Tuberculosis threat in refugees and illegals

Historic New York public health warning poster

Americans are concerned about rising threats of terrorism as presumptive GOP nominee, Donald Trump has outlined clearly for the past year. National security concerns are real: there is a dramatic rise in illegal border crossers coming into the US via both our southern and northern borders. Border Patrol sources estimate that more than 75% of illegals continue to come from countries other than Mexico, including countries with state-sponsored terror groups. More than 85% are males aged 18-45, in contrast to past patterns including women and children.

Yet there is another serious threat to Americans not being adequately disclosed to the public by government agencies and most media outlets:  the invisible invaders traveling with humans that carry bacterial, viral, and fungal diseases both rare and previously eradicated in the US.

There are four key reasons this disease threat is very serious: • Threat of illness and death to Americans, particularly unvaccinated US children and elderly with diminished immune response. • Markedly higher costs to American taxpayers for free medical care to treat the refugees and illegal border crossers, who are given Medicaid benefits designed for low income citizens. Dollars to fund the Medicaid expansion were cut from Medicare budget designed to serve elderly over 65 and disabled under age 65. • Delay in access to medical care for Americans when Medicaid facilities and hospital ERs are overused and crowded with refugees and illegal border crossers. • Economic and productivity impact in the workplace and schools due to lost time due to illness

Dr. Elizabeth Lee Vliet

In 2014 I wrote three separate nationally released articles on the risks of these disease issues to alert Americans of the new threats. That same year, CDC warned its own workers to expect a rise in Tuberculosis and other infectious diseases in the refugees and detention centers for illegals.

But CDC, charged with protecting Americans from spread of serious disease, did not make this information public. Thus, the American public was unaware of the disease danger lurking in their communities and schools.

Breitbart announced May 17 that 22% of resettled refugees in MN tested positive for Tuberculosis (TB).  This is an enormous rate of increase over the 4% positive TB test rate in the US general population. It is significant that this 2016 article comes TWO YEARS after the CDC and MN State Department of Health were aware of the risk to Americans in Minnesota and beyond.  Why has this public health threat not been disclosed to the public sooner?

TB has now exceeded HIV/AIDS as the leading infectious disease cause of death worldwide. People with both HIV/AIDS and TB face a 20% higher risk of death from the combined effects of both diseases. Foreign born persons are the largest group of TB carriers in the US: CDC in 2014 reported a rate of TB in foreign-born persons 13 times higher than the TB rate in US-born people.

The most serious and most difficult to treat form of TB, multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB). Consistent with the rise in illegals and refugees, MDR-TB has increased from 25.3 percent among foreign-born individuals in 1993 to over 86% in 2012. This is a staggering impact on both costs for taxpayers and threat of disease outbreaks across the US.

Polina, 37, rests in a hospital in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 2011 - severely malnourished and suffers from numerous diseases, including tuberculosis, hepatitis C and HIV.

Alarmingly for both disease and economic risk, it is the Multi-Drug Resistant TB (MDR-TB), that is the most common form identified in the incoming refugees and illegal border crossers. In part that is because MDR-TB is the most common form seen in other countries with less sophisticated public health services to treat early milder cases of TB.

Over 50% of the active TB cases in the US are found in just four states that also have the highest number of foreign born people – NY, FL, CA, and TX.  The Governors of FL and TX have reasonably and understandably refused Federal demands to resettle more refugees in their states as a result of the disease and other cost burdens to taxpayers.

TB is particularly difficult, costly, and labor-intensive to treat, even in its less serious form. I reported in 2014 that CDC figures (in 2010 dollars) show the cost and time impact varies greatly, based on the type of disease: • TB, responsive to first line Rx: cost per patient: $17,000.00 over 6-9 months to treat. • MDR-TB:  cost per patient: $134,000.00, takes 20-26 months to treat. • Extreme MDR-TB: cost per patient: $430,000.00, takes 32-36 months to treat.

A large scale outbreak of MDR-TB in the US could lead to a public health crisis and economic impact on the medical system, plus loss of productivity in the workplace that would be costing in the billions of dollars.

Based on this CDC cost data, even though estimates are in 2010 dollars, it is clearly a staggering economic burden on American taxpayers to treat TB alone, much less all the other infectious diseases now coming into our country, such as Zika virus, Chagas disease, “flesh-eating” leishmaniasis, and others.

Islamic and Communist Supremacists agree on no borders and they could care less about who dies when or where.

Shelley Kais, candidate for Arizona Senate for LD 2, and a certified federal financial analyst, said “What most Americans don’t yet understand is that the arrival of tens of thousands of Central Americans along the Southwest border is no surprise: not to the president, not to the federal government’s Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), not to the many other federal agencies whose budgets have increased in recent years in preparation for it, and not to Congress, which approves those budgets.  I reached this conclusion following a thorough analysis of budgets for the Department of Health and Human Services and discovered compelling evidence that our president, executive agencies – even Congress – knew about and planned for the illegal immigrants now flooding our border.”

Again, Donald Trump is right. Americans are being kept in the dark by our own federal government about risks to our lives. Americans need to be informed of these risks to both national security, public health and our economy.

Donald Trump has effectively raised public awareness of the economic and national security threats we face that CDC and most media have failed to report fully.

If we now add the dramatic rise in the “fast-tracking” of refugee resettlements across the United States, without local input or agreement on the burdens to communities until after refugees are already settled, we see a “perfect storm” being created: • Dramatic rise in cost in dollars and labor to treat new infectious diseases • Further explosion in the already staggering level of federal debt, plus dramatic rise in state and municipal debt to cover exploding medical costs. • A crisis imposed on our medical system to care for the influx of infectious disease patients, at a time of hospitals closing and doctors going out of business due to the adverse impact of Obamacare. These new demands could lead to a collapse of our healthcare system that will jeopardize medical care for millions of Americans. • An incalculable financial burden for business with lost productivity of employees due to illness

Without adequate medical testing that is a cornerstone of legal immigration screening, we cannot ensure the safety of the American people as the tsunami of illegal border crossers flood our borders and refugees from countries with widespread infectious diseases are resettled in communities across the US.

It is time for politicians and government officials to put AMERICA FIRST for public health and safety. Stop plundering America’s resources and putting Americans at risk to take care of the entire world.

About the author:  Dr. Vliet is an Independent physician with an active US medical practice in Tucson AZ and Dallas TX, specializing in preventive and climacteric medicine with an integrated approach to evaluation and treatment of women and men with complex medical and hormonal problems. Dr. Vliet is also Chief Medical Officer of Med Expert Chile SpA, connecting patients to top tier, lower cost medical care in Latin America, focused on medical freedom, patient-centered, individualized care preserving the Oath of Hippocrates. Dr. Vliet is a past Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS).

Dr. Vliet is a 2014 Ellis Island Medal of Honor recipient for her national and international educational efforts in health, wellness, and endocrine aging in men and women, and is recognized in the US as a powerful patient advocate, proponent of free market approaches to lower healthcare costs and a motivational speaker on health/wellness.  Dr. Vliet is the recipient of Voice of Women Award from Arizona Foundation for Women in recognition of her pioneering advocacy for the overlooked hormone connections in women’s health. Dr. Vliet's consumer health books include: It’s My Ovaries, Stupid; Screaming To Be Heard: Hormonal Connections Women Suspect-- And Doctors STILL  Ignore; Women, Weight and Hormones; The Savvy Woman's Guide to PCOS,  The Savvy Woman’s Guide to Great Sex, Strength, and Stamina.

Dr. Vliet’s medical and educational websites are www.HerPlace.com, and www.MedExpertChile.com. For more on healthcare reform, go to www.AAPSonline.org and http://www.patientpoweramerica.com/