Swine Flu: Conservatives Blame Immigrants

Conservative media hosts, including Michelle Malkin and Glenn Beck, have placed the blame for the spread of swine flu to the United States squarely on the shoulders of undocumented Mexican immigrants. Some even suggested yesterday that Mexicans were purposefully carrying the virus across the border to sabotage the United States.

There's no basis for either claim -- in fact, news reports and health officials suggest that Americans traveling to Mexico likely carried the disease home. For example, several students at the infected school in New York had recently come back from a spring break trip to Cancun.

Rear Adm. Anne Schuchat, M.D., the interim deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's science and public health program, suggested that Americans who visited Mexico recently brought the disease back with them: "I know that we have confirmation of disease in people who have traveled to Mexico, and I don't know the numbers, but I know that that is definitely the case in some of our cases, and that's an important factor to consider." Media reports indicate that U.S. swine flu victims had recently traveled to Mexico.

Media Matters documents:

On Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said that stricter border control was not necessary at this time. That would be a very, very heavy cost for what epidemiologists tells us would be marginal" in terms of containing the virus, she said on NBC's "Today" show.

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Comments

[lahynachula]

01:17 PM on 05/04/2009

NOBODY SHUD BE BLAMING THE MEXICANz FOR BRINGING THE SWINE FLU TO THE U.S.
THAT Iz JUST RACIST. FOR US THE MEXICANz WE ARE ALSO WORRIED THAT WE WOULD CATCH THIz FLU AND DIE. MAYBE AMERICANz BROUGHT THE FLU.JUST BECAUSE WE KILL PIGz OR HAVE A HERD OF PIGz DOESNT MEAN WE GOT IT FIRST. WE DIDNT COME TO THE UNITED STATES TO SABITOGE THE COUNTRY, WE CAME HERE TO LIVE A BETTER LIFE AND HAVE A BETTER FUTURE. WE TRY OUR HARDEST TO FIND WORK AND TRY THE HARDEST TO GET OUR FAMILY FORWARD. SO DONT START SAYING WE ARE THE ONES SPREADING THIS FLU BECAUSE WE ARE GETTING AS WELL AS THE WHOLE UNITED STATED

[bobo5]

01:31 PM on 05/02/2009

It's also the fault of those gay abortionist ACLU types and trial lawyers.

[Panfilo99]

12:58 PM on 04/29/2009

If you watch this Charlie Rose Interview

Laurie Garrett, Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations

Says it started in September 08 in Texas

She says it around the 2 minute and 40 second mark

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10256

---------------------------------

At the end of the day it doesnt really matter where it started

Influenza is a combination of different viruses

This influenza has strains from the North American swine and avian flu, human flu, and Eurasian Avian Flu

Meaning it developed globally and guess what?

Its effecting people globally

The same way its affecting Mexico right now it could have easily been any other country in the world.

[jenesaispas]

05:31 AM on 04/29/2009

Next they're going to be saying that the Democrats killed Jesus....

[AngieMom57]

10:11 PM on 04/28/2009

Everyone loves to play the detective!

Me too.

The flu came late this year.

[Clark93123]

09:34 PM on 04/28/2009

Wonder where most of you were when SARS broke out in 2003.

Many blamed the Chinese for carrying the disease over. Asian-Americans were being ridiculed for carrying the disease and infecting others. Then it came to the silence of people who quietly accepted that racism against the Asians was okay.

[sepiasiren]

02:14 AM on 04/29/2009

People spoke out but like most who said anything during the Bush regime we were shouted down called PC police etc, etc.,

[JFaye]

06:17 PM on 04/28/2009

What took the "conservatives" so long to assert blame on immigrants? We must find a more accurate word, title or description for this racist bunch.

[Ruoyan75]

05:59 PM on 04/28/2009

Thank God that here in Pittsburgh, we have a much greater, kinder, gentler Malkin to deal with. Hockey enthusiasts should get his one.

WHEN YOU THINK MALKIN, THINK EVGENY! GO PENS!

[BeerRun]

05:22 PM on 04/28/2009

When did undocumented Mexican immigrants start coming across the Border on Commercial Flights. Didn't know that New York was next to Mexico. So how come Texas and the other border States don't have higher rates of Swine Flu.

[LKV]

05:33 PM on 04/28/2009

To logical it will hurt their brain.

[Palemoon]

05:10 PM on 04/28/2009

No surprise here, the racist hate mongers on talk radio and fixed noise and conservablogs like "All Talkin, No Walkin'" Malkin and in the hate filled kampf books by Coulter, O'Reilly, et al.

Is anyone at all surprised by this?

[mcfried]

05:04 PM on 04/28/2009

Wow Malkin and Beck aren't even trying to hide their racism and bigotry anymore. Listening to them is starting to sound like some crazed neo-n@zi group or a Kl@n meeting, Yuck - just yuck

[24kgold]

04:59 PM on 04/28/2009

Malkin is a vicious little e vil beast....... I just don't understand her rationale......

[Coinyer101]

04:55 PM on 04/28/2009

Wasn't it the British, French, and Spaniards, that 'immigrated' here, first, and nearly wiped out an entire Hemisphere of people with smallpox and the like. Not to mention all the other atr ocities committed by folks with similarities to our current GOP. I'm proud of my Choctaw heritage, even though i'm not a formal member of that Nation. The GOP are the worst of hypocrites.

[PreciousNarnia]

04:58 PM on 04/28/2009

LOL..Sure was..but you know they hate those truths. They will l!e their A@@ off. They carry diseases and yet will blame people of color all the time.

[oldcliche]

05:02 PM on 04/28/2009

It was the fault of Native Americans they didn't develop their medical science to combat germ warfare effectively enough. Every Republican knows that.

[John Paul]

04:46 PM on 04/28/2009

Never Vote Republican

[Coinyer101]

04:56 PM on 04/28/2009

never have.

[PoliticalAmazon]

04:45 PM on 04/28/2009

Interesting update from a Biomedics specialist who has analyzed the sequences on the gene code.

Apparently, all ofthe segments are swine in origin.

---------------------------
INFLUENZA A (H1N1) "SWINE FLU": WORLDWIDE (04)
**********************************************
A ProMED-mail post
*****
ProMED-mail is a program of the
International Society for Infectious Diseases

[1]
Date: Tue 28 Apr 2009
*******
*******

In relation to the questions posed by Prof. Morris [see: Influenza A
(H1N1) "swine flu": worldwide (03) archived as 20090428.1600]: My group and I are analyzing the recent sequences from the isolates in Texas and California of swine H1N1 deposited in National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) (A/California/ 04/2009(H1N1), A/California/05/2009(H1N1), A/California/ 06/2009(H1N1), A/California/07/2009(H1N1), A/California/ 09/2009(H1N1),
A/Texas/04/2009(H1N1) and A/Texas/05/2009(H1N1).

The preliminary analysis using all the sequences in public databases
(NCBI) suggests that all segments are of swine origin. NA and MP seem related to Asian/European swine and the rest to North American swine
(H1N2 and H3N2 swine viruses isolated since 1998). There is also interesting substratification between these groups, suggesting a multiple reassortment.

We are puzzled about sources of information that affirm that the virus is a reassortment of avian, human and swine viruses. It is true that the H3N2 swine virus from 1998 and 1999 is a triple reassortant, but all the related isolates are found since then in swine.

(address, email deleted)

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