Mass Immigration and Public Health

Mass immigration poses a variety of threats to our nation's health. Diseases once eradicated are breaking out again. Tropical diseases, previously unknown in the United States but prevalent in Third World countries, including Dengue fever and Chagas' disease, are making their first appearance here. Ancient ailments, such as Leprosy, are resurfacing. Among the other diseases brought into the U.S. by immigrants are:

TUBERCULOSIS: Declared virtually eradicated by the early 1970s, the federal Centers for Disease Control reports TB is making a deadly comeback and "immigration is a major force sustaining the incidence of tuberculosis in the United States." TB in countries from which most immigrants to the U.S. originate is 10 to 30 times higher than in this country.

CHOLERA is a communicable disease that reemerged in the early 1990s, brought to the U.S. by Latino migrants. People become infected with cholera by contact with water contaminated by fecal matter. Scientific American magazine reports migrants expose others to the disease in the fields, factories, and restaurants where they work.

MEASLES: a disease thought stamped out by 1990, the CDC reports it is reappearing. Immigrants have brought in almost all the new cases into the U.S.

HEPATITIS A & B: highly contagious, these diseases attack the liver and can result in death. They are often transmitted through unclean food and water and spread by infected food handlers.

SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome): a deadly, easily transmitted, pneumonia-like ailment first brought to the U.S. from China and Hong Kong in early 2003.

CYSTICERCOSIS: an infection of the brain and spinal column resulting from the ingestion of porcine tapeworm eggs. They are found in fecally-contaminated water or food and spread by immigrants involved in American food production, from the field to restaurant dinner tables.

PERTUSIS (WHOOPING COUGH): a highly contagious disease, especially dangerous to newborns, has made a comeback thanks to unscreened immigrants.

HIV/AIDS: a deadly virus that originated in Africa and spread throughout the Caribbean (especially Haiti), Latin America, and large parts of Asia. Immigrants are carrying AIDS. Hispanics, 14.4 percent of the U.S. population, account for 19 percent of the persons diagnosed with the disease, more than three times the rate for other Americans. The clean, healthy environment Americans worked for generations to achieve is being threatened because federal officials refuse to curtail mass immigration.