Infectious disease encouraged to flood across border as Texas feels brunt of immigration wave

(NaturalNews) The sea of humans that is streaming illegally into the United States at present has a lot more implications than just political, though that aspect of what is happening along the U.S. Southwest border is covered more frequently by the media than anything else.

But in reality, there are more important concerns than just the politics of this situation. There are national security concerns, of course, because as it stands, there is simply no way to ascertain exactly who is coming into the country, because there are so many.

And there are public health concerns, as noted by Breitbart News:

Many of the thousands of illegal immigrant children and teens crossing the United States border are carrying deadly contagious diseases that could easily create a major health crisis in this country, doctors say.

Public health crisis looming

In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, Dr. Jane Orient, an internal medicine specialist and the Executive Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), said that, by admitting these huge groups of children who come from countries where medical screenings are minimal and hygiene is poor, the United States is at risk for epidemics of serious diseases and viruses that the nation has not seen in years.

"Tuberculosis (TB) is the single most dangerous disease because it is highly contagious and can be easily picked up at the mall, at a school, or on the bus," Orient told Breitbart News. "Cases coming from south of the U.S. border can be very resistant to medications. They don't respond to traditional antibiotics, and the few drugs they may respond to are often toxic, with lots of side effects."

"Legal immigrants have always been required to undergo health screenings," Orient added, "but these kids coming have no medical screenings and no vaccine records. They're likely coming here with a number of infectious diseases that will spread like wildfire."

She explained that norovirus "is also an extremely contagious virus with symptoms such as vomiting and diarrhea. All we need is one outbreak of that virus and we would have an overwhelming public health crisis."

The U.S. healthcare system, already overwhelmed in many states thanks to poor public policy and overregulation by the federal government, is teetering in the balance, Orient warned.

"We use a lot of intravenous fluids to rehydrate people who have these types of illnesses. What if we have a shortage of IV fluids? Our emergency rooms would be overloaded."

Texas cracking down

Continuing, she said, "We no longer have natural immunity against diseases such as measles and chicken pox because we haven't had them in this country for years. Many doctors have never even seen these diseases so may not recognize them."

Dr. Elizabeth Lee Vliet, a physician who practices in Dallas and Tucson, says a health crisis in the U.S. is looming. She said "invisible travelers" are coming into the United States, and Americans risk outbreaks of TB and measles, hepatitis, malaria and dengue fever.

"A public health crisis, the likes of which I have not seen in my lifetime, is looming," Vliet stated.

Border states are cracking down on the situation, in light of the Obama administration's inattentiveness and lax enforcement.

Officials in Texas, for instance, have ordered state troopers to "surge" to the Texas-Mexico border to staunch the flow of immigration; the few federal agents tasked with the job are overwhelmed.

As reported by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

Gov. Rick Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and House Speaker Joe Straus signed off on a plan to spend $1.3 million a week to try to combat the problem, even as a group of conservative state lawmakers asked them to call the legislature back to work in a special session to address the situation.

"Texas can't afford to wait for Washington to act on this crisis and we will not sit idly by while the safety and security of our citizens are threatened," Perry said in a statement. "Until the federal government recognizes the danger it's putting our citizens in by its inaction to secure the border, Texas law enforcement must do everything they can to keep our citizens and communities safe."

Sources:

http://www.breitbart.com

http://www.star-telegram.com

http://www.courthousenews.com

http://www.businessinsider.com