Tubercular lawyer, Andrew Speaker, is supposed to be the height of irresponsibility: told he had a rare and hard-to-treat form of tuberculosis, he went on two international flights to attend his wedding, refused to be quarantined in Italy, and moved heaven and earth to get home where he was told he could receive treatment from the only facility on earth that could save him. I don’t know what he was told, how contagious he was, or whether his decisions made under extreme stress were in any way defensible. They seem pretty selfish to me, but there appears to be some conflicting data.
What I do know is that TB was nearly eliminated in the developed world, but reemerged in the last two decades as a consequence of mass immigration. The CDC and other health authorities recognize this phenomenon. One consequence of unregulated, illegal immigration is that in addition to criminals, ex-war-criminals, and other undesirables slipping in through the cracks, we also have little control over the introduction of exotic diseases that have been essentially eliminated among the native born population.
From Bubonic Plague to Tuberculosis, many of the workers with whom we and our children will come into contact have untreated, communicable diseases. Whether working in our homes as cleaning personnel or in restaurants handling our food, this presents a serious cost to Americans that is completely ignored by the chattering classes in their anodyne discussion of Bush’s “compassionate” amnesty program. It is compounded by the poverty and cultural traditions of many immigrants, which makes them less likely to seek medical attention than native born Americans.
Incidentally, the original Typhoid Mary who infected over 47 with Typhoid Fever (killing three) was an Irish Immigrant.
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Typhoid was endemic in 19th century America (no need to blame the Irish).
One other thing, this sort of thing used to come more from international commerce, but disease outbreaks used to be far easier to contain before we ahd so many of our own “sex tourists”, many afficionados of varius “alternative lifestyles” and drug abusers who play Hobb with their immune systems.
Unfortunately, the latter phenomena enjoyed a resurgence in popularity just as public health authorities were closing down asylums and sanitoria.
The isolation wards are coming back, and I expect public health officials to get more assertive in the enxt few decades unless we really pour resources into antibiotics and other anti-infection agents again.