The real health care crisis.
Today's New York Times has a heath care story on the front page of their dead tree edition that bears our interest.
"Cres has spent almost half his 32 years working in the United States, in the fields of California and Texas and the factories of Chicago and New York. His wife and three children were with him some of the time. But he was alone for long spells, and it was during one of those periods that he figures he contracted H.I.V.
“I don’t know how or where or when I got it,” said Cres, who spoke on condition that he would be identified only by his nickname."
Ummmmmm how do you contract HIV if you are "alone" - unless you are doing IV drugs which are illegal in this country???? And if you are doing the IV drugs, don't you think you would know the how???
"But AIDS is spreading quickly in rural Mexican states with the highest migration rates to the United States, researchers say. The greatest risk of contracting AIDS that rural Mexican women face is in having sex with their migrant husbands, a new study found, a problem that is compounded by their husbands’ refusal to use condoms.
Research has shown that migrants have more sexual partners than those who stay at home. For women, life on the road brings risks of rape and sexual abuse. For many migrants, being displaced from their homes and families is a lonely experience, one that prompts them to form new relationships in the United States."
While I totally agree that it is horrible that HIV is spreading in Mexico, let's also talk about the outbreaks of tuburculosis and other communicable diseases that are coming in to the US from legal and illegal immigrants.
"According to Dr. Laurence Nickey, director of the El Paso heath district “Contagious diseases that are generally considered to have been controlled in the United States are readily evident along the border ... The incidence of tuberculosis in El Paso County is twice that of the U.S. rate. Dr. Nickey also states that leprosy, which is considered by most Americans to be a disease of the Third World, is readily evident along the U.S.-Mexico border and that dysentery is several times the U.S. rate ... People have come to the border for economic opportunities, but the necessary sewage treatment facilities, public water systems, environmental enforcement, and medical care have not been made available to them, causing a severe risk to health and well being of people on both sides of the border.”1
The pork tapeworm, which thrives in Latin America and Mexico, is showing up along the U.S. border, threatening to ravage victims with symptoms ranging from seizures to death. ... The same [Mexican] underclass has migrated north to find jobs on the border, bringing the parasite and the sickness—cysticercosis—its eggs can cause[.] Cysts that form around the larvae usually lodge in the brain and destroy tissue, causing hallucinations, speech and vision problems, severe headaches, strokes, epileptic seizures, and in rare cases death.”2...
Typhoid struck Silver Spring, Maryland, in 1992 when an immigrant from the Third World (who had been working in food service in the United States for almost two years) transmitted the bacteria through food at the McDonald’s where she worked. River blindness, malaria, and guinea worm, have all been brought to Northern Virginia by immigration.3 " (emphasis mine)
Once upon a time, this country used to do health screenings of ALL legal immigrants. Now we are not doing that and someone needs to ask WHY that is no longer happening. Someone also needs to ask just how much these illnesses are going to cost their respective host countries. Now the NY Times article had some figures for the AIDS cost to Mexico, what are these other diseases costing US taxpayers?
I heard a very good common sense outlook on what needs to be done - make the walls high and the door wide! We need to know who (and what) is crossing back and forth across the borders. It is an issue of national security AND public health for both the Mexican and American governments. This way we can also quaranteen those folks like Andrew Speaker putting people at risk! It also is a way to help control health care costs for everyone! It really is a win/win for both sides of the Rio Grande...
"Cres has spent almost half his 32 years working in the United States, in the fields of California and Texas and the factories of Chicago and New York. His wife and three children were with him some of the time. But he was alone for long spells, and it was during one of those periods that he figures he contracted H.I.V.
“I don’t know how or where or when I got it,” said Cres, who spoke on condition that he would be identified only by his nickname."
Ummmmmm how do you contract HIV if you are "alone" - unless you are doing IV drugs which are illegal in this country???? And if you are doing the IV drugs, don't you think you would know the how???
"But AIDS is spreading quickly in rural Mexican states with the highest migration rates to the United States, researchers say. The greatest risk of contracting AIDS that rural Mexican women face is in having sex with their migrant husbands, a new study found, a problem that is compounded by their husbands’ refusal to use condoms.
Research has shown that migrants have more sexual partners than those who stay at home. For women, life on the road brings risks of rape and sexual abuse. For many migrants, being displaced from their homes and families is a lonely experience, one that prompts them to form new relationships in the United States."
While I totally agree that it is horrible that HIV is spreading in Mexico, let's also talk about the outbreaks of tuburculosis and other communicable diseases that are coming in to the US from legal and illegal immigrants.
"According to Dr. Laurence Nickey, director of the El Paso heath district “Contagious diseases that are generally considered to have been controlled in the United States are readily evident along the border ... The incidence of tuberculosis in El Paso County is twice that of the U.S. rate. Dr. Nickey also states that leprosy, which is considered by most Americans to be a disease of the Third World, is readily evident along the U.S.-Mexico border and that dysentery is several times the U.S. rate ... People have come to the border for economic opportunities, but the necessary sewage treatment facilities, public water systems, environmental enforcement, and medical care have not been made available to them, causing a severe risk to health and well being of people on both sides of the border.”1
The pork tapeworm, which thrives in Latin America and Mexico, is showing up along the U.S. border, threatening to ravage victims with symptoms ranging from seizures to death. ... The same [Mexican] underclass has migrated north to find jobs on the border, bringing the parasite and the sickness—cysticercosis—its eggs can cause[.] Cysts that form around the larvae usually lodge in the brain and destroy tissue, causing hallucinations, speech and vision problems, severe headaches, strokes, epileptic seizures, and in rare cases death.”2...
Typhoid struck Silver Spring, Maryland, in 1992 when an immigrant from the Third World (who had been working in food service in the United States for almost two years) transmitted the bacteria through food at the McDonald’s where she worked. River blindness, malaria, and guinea worm, have all been brought to Northern Virginia by immigration.3 " (emphasis mine)
Once upon a time, this country used to do health screenings of ALL legal immigrants. Now we are not doing that and someone needs to ask WHY that is no longer happening. Someone also needs to ask just how much these illnesses are going to cost their respective host countries. Now the NY Times article had some figures for the AIDS cost to Mexico, what are these other diseases costing US taxpayers?
I heard a very good common sense outlook on what needs to be done - make the walls high and the door wide! We need to know who (and what) is crossing back and forth across the borders. It is an issue of national security AND public health for both the Mexican and American governments. This way we can also quaranteen those folks like Andrew Speaker putting people at risk! It also is a way to help control health care costs for everyone! It really is a win/win for both sides of the Rio Grande...
Labels: Health Care Costs, Illegal Immigration
posted by The Lady Logician at
4:10 PM
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