Disease the Illegal Aliens Brought

By Douglas V. Gibbs

When the Murrieta Immigration Protests in July were in full swing, and we were getting the attention of the media, I had two main talking points to throw out there before the reporters began asking me questions.  First, my wife was born in Mexico, and her parents came to the United States legally when she was a child.  Second, a part of the reason I got involved with the demonstrations in Murrieta was because my granddaughter, age three, had been diagnosed with hand, foot, and mouth disease, and the doctor made the comment that he was confused about why the formerly nonexistent disease in the Southern California city had suddenly appeared, and the number of cases was spiking.

“Immediately,” I told reporters, “I put two and two together and knew why our kids were getting sick.”

Aside from the new case of Ebola in Texas, disease is spreading through our country, and nobody is reporting where it is coming from.  The news media keep calling it a “mysterious virus,” or a virus with an “unclear origin.”  The presence of the enterovirus is not a mystery, but the reason it has suddenly sprung up, and is more dangerous than we’ve ever seen before, is.

It is being called Enterovirus 68, and after launching itself through school age children in Missouri, the illness has rapidly spread through the middle United States, and into the northeast where a child in Rhode Island has died from the disease.  42 States have now reported the presence of the disease.

The “mystery virus” causes a serious respiratory illness, and is believed to have played a role in a total of four deaths around the country.  In the case of the Rhode Island death, the virus, combined with a bacterial infection, was more than the child’s body could handle.

First identified in the United States in 1962, the enterovirus has created havoc before, partly because its rarity leaves Americans with few natural immune system defenses to fight it off.  In the past, the infection would act much like the common cold, but now the illness is much more severe, leading some children to need to be hooked up to oxygen, and even a breathing machine.  In the Denver area, the virus is believed to possibly also be linked to muscle weakness, and paralysis.

The vast majority of children with the illness experience mild symptoms, and recover easily.

So why has the enterovirus emerged, and why is it that it did so in our schools?  Is this just the unfortunate consequence of natural cycles, and it was time for the virus to make an appearance anyway?  Or, was the disease brought into the United States from a place where the health care system is not as advanced as the American system by people who were not properly screened before entering the country?

In a conversation with a doctor I was seeing for therapy on my back recently, a man who immigrated to the United States legally and was encouraged by my participation in the Murrieta protests to stand against illegal immigration, he told me that the world is full of disease.  Tuberculosis is present throughout the world, but in America it is all but gone.  However, with the illegal aliens crossing the border comes disease.  Tuberculosis.  Hand, foot and mouth.  Scabies.  And the list goes on and on.

Is the appearance of these diseases at the same time the number of illegal aliens, particularly children from many points south of the border, coming across the border has increased drastically just a coincidence?

I don’t believe in coincidences.

– Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Respiratory Virus Seen in 4 Deaths, Role Unclear – Associated Press

Rhode Island Child Dies from Complications of Enterovirus That Has Been Affecting Kids Nationwide – CBS News Connecticut

Paralysis Link Suspected as Enterovirus Spreads – Yahoo News/ABC News

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