but that takes a long time. Making it go dormant (and thus non-transmissable) is much quicker (about 3 months).

[GovernmentShrinker]

Most people are immune to it, and transmission requires long-term exposure. You don't get it from an infected person sneezing near you a couple of times. You get it from being one of the 5% or so of people who is not immune AND have close long term contact with a person who has an active infection (e.g. living in the same household for a long time, working in patient care for people with leprosy for a long time, etc.).

It's just plain irresponsible to classify leprosy with TB and polio, which ARE highly contagious, and which virtually all people are susceptible to. TB and polio CAN be caught via brief casual contact with infected people, and those diseases are worth focusing on as a serious problem related to illegal immigration.

[janetgreen]

Let me know if you hear anything.

Will do. I also sent it to Terry Anderson and to John and Ken (California talk show hosts who talk about the damage illegal immigration is doing to California).

[truthkeeper]

This is the sort of news to which the Sheeple actually respond.

[janetgreen]

And the rest might respond after one of their kids contracts a communicable disease at school...

[Exton1]

You sound like a liberal plant. As a typical disseminator of false information you pick out one thread to destroy the whole cloth. It maybe a syntax error, but he does not exactly say that Leprosy is a highly contagious disease. He says that certain disease have long been eradicated, and that the American people should know that illegal are now bringing them back. And that is true.

[Dante3]

Also illegal immigrants provide more than their share of pedophiles.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Do some research on leprosy. It is nothing like TB or polio, and there is precisely zero chance of a leprosy "epidemic" in the U.S. The handful of cases (currently about a hundred a year) are almost entirely (quite possibly absolutely entirely) in immigrants from countries where it is endemic and their immediate families, and nearly all of them caught it where they came from, after long term close exposure to other infected people -- not here (it takes 4-6 years after infection for symptoms to appear).

I am hardly a liberal when it comes to immigration issues. I think any adult-size person seen crossing our border illegally should be shot on sight, and illegal immigrants who are found already here deported within 24 hours. But if political figures promoting a crackdown on illegal immigration get a reputation as ignorant scaremongers, it will hinder, not help, the cause.

[GovernmentShrinker]

I don't know if that's true, but it's certainly true that Americans provide more than their share in other countries. We need to clean up our own act in that area before we point the finger at foreign nationals.

[riri]

uh oh...that's hate speech. Report him to the thought crimes police.

[hispanarepublicana]

Only PERIPHERALLY related, but someone this weekend told me that Armadillos carry leprosy. As a Texan who likes going to chili cookoffs, I must admit I've sampled Armadillo chili before. I guess I won't be doing that again.

[Dante3]

We certainly have more than enough pedophiles and they are treated far too leniently by corrupt or incompetent judges. As to rates, illegal aliens and recent immigrants far outdo our rates. In the DC area week after week another illegal alien pedophile is reported.

Opened a Northern Virginia newspaper this morning and there was a Rafael Arteaga, associate pastor of St. Mark's Lutheran Church (not a Hispanic church) arrested for forcible sodomy of a 4-year-old girl. Although his English was good enough for him to have been an associate pastor since Sept. 2001, he nevertheless was provided with a translator at taxpayer expense. They are trying to say he is not competent to stand trial. Yet competent to be a minister?

Next to this article was one about a Jose L. Mercado-Jordan just arrested for rape, sodomy and two counts of aggravated sexual battery involving an 8-year-old girl.

[NRA2BFree]

The NM Health Department advised NM residents to have ALL children from 13 up to 19 to have booster shots for whooping cough. I remember a month or two ago that a baby died from it because he was too young to have his first shots.

People from 3rd world countries are bringing it in and Americans are in danger of getting sick.

[marty60]

I have been in the hospital twice in the last 3 weeks. Interestingly they ask me both time if I have had contact with anyone that main be a carrier of TB. I wanted to say , NO I do my own yard, why you think I'm in here. But I didn't.