Buchanan, Dobbs: Shoulder to Shoulder on Leprosy

Pat Buchanan uses his MSNBC camera time to blame the tuberculosis scare on the collapse of public health and faulty travel security. Ha! Kidding. He blames it on Mexicans.

BUCHANAN: Well, this is a serious problem because he's got what's called multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis, Joe. Something like 60 percent of them die. It costs $200,000 to $1.2 million to treat folk with this. But let me tell you, it underscores a larger problem. TB is back in the United States primarily because of mass illegal immigration, folks who have got poor hygiene, poor health services in their country, walk across the border. Many of them don't know they got it. Out in Prince William County in Virginia, in my book, it's got a 188 percent increase in TB. Immigrant kids are 100 times as likely as an American kid to be carrying tuberculosis.

And the converstation zooms into the Dobbs zone.

SCARBOROUGH: Now, Pat, let me stop you right there, and let me ask you this question…

BUCHANAN: Sure.

SCARBOROUGH: … because Lou Dobbs has gotten in trouble talking about leprosy and all these other issues.

BUCHANAN: He's right about leprosy! I can give you the numbers!

SCARBOROUGH: If these—if these are the facts, though, how do we verify it, and how do we get out government to act on these type of issues without people calling you and Lou Dobbs and other Cassandras that are sounding the warning bigots, people who just hate Mexicans?

BUCHANAN: All right—all right, let me tell you the source of one of my things. Seven hundred thousand East Asians are believed to be in New York. "The "New York Times"—and it's in my book—said 100,000 of them carry hepatitis, hepatitis B. This is right there in "The New York Times." There are reports by all kinds of doctors and others on the increases not only in Hansen's disease, which is leprosy, where they found 7,000 cases in the first three years of this century, only 900 in the last 30 years before it.

These are documented, Joe. They're all in there, all manner—chigesis (ph) disease kills 50,000 in Latin America each year. Something like 19 million have it. It is now appearing in the United States. There are bed bugs back in 26 states. All these figures were documented in my book. Not a single one of them has been challenged by anyone!

SCARBOROUGH: All right, Pat Buchanan.

The most ironic part of this (give that "Buchanan wary of foreigners" is a dog-bites-man story)? Here's a pic of the TB carrier, Andrew Speaker.

You can practically smell the tortillas and hear the sounds of Los Lobos humming faintly in the distance…

Comments

[crimethink]

blame the tuberculosis care

For the win, Dave Weigel, where's there a letter missing from this phrase?

[carrick]

The reports say the father of the confirmed TB carrier works for the CDC working with TB.

The obvious implication is that this is the result of a "workplace accident".

[crimethink]

No, carrick, it's obviously due to all the Mexican illegals with poor hygiene cleaning toilets at the CDC-HQ.

[carrick]

Gee, I never considered that as a potential vector. I need to expand my horizons.

[Chris]

Los Lobos are from east Los Angeles, not Mexico.

[jimmydageek]

Maybe it was the Mexicans working at the local Taco Bell who contaminated the food of the toilet cleaner at the CDC, who then passed it on to the dad of this fella...

[Warty]

Mexicans listen to Los Lobos?

[stubby]

I didn't know the TB tool's ID had been released. He's in for a world of hurt. Sounds like either an idiot or your garden variety asshole - he was told that he had a very virulent, contagious, drug-resistant form of TB, and what does he do? Decides that quarantine is inconvenient, jets around Europe and off to Canada and then drives into the States. Fortunately it sounds like he probably did not infect the many people he exposed to the disease.

[thoreau]

Is anybody the least bit surprised that the TB guy is a lawyer?

[Doc]

Since my field is global TB molecular epi, I can tell you there isn't much transmission from non-US born to US-born. While the majority of the cases in the US are in foreign-born (India, China and Mexico being the 'big 3') after about 5-10 years in the US, even foreign born immigrants start to have strains that match our good ol'US of A TB strains.

Why here's just one paper from San Francisco that out of 115 TB cases in US-born persons, just 2 could be linked genetically to strains matching those from non US-born patients.

http://ajrccm.atsjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/158/6/1797

",,,Nineteen (17%) of 115 U.S.-born cases occurred after recent infection in the city; only two were infected by a foreign-born patient..."

[Timothy]

LA LA LA LA LABAMBA!

[stubby]

I missed that. But no, I'm not.

In an interview, he was aghast at the fact that an armed guard was outside his door. After all, he's an intelligent, well educated, professional person (I could hear him screaming - But I'm a white guy!!!), and he cooperated fully -except for, you know, that whole quarantine thing...he couldn't believe people were treating him like he was dangerous or something.

What a callous moron.

[crimethink]

Is anybody the least bit surprised that the TB guy is a lawyer?

Catching a superbug is always a risk when you chase ambulances.

[Mr. F. Le Mur]

Immigrant kids are 100 times as likely as an American kid to be carrying tuberculosis.

That sounds about right.

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol8no7/01-0482.htm

Immigration from areas of high incidence is thought to have fueled the resurgence of tuberculosis (TB) in areas of low incidence. To reduce the risk of disease in low-incidence areas, the main countermeasure has been the screening of immigrants on arrival. This measure is based on the assumption of a prompt decline in the incidence of TB in immigrants during their first few years of residence in a country with low overall incidence. We have documented that this assumption is not true for 619 Somali immigrants reported in Denmark as having TB. The annual incidence of TB declined only gradually during the first 7 years of residence, from an initial 2,000 per 100,000 to 700 per 100,000. The decline was described by an exponential function with a half-time of 5.7 (95% confidence interval 4.0 to 9.7) years. This finding seriously challenges the adequacy of the customary practice of screening solely on arrival.

In most industrialized countries, the annual numbers of cases and deaths caused by tuberculosis (TB) have steadily declined over the past century up to the mid-1980s (1,2) (Figure 1). Since then, an increasing number of TB cases in immigrants has reversed this downward trend in countries that have had substantial levels of immigration from areas with a high prevalence of the disease (1,3,4) (Figure 2). Today, the proportion of immigrants among persons reported as having TB exceeds 50% in several European countries, including Denmark, Israel, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland (5). A similar proportion has been predicted for the United States in 2002 (3).

The most ironic part of this (give that "Buchanan wary of foreigners" is a dog-bites-man story)? Here's a pic of the TB carrier, Andrew Speaker.

That's not ironic, it's just stupid.

[crimethink]

thoreau,

Consider yourself lucky that Gary Gunnels isn't here to dish out the blowback after that comment.

[JasonC]

Am I crazy or did the original article say "smell the tortillas and taco meat"? Just curious.

[thoreau]

crimethink, are you suggesting that I am somehow inviting hostile comments? Because that's quite a remarkable theory, certainly not something I've heard before.

[JW]

I hoping this is just the usual bad journalism and not reality. If so, we are so screwed:

The honeymooner quarantined with a dangerous strain of tuberculosis was identified Thursday as a 31-year-old Atlanta personal injury lawyer whose new father-in-law is a CDC microbiologist specializing in the spread of TB and other bacteria....

Bob Cooksey would not comment on whether he reported his son-in-law, 31-year-old Andrew Speaker, to federal health authorities. He said only that he gave Speaker "fatherly advice" when he learned the young man had contracted the disease....

"I'm hoping and praying that he's getting the proper treatment, that my daughter is holding up mentally and physically," Cooksey told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "Had I known that my daughter was in any risk, I would not allow her to travel."

[gorgonzola\'s foil]

Pic looks like a run of the mill VD-vectorin' frathole.

[stubby]

He's a personal injury attorney? That explains everything.

[R C Dean]

Not only is this guy a lawyer, he's a self-centered tool who was told (twice) not to fly, but did it anyway.

A complete ass. He should be charged for all the medical care that is assery has inflicted on his fellow passengers, as well as charged for any time they miss from work.

[crimethink]

That's not ironic, it's just stupid.

Aaaaaaaaah!

God, save me from the Defenders of the True Meaning of Irony!

Where are you guys when McDonalds is selling its shit-discs as "hamburgers"?

[creech]

A news-talker this morning says his name was on a do not admit list and he still managed to drive across the border. And many want to turn more and more services over to the clowns who run our government?

[Mr. F. Le Mur]

Ha! Kidding. He blames it on Mexicans.

He doesn't even mention Mexicans - reading comprehension problems again?

Where are you guys when McDonalds is selling its shit-discs as "hamburgers"?

Not at McDonald's. Which reminds me: "Most Scottish food was created on a dare."

[Ken]

Isn't innuendo fun? But facts are hard.
This took like 2 seconds to get on google...
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol11no05/04-1107.htm

[crimethink]

crimethink, are you suggesting that I am somehow inviting hostile comments?

How would you feel if Gunnels said it was no surprise that some horrible guy was a physicist?

Because that's quite a remarkable theory, certainly not something I've heard before.

Haven't you read the reasons, why Gunnels attacked you? He's in your face because you're in his face. That was the finding of the H&R Brawling Commission, I'm surprised you haven't read it.

[TLB]

Ah, yet another attempt to support IllegalImmigration by what might be Reason's lightest weight contributor (difficult choice, I know).

Obviously, those crossing our borders illegally are not screened, and thus can bring diseases with them. And, many areas south of the border have diseases which had previously been wiped out in the U.S.

That's a serious issue, but all Weigel can do is race bait. Shouldn't even Reason be above that level of "analysis"?

For those who want to get serious, here's more on TB at TysonsChicken: tinyurl.com/2f8lqq

Continuing the too-difficult-for-Weigel-to-understand theme, here's JAMA on the issue: tinyurl.com/2hdpre

JAMA, mind you.

And, since to libs it's all about the dinero, here's a story about taxpayers being forced to pay tens of thousands of dollars for one person's treatment. Needless to say, he shouldn't have been here in the first place, and this was a massive subsidy to those who employ illegal labor.

[David Weigel]

by what might be Reason's lightest weight contributor

All that jogging is paying off!

[thoreau]

David Weigel wins the thread.

[crimethink]

The person who makes the post can't win the thread. That's in the rule book right after the part about blowing your nose underwater in a swimming pool.

[LarryA]

Obviously, those crossing our borders illegally are not screened, and thus can bring diseases with them. And, many areas south of the border have diseases which had previously been wiped out in the U.S.

Another blatantly obvious reason why we should legalize border crossings. Then we can screen immigrants and guest workers.

Black markets cause problems that cannot be cured by adding laws to make black markets more attractive.

[Miles]

A complete ass. He should be charged for all the medical care that is assery has inflicted on his fellow passengers, as well as charged for any time they miss from work.

I'll just settle for a, er, "rapid decline" in his condition, followed by cremation and disposal at the nearest hazardous-material facility.

[Niceone Davey]

Do you have any real arguments Davey?

"Immigration is changing the epidemiology of tuberculosis (TB) in the United States. The number of TB cases in the population born in the United States has declined as the number of cases in the foreign-born population has increased. In 1986, 21.6% of the cases reported in the United States were among foreign-born individuals (14). In 1992, the proportion had risen to 61% (4). Mexico is the country of origin for the largest proportion (23%) of foreign-born U.S. patients (3, 14). In 1996, 83% of the cases of TB among foreign-born Hispanics in the United States were reported in the states bordering Mexico (23). Within the U.S. border state of Texas, the incidence of TB is higher in counties along the border than elsewhere in the state (8, 19).
The higher incidence of TB in Mexico compared with that in the United States, particularly within the northern Mexican border area, and the continuous, cyclical migration of Mexican nationals to and from the United States (23) suggest that strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis may be transmitted across the border."

"Analysis of resistance to the first-line drugs INH, RIF, STR, and EMB showed that 74% of the isolates from residents of Mexico were resistant to two or more drugs, whereas 44% of the isolates from residents of Texas were resistant to two or more drugs (P < 0.0001). There was a threefold greater prevalence of multi-DR (MDR) M. tuberculosis isolates, defined as resistance to at least INH and RIF, among isolates from Mexico compared with that among isolates from Texas. Similar differences were also reflected in the proportion of isolates resistant to all four drugs among isolates from Mexico compared with that among isolates from Texas. Fifty-nine (19%) of the DR isolates from Mexico were resistant to all four drugs"

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=120686

[Will Allen]

I swear, I predicted that this guy was an attorney the moment he described himself as being surprised at his treatment, since he was a "successful professional". I really should have also known that he was a personal injury attorney. It takes a particular sort of professional jackass to get on a long distance flight knowing that one has tb, and it takes a Hall of Fame professional jackass to do so after one learns that the strain is drug resistant. How much do you wanna bet his new bride ain't much of a prize, either?

Had their storybook wedding on Santorini, though, which is the important thing....

[Tom]

Well, I don't know how you define being "a prize", bud the Drudge Report has a picture of her and I'd say she's pretty hot.

[Will Allen]

Tom, even with pharmaceutical assistance, you can only shtup her so many times a day. The rest of the time you have to tolerate her. There's a lot of lookers on the planet; it may be best to marry one that doesn't think it's a good idea to fly half way around it with a tb infected fiance, just to make sure the wedding plans don't get altered.

[HARHARHARHARHAR]

his name was on a do not admit list

Well, has he admitted anything?

[dj of raleigh]

Does this guy's picture
mean that immigrants
are NOT more likely
to carry in TB?

Great journalism -- printing lies with pictures to prove it.

[Andy]

TLB :

And, since to libs it's all about the dinero, here's a story about taxpayers being forced to pay tens of thousands of dollars

By "libs" you mean libertarian right? If so, are you saying it'd be okay if it was
an American? Because for "libs," it doesn't matter where he's from, it matters only that it's costing taxpayer money.

[Cesar]

Hey, LoneWacko! Maybe you can answer my question now, from the other thread that you gave up on-

"Do you believe (yes or no) that the survival of the United States as a nation depends on "anglo" whites being in the numerical majority?"

[crimethink]

dj of raleigh?

You've got to be kidding me. That goes back, well, even before the Unborn Angel days.

[Jim Walsh]

The bottom line is this: Buchanan is a racist xenophobic asshole. You paleocons and sociocons can kick and scream all you want about it, but if it quacks like a duck, etc...

[wsdave]

Check my spelling and memory, but didn't they stick Typhoid Mary in an insane asylum when she refused to stop being a nanny and infecting whole families? If I recall, she spent the rest of her life in there.

Sounds about right for this guy.

[crimethink]

There's no way that's the real dj of raleigh. His verses were actually pretty good, however bizarre they got. He/she never split phrases between lines, for instance.

Sorry, this is just bothering me.

[Jon H]

Andrew Speaker, short for "Speaker-to-Mexicans"!

Q.E.D.

[biologist]

I thought the news reports I heard stated that he didn't (nor did anyone) know that the strain of TB that he had was a multiply drug resistant strain, at least at the time he left the country. The TB bacterium and its close relatives often grow very slowly and as a result it takes a long time to run the tests and get the results.

[Jon H]

The secret shame of disease transmitted by BareBriefing.

[Jon H]

"A news-talker this morning says his name was on a do not admit list and he still managed to drive across the border."

He must have had a Bush/Cheney sticker on the car.

[biologist]

"chigesis (ph) disease"

Is Buchanan referring to Chagas' disease here?

[Jon H]

"Is Buchanan referring to Chagas' disease here?"

Probably, if he's not talking about some shy geisha disease.

[No stone unturned]

or some bodacious disease

[Chucklehead]

The subtext here is, apparently, Buchanan has a book out.

[green mamba]

Isn't innuendo fun? But facts are hard.

Snark and pop-cultural references beats fact-based analysis on H&R any day of the week.

The bottom line is this: Buchanan is a racist xenophobic asshole.

I guess that settles it then. The statistics cited by various dissenting commenters can be safely ignored. The important thing is, we're all with-it anti-bigots.

[Sandy]

He's even a personal injury lawyer, so ambulance-chasing isn't even off base in describing his daily activities.

[Seamus]

A news-talker this morning says his name was on a do not admit list and he still managed to drive across the border.

I can understand why foreigners can be excluded from the United States if they carry contagious diseases, but when since when can citizens be exiled for having such a disease? (Oh, yeah, I remember: ever since they could be detained indefinitely as "enemy combatants" for activities they are accused of doing in the U.S.)

[closetpuritan]

I'm surprised that nobody has yet mentioned "Truth, Fiction, and Lou Dobbs", the NY Times story about supposed "facts" on leprosy numbers that Buchanan is quoting: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/30/business/30leonhardt.html?_r=1&bl&ex=1180843200&en=64039c75c540b1f1&ei=5087&oref=slogin

[crimethink]

Is Buchanan referring to Chagas' disease here?

The scourge of Buchanan's two main enemies: immigrants and

[Jim Walsh]

I guess that settles it then. The statistics cited by various dissenting commenters can be safely ignored. The important thing is, we're all with-it anti-bigots.

Yup.