Border Patrol agents have long been at risk for violence from drug cartels and criminals. Just last week Tucson sector agents were fired upon by Mexican aircraft inside the US border. There is a new, insidious threat to BP agents, families, and communities from the crush of illegal immigrants at our southern border that has now become a gateway for disease entry.
BP agents have tested positive for tuberculosis (TB), H1N1 (“swine”) flu, and chicken pox. Other diseases like dengue and Ebola virus may be in this wave of illegals, since people are coming from Central and South America, the Middle East and West Africa. Dengue fever, including the hemorrhagic form, is already raging in Puerto Vallerta, Mexico. Ebola virus hemorrhagic fever is seriously out of control in several West African countries.
These diseases are highly contagious, especially in crowded and poor sanitary conditions in the detention and processing centers where thousands of illegals are housed until sent to other areas of America, without full screening for such diseases.
The extent of the threat appears to be unknown, or is being kept secret. We do know that the federal government advertised in January for “escorts” for up to 65,000 unaccompanied minors, indicating this flood of illegals was orchestrated.
“CDC [the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] has not informed the Border Patrol which types of diseases have been diagnosed, or where any ill people have been taken,” said Zack Taylor, chairman of the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers (NAFBPO). “We have apprehended West African illegal immigrants in the Rio Grande Valley sector coming into the U.S. through Mexico in the last few years. Right now, we are only apprehending about 3% of the volume coming across our border, so the danger to the American people is that no one knows who is coming in, how many there are, where they are coming from, what they are carrying, and where they are going.”
We do know that bus and plane loads of illegals are quickly being transported from the borders to cities and military bases around the country, risking spread of disease further into America’s heartland. The American people deserve answers to critical questions:
Why is the CDC, the U.S. agency responsible for identification, tracking, and overseeing issues around infectious disease outbreaks, so strangely silent?
Why did the Border Patrol Union post a notice on June 29 in Local 1613 News with a list of precautions agents should take, but no such warning has been issued by CDC to the public in affected communities?
What diseases are actually being identified, but not reported to the public?
Why are there reports of a temporary decontamination center set up in El Paso, Texas, similar to those in use in West Africa? What is it for? What diseases have been found that would require such a facility?
Why are Border Patrol agents—charged with protecting the homeland from incursions such as this—now prohibited from speaking out, often with threats of criminal prosecution?
Why is the CDC not on top of—and warning—the public of these increasingly serious situations?
What steps are being taken to isolate and quarantine infected individuals, or to prepare communities for a spike in serious illnesses?
Why are more doctors in the southern Border States not already on alert to handle sudden increase in TB, adult chicken pox, measles, H1N1 influenza, dengue, Ebola, plus other unknown but lethal diseases?
Americans tend to be complacent about infectious diseases but we need to keep in mind that in spite of our successes, infectious diseases remain the leading cause of death worldwide, and in the top ten causes of death in the U.S. Many of the diseases of concern, such as Ebola hemorrhagic fever, have NO effective treatments.
Biological agents like viruses and bacteria are not like radiological weapons that decay continually once released, or chemical agents that are degraded in the environment and require threshold concentrations to be deadly. Disease-causing agents have doubling times, not half lives. Disease agents continue to increase exponentially, as long as there are people to be exposed.
This medical crisis on our borders is a ticking time bomb. Are we now in the early stages of (or in danger of) a “Plan B” biological attack on the homeland?
The CDC is either egregiously incompetent or complicit in hiding information from the public. Both are unacceptable. America’s CDC and media have a duty to inform the American people about a threat that transcends any political ideology.
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Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D. is a preventive and climacteric medicine specialist with medical practices in Tucson AZ and Dallas TX that take an integrated approach to evaluation and treatment of women and men with complex medical and hormonal problems. Dr. Vliet is also President of International Health Strategies, Ltd., whose mission is twofold: liberty and privacy in treatment options and preservation of the Oath of Hippocrates focus on the individual patient.
