Miriam,
It isn't exactly like I was just pulling this out of my ass -- the problem
is simple and well-described. And it isn't just TB, there is a laundry list
of illegal immigration disease vectors. For many diseases, illegal
immigration is *the* disease vector in the US and Canada. We normally
screen legal immigrants and fix any infectious disease problems to protect
the general population. By definition illegal aliens don't have any health
screening at all.
The incidence of diseases such as TB and Hep-B among illegal aliens is well
documented by both the U.S. and Canadian governments. The fiscal, health
impact, and infection patterns among the general population due to illegal
immigration disease vectors is also well-documented. We aren't talking
about illegal immigrants being infected at a rate of 1-2%, but in the 10-50%
range. The recent spike in the illegal immigrant population of the U.S. has
lead to a large spike in the incidence of the same diseases in the general
population, concentrated in the regions where illegal immigrants live in
numbers. Disease control is one of the best arguments for immigration
controls. As an example, in British Columbia, an incidence of Hep-B in
Chinese illegals of 30+% has translated into the general population having
an incidence of 1%, which is much higher than for provinces that don't have
illegal immigration problems. Unfortunately, the unusually high infection
rates of this and other diseases are seriously straining the public health
care system in BC, to the detriment of everyone.
I find it really difficult to blame Americans in general for illegal aliens
having TB or whatever. The US government (and the taxpayers by extension)
has spent inordinate amounts of money to eradicate these diseases within
their borders, and it would seem prudent to protect that expensive
investment.
Mexico could fix their TB problem, but then that would require fixing a
bunch of other problems that they apparently aren't too inclined to fix.
-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com
On 7/23/01 9:48 PM, "Miriam English" <miriam@werple.net.au> wrote:
> At 12:02 PM 23/07/2001 -0700, James Rogers wrote:
>> The problem is being caused almost entirely by the virtually unchecked
>> influx of illegal immigrants from Mexico, which is practically being
>> encouraged by the Federal government these days.
>
> The problem is being caused by those bloody people....
> oh wait, the problem is caused by spitting (which in most countries is
> actually illegal for that reason)...
> oh wait, the problem is caused by unpasteurised milk....
> oh wait, the problem is caused by antibiotic resistance (because of overuse
> of those antibiotics in the developed world)...
> oh wait, the problem is caused by bacterial evolution...
> oh wait, the problem is caused by...
>
> Be careful of affixing a single cause to complex problems. You run the risk
> of falling into dogmatic traps.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:39:55 MDT