Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily keeps trying -- and keeps failing -- to blame the measles outbreak on illegal immigrants.
The latest scapegoat stab comes from Aaron Klein in a Feb. 12 WND article. First, he concedes there really isn't a link:
Is there more to the measles outbreak than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have acknowledged?
A close look at the history of measles outbreaks in the U.S. over the last 15 years evidences two significant themes – the vast majority of all cases were imported from outside the country, and many of the disease clusters were located in California, a state known for its large concentration of illegal aliens.
Still, while diseases such as enterovirus are rampant in the countries where most illegal aliens originate, there does not appear to be strong evidence that current or past measles outbreak originated with illegal aliens.
Still, he endeavors to insist there's a link just the same:
The fact-checking websites note that most illegal immigrants stem from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico. According to the World Health Organization, the measles vaccination rates among those countries for the past four years have been equivalent to, and in some cases exceed, the rate in the United States.
Still, the CDC reported the current outbreak has spread to Mexico.
PolitiFact points out the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s protocol calls for it to provide “vaccinations to all children who do not have documentation of previous valid doses of vaccine.”
However, PolitiFact misses the fact that the Refugee Resettlement, a program of the Department of Health and Human Services, mostly deals with legal immigrants who obtain the status of refugee and who are seeking safe haven within the U.S.[...]
Unaccounted for, however, are illegals who are not caught, do not enter detention centers or who are released by border agents within 72 hours of their capture.
Thirteen-year Border Patrol veteran Chris Cabrera is vice president of the Local 3307 chapter of the National Border Patrol Council, the exclusive representative of approximately 17,000 agents and support personnel assigned to the U.S. Border Patrol.
He recently said in a radio interview the Border Patrol is being overwhelmed by illegals, with many slipping through the cracks possibly carrying disease.
In short, Klein can't identify any actual facts to back him up and must resort to speculation and some rather lazy guilt-by-association. He does it again later in the article:
While medical literature backs up the argument that Latin America is currently safely immunized against measles, a WND review of the history of outbreaks in the U.S. since the 1980s shows two major themes: Almost all of the outbreaks came from overseas, and California saw some of the largest concentrations of the disease.
Again, no actual proof. Klein eventually gives up and switches to another disease entirely he can more easily blame on illegal immigrants, enterovirus, even though has nothing to offer but, yes, "speculation the polio-like enterovirus, which mostly targets children, could have been carried into the U.S. by illegal-alien minors from Central America."
Needless to say, Klein is wrong here as well. The Centers for Disease Control have found no evidence of a link between illegal immigrants and enterovirus outbreaks in the U.S. -- which Klein concedes a few paragraphs later after he reports all the baseless speculation.
But an increasingly desperate Klein has to find something to blame on illegal immigrants. Finally he settles on chikungunya, a mosquito-borne tropical disease that he speculates is being spread through mosquitoes that "could just as easily have been transported into the U.S. in baggage, clothing, food, or liquids carried by illegal aliens crossing the border." But once more, he can only rely on speculation, not actual proof.
In sum, Klein has an article with a whole lot of speculation designed to rile up the anti-immigrant readers of WND without any solid facts to back them up. And he buries the fact that he can't back up his speculation.
In other words, just another reason why nobody believes WND.
