New Americans (and PC Politicians) are killing us! TB again!

“[T]he bacteria originated with an international student and spread to at least seven others who had close contact with them.”

Doug Schultz, a Health Department spokesman

 
Yes, immigrants can kill with guns as Wilber Martinez-Guzman obviously did in Nevada earlier this month and they can kill with contagious diseases like Tuberculosis, but the national media, Leftwing Open Borders agitators and most politicians dodge and weave and don’t want to make that direct connection.  I will.
Check out the story last week from Minnesota!
From the Star Tribune:

TB outbreak tied to Minnesota State, Mankato under investigation

The Minnesota Department of Health is investigating a tuberculosis outbreak among eight people associated with Minnesota State University, Mankato.

State health officials are asking clinics to look out for tuberculosis symptoms in college-aged individuals who have spent time at the university since August 2016.
“Typically, health care providers seeing respiratory issues in an average, otherwise healthy 20-something Minnesotan wouldn’t normally be thinking TB,” Doug Schultz, a Health Department spokesman said late Thursday. Risk factors for the infection usually include travel abroad to a country where TB is common, but in this case, all but one contracted TB in the United States.
Investigators believe the bacteria originated with an international student and spread to at least seven others who had close contact with them, Schultz said.

What if that “international student” had not been diagnosed for another few months, how many more would be infected?

To contain the outbreak, health officials contacted about 700 people who may have interacted with the patients, such as roommates and significant others. Of those, they identified another 30 individuals who have a latent form of TB, meaning they tested positive for the bacteria but didn’t exhibit symptoms.

Did the 30! with latent TB acquire it from the one “international” student (but, hey, isn’t everyone entering the country supposed to be tested BEFORE they enter!)?

Minnesota clinics typically see around 140 TB cases each year, but an outbreak this size is considered unusual.
Though many think TB was eradicated years ago, about 10,000 Americans are diagnosed annually with it, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

 

The vast majority of TB cases are found in the immigrant (aka new American) population!

In 2017, more than 70 percent of those diagnosed were born outside the United States, including in Africa and Asia, where the disease is common. The percentage of foreign-born TB patients in Minnesota is over 80 percent, experts said.
That year, an outbreak of drug-resistant TB in Ramsey County infected 17 people, killing three of them.

The next time you see one of those glowing reports about how “New Americans” bring economic boom times to struggling cities, see if the report includes the cost to the local health department!
More here.
 

Fargo, ND Commissioner still trying to move the citizens of North Dakota to action on the issue of TB in the refugee community.  (See my  previous post.)

From Inforum on Monday:

Fargo approves tuberculosis testing program as city official Piepkorn again raises alarm, points finger at LSS

Commissioner Strand tells us exactly how fearful some elected officials are—not of TB, but of the PC Leftwing mob!

“This is a delicate issue, Mr. Piepkorn,” Commissioner John Strand said. “I just don’t want to get into targeting populations of people and identifying them as bringing different risks or not.”

The Centers for Disease Control is not as squeamish. Inforum continues,

The program’s guidelines, as outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, define high-risk populations. In the context of the TB program, high-risk populations, include, “refugees, migrants or recent arrivals from high incidence countries, high-risk racial/ethnic populations within the jurisdiction, the homeless; injection drug users; recent contacts of an active TB case. Residents of high-risk congregate settings (i.e. jail/prison populations, nursing homes (not employees) and other long-term care facilities for the elderly . . . ” and so on.

Read it all here.

It is great that two local news outlets are more forthcoming about the issue of Tuberculosis in the refugee and migrant population to the US, but why isn’t all this being reported nationally? Why isn’t it on the cable news or in big investigations by the New York Times or Washington Post?  

It is your job to send the news far and wide through your networks! You don’t have to send my post, but send the links for the Star Tribune and Inforum to everyone you know!