“No one knows how Speaker contracted the difficult strain of TB. Speaker thinks he may have contracted it while doing charity work among the sick in Vietnam, but it's still a mystery.”

Has Andrew Speaker been around any illegal aliens from Mexico?  In light of the TB brouhaha last week over Andrew Speaker’s drug resistant TB, it seemed appropriate to resurrect this article posted over a year ago.  We don’t seem to be aware of this dimension of the illegal alien invasion from Mexico, and perhaps Mr. Speaker’s little excursion as a Typhoid Mary will smack us up along side of the head.  One can only hope.

Why hasn’t the Department of Homeland Security seen fit to raise a Severe code Red alert for this bioterrorist invasion across our southern border?!?
 
Over 800,000 illegal aliens cross America's southern borders annually.  They are not screened or vaccinated for a host of diseases, and they're importing undetected bio-agents into this country.
 
"Today, legal immigrants must demonstrate that they are free of communicable diseases and drug addiction to qualify for lawful permanent residency green cards," writes Cosman, a medical lawyer, who formerly taught medical students at the City University of New York. "Illegal aliens simply cross our borders medically unexamined, hiding in their bodies any number of communicable diseases."
 
And don’t think you need not be concerned if you live far from the border.  As illegal immigrants rapidly spread across the country, they are employed no-questions-asked in restaurants, food processing and hospitality services.
 
o        Tuberculosis was almost non-existent in the U.S. five years ago.  In the past four years, 16,000 cases of multi drug resistant (MDR) TB, which was formerly endemic ONLY to Mexico, crossed over the borders courtesy of illegal aliens.
 
o        Infectious hepatitis A, a growing scourge in the restaurant industry, is on the rise.  For example  “On November 6, 2003, at a local restaurant chain, Chi-Chi's in Beaver Valley, Pennsylvania, unscreened employees 'served' up plates of infectious hepatitis A to their patrons. Over 3,000 had to receive the painful gamma globulin shots while two Americans died. Health officials reported, ‘Workers may have contaminated food by failure to follow basic hygiene in cleaning hands after using the bathroom.’ The employees were not health screened by the restaurant chain.”  Illegal Aliens Spreading Diseases Across USA 
 
o        leprosy totaled 900 cases in the USA in the past 40 years. In the previous three years, according to a report from the NY Times in February, 2003, leprosy has infected over 7,000 people in the United States. And this is an old report.
 
o        Chagas Disease is brought directly from Mexico and Latin America where it has infected over 18,000,000 people. The T-Cruzi protozoan destroys heart tissue and other organs.
 
Whether it's any of the above, or dengue fever in Florida, Hemorrhagic Fever coming out of Texas border towns or E-coli intestinal parasites arriving daily with illegal aliens from Mexico, every American citizen is under threat of 'Bio Terrorism'. 

Its way past time for the DHS to raise the alert level to Severe.  Activate that silly code system for a real threat for a change!!

Additional sources for this article:
Illegal aliens threaten U.S. medical system 
Hayworth: Americans should know TB, leprosy, polio, have been linked to illegal

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PS. You may find the comment stream attached to the article interesting reading as well