From Way Down South, Not So Very Far Off, Illegals Brought Us The Whooping Cough.

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Posted to Legal on Sun Dec 10, 2006 at 10:26:09 AM EST (promoted by 1fastdog). RSS.

"Whooping cough" causes about 30 to 50 million cases per year, worldwide, and kills about 300,000 (although no more than a few dozen annually in the US). However, it is preventable with vaccination and until recently was not a major problem in the United States. This may be changing as the pool of unvaccinated, illegal immigrants in the US grows to ever-larger numbers. With such numbers rising, the inevitable pointing of fingers is taking place.

Some blame schools for crowding children into cramped classrooms, some blame the fact that the whooping cough vaccine loses effectiveness over time and patients are not requesting boosters as often as they should. Others point out that this may be part of a larger trend of preventable diseases returning.

Then there are those that cast aspersions at illegal immigrants.

Whooping cough is a bacterial disease that is caused by the gram negative respiratory pathogen Bordetella pertussis, a microbial infection that only infects humans. It gets its name from the symptoms it causes; namely, a week-long infectious period of coughing and sneezing, causing a lengthy period of violent coughing which produces a "whooping" sound. The disease can lead to malnutrition and death in serious cases, and usually takes one or two months to fully recover from; causing a significant amount of lost time from work or school. Although it is a bacterial disease antibiotics are not effective unless given after the earliest onset of symptoms. Infection with the disease or vaccination against the toxin does not confer permanent immunity, requiring several "booster" shots over one's life which are often forgotten. Unfortunately, whooping cough outbreaks around the country have been increasing over the past few years, and are increasing by at least a factor of 25X since the 70s.

Dr. Madeline Cosman, writing (PDF) in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons lays part of the blame at the feet of illegal immigrants. She points out that some diseases such as polio, which had been generally considered eradicated from the US have been found in illegal immigrants, and it is not uncommon for other migrants to import intestinal parasites, malaria, antibiotic resistant tuberculosis, Chagas disease, and hepatitis A,B, and C. Dr. Cosman references a recent outbreak of dengue fever in a Texas border community, a disease which is seldom found in the US.

Others claim that increases in leprosy are due to illegal immigrants, and that illegals are taking advantages of US Law (click the "no thanks" button to see article) to demand free emergency room care for their exotic illnesses.

These groups state that for the collective health of the United States, all illegal immigration should be checked with the building of fences, the posting of guards along the border (by recalling troops from overseas), and rescinding the citizenship of children born in the US to illegals, and removing all those in the country without documentation. Dr. Cosman argues that only by requiring illegals to re-apply and go through the same medical health checks that legal immigrants do, can the future safety of the United States be ensured.