Indian programmer blamed for measles outbreak in Boston

Date: Sunday, July 02, 2006 11:28 PM

<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 1514 -- 07/02/2006 >>>>>

For decades immigration reform experts have been warning of the impending
health crisis that will occur if this nation continues its uncontrolled
mass immigration. Most of what has been written centers on illegal
immigration. Frosty Wooldridge wrote an insightful article that has been
totally ignored by the mainstream media:

http://www.newswithviews.com/Wooldridge/frosty35.htm
COLONIAS, DISEASE AND DANGER: THIRD WORLD MOMENTUM

Also read:
http://www.commonsenseonmassimmigration.org/articles/art_rubenstein.html
Mass Immigration: The Costs and Availability of Health Care by Edwin
Rubenstein

Nothing has been said about the health threat of allowing H-1Bs into the
United States, and judging by the articles below the entire issue is being
swept under the rug. Notice the fact that the media refuses to give the
name of the computer programmer that spread measles in Boston or the visa
he used to enter the U.S. but more than likely it's an H-1B or L-1.

There are costs when cheap labor is imported into the U.S. but employers
are rarely the ones who pay - usually it's taxpayers who pick up the tab.
The Indian programmer who spread the measles in Boston caused the local
health services to spend $400,000 in order to distribute 23,000 doses of
vaccine. Of course this doesn't include the cost to the Americans who have
suffered the infections and the costs of the quarantines that were imposed
on citizens.

Immigration has costs, as Steve Camarota discusses in his classic:

http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscal.html
"The High Cost of Cheap Labor"
Illegal Immigration and the Federal Budget

It is a dereliction of public duty that our government allows H-1Bs to
enter this country without giving them a full health screen and requiring
all vaccinations. With this in mind, why isn't every Indian that comes to
the United States required to have a measles vaccine?

Authorities are concerned over the possibility that the
programmer had not been vaccinated. According to a World
Health Organisation report published in 2004, only 56 per
cent of Indian children are vaccinated against measles.

Articles Used

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5500100&ft=1&f=1003
Measles Outbreak Shows Even Vaccinated at Risk (audio file)

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/06/10/measles_outbreak_shows_a_global_threat/
Measles outbreak shows a global threat

http://www.rhinelanderdailynews.com/articles/2006/06/26/news/local_news/news02.txt
Northwoods residents clear of measles outbreak

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1035172
Indian programmer blamed for measles outbreak in Boston

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To listen to the report, go to the webpage and click on "Listen".

Total Time: 5:15

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5500100&ft=1&f=1003

Measles Outbreak Shows Even Vaccinated at Risk

by Richard Knox

Morning Edition, June 21, 2006 7 A measles outbreak in Boston is showing
how the global economy opens opportunities for one of the world's most
that millions of Americans in their 30s and 40s are vulnerable to measles,
even though they were vaccinated years ago.

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http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/06/10/measles_outbreak_shows_a_global_threat/

Measles outbreak shows a global threat
Worker from India tied to Hub cases
By Stephen Smith, Globe Staff | June 10, 2006

a young computer programmer who had flown in from India, brought over for
his expertise by a financial services company headquartered in the city's
tallest skyscraper.

He went to work on the 18th floor of the John Hancock Tower, and on May 5
the hallmark symptoms of measles began to appear: fever, cough, rash. Then,
like a stone tossed into a lake, the disease rippled outward, with measles
striking a half-dozen other workers at Investors Bank & Trust, five on the
same floor.

By last week, four additional cases of the potentially lethal illness had
been confirmed. Their link to the programmer is more tenuous, but city
health authorities say they believe that all 11 cases in the state's first
measles outbreak since 1999 can be traced to that single visitor.

The result: The state has distributed or ordered 23,000 doses of measles
vaccine, at a cost of nearly $400,000. Hundreds of people at three
workplaces have been ordered to stay home until they can prove they aren't
susceptible or until they have passed the incubation period for the
disease. And disease detectives have scoured medical records, examined
office air-flow patterns, and conducted dozens of interviews in their quest
to understand and stop the outbreak.

The arrival of measles in Boston, specialists said, illustrates the
potential for dangerous germs to hitch a ride on a jetliner and travel from
one corner of the world to another in a matter of hours.

It has happened before: Three years ago, SARS, or severe acute respiratory
syndrome, hopped from Hong Kong to Toronto, spreading disease and death.

Doctors fear it will happen again: Many epidemiologists are much more
concerned that avian influenza will be carried to the United States by
humans than by birds.

``When we talk about globalization, it's not only globalization of goods
and services; it's people and their history, including incubating
diseases," said Dr. Gerald T. Keusch, a global health specialist at the
Boston University School of Public Health.

``We can no longer think about putting up quarantines at the borders and
expect that it's going to work for infectious disease any better than it
works for the resourceful, determined people who come across as economic
migrants," Keusch said. ``We can't put up a shield."

Even as Boston disease trackers attempt to stop the spread of measles, they
once infected hundreds of thousands of children each year in the United
States. They have found that eight of the 10 patients whose illnesses are
believed to be linked to the programmer range in age from their early 30s
to their late 40s. And that's telling.

Adults born before 1957 are believed to be universally immune to the
respiratory illness because so many children in that era were exposed to
grew up when vaccination was widespread and reliable.

When the measles vaccine was introduced in the 1960s, the pressure to
vaccinate was so intense that infants would receive their shots at the age
of 4 months, maybe 6 months . But doctors later realized that when babies
are that young, they still have lots of disease-fighting cells from their
mothers, and those antibodies sometimes neutralized the vaccine.

In other cases, to blunt the side effects of the early vaccine, doctors
gave children a shot of another substance that, it turned out, weakened the
effectiveness of the inoculation. As a result, the most vulnerable
Americans are in their early 30s to late 40s.

``When you combine all of that, you get a small percentage of people who
have remained not adequately vaccinated," said Dr. Adolf Karchmer, top
infectious disease doctor at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, who
helped run measles vaccine campaigns for the federal government in the
1960s.

``Because measles has been so well controlled, you don't find out about
those people, until you have what's happening in downtown Boston," he added
.

When laboratory tests confirmed the first case in the current measles
outbreak on May 12, doctors at the Boston Public Health Commission were
alarmed. Knowing there was already one case in a business employing 1,500
workers meant there would almost certainly be more.

There was no indication that the computer programmer had been vaccinated
against measles, disease investigators found. Studies by the World Health
Organization show that in 2004, only 56 percent of infants in India were
vaccinated against the condition, compared with 93 percent of US children.

It is not mandatory that workers coming into the United States on temporary
work assignments prove they are vaccinated against diseases, federal
officials said.

``The solution to vaccine-preventable diseases in the United States is very
often improving global vaccine coverage," said Dr. Julie Gerberding,
director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ``There are
still millions of children and adults around the world who are not
protected against measles."

Two of the other local measles patients were also born abroad, one in
Brazil and one in El Salvador, but those countries have childhood
vaccination rates comparable to the United States.

Their ages have not been made public, and it's unclear whether they were
ever vaccinated. Because of federal patient privacy rules, none of the
patients in the measles outbreak has been named.

One day after the computer programmer's infection was confirmed, another
worker at Investors Bank fell ill. Within nine days, five more became sick.
long as two hours, still capable of infection.

But the outbreak didn't stop at the doors of Investors Bank. Although
health officials cannot definitely link the later cases, ``there must be a
connection," said Dr. Alfred DeMaria, chief medical officer of the state
Department of Public Health. ``It would be an extraordinary circumstance to
have another outbreak of measles simultaneously."

A man who works just down the street at the Christian Science church center
developed measles. So did an electrical contractor who worked on the 56th
floor of the Hancock Tower.

Dr. Anita Barry, director of communicable disease control in Boston, said
officials might never find the precise link to the cases outside Investors
Trust.

``With something like this, I'm not going to be surprised if we can't pin
down the specific contacts," she said.

For example, one of the patients is an East Boston resident with no obvious
link to any of the other patients. And then there's the man who clears
tables at two restaurants, including Skipjack's, in the shadow of the
Hancock.

``I would say 50 percent of our business during the lunch hour comes from
the Hancock," said Sheldon Alman, general manager of Skipjack's, on
Clarendon Street.

On May 31, one of Alman's employees approached him. The man, who has been
whisking dishes to the kitchen for nearly two years, said he didn't feel
well.

``I said, `Why don't you go home, and, if you don't feel well in the
morning, call in sick and go see a doctor,' " Alman recalled.

A similar conversation had taken place a day earlier between the man and
the manager of the other restaurant where he worked, Addis Red Sea, on
Tremont Street. The worker had called in sick on Memorial Day.

All the patients in the measles outbreak are recovering and, so far,
restaurant.

Still, boards of health across the Boston area remain vigilant.

Stephen Smith can be reached at stsmith@globe.com.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

http://www.rhinelanderdailynews.com/articles/2006/06/26/news/local_news/news02.txt

Sunday, July 2, 2006
Last modified Monday, June 26, 2006 1:04 PM CDT

Northwoods residents clear of measles outbreak

By Chantel Balzell - Daily News staff

The measles outbreak in Boston should not be a concern for Wisconsinites,
according to Oneida County Health officials.

The outbreak, which was traced to a computer programmer from India, cost
the state $400,000 for 23,000 doses of measles vaccine. Hundreds of workers
at three locations were ordered to stay home until they proved they were
uninfected or until the incubation period for the disease had passed. As a
result of the outbreak, a large number of workers aged 30 to 40 were at
risk despite being vaccinated years ago.

"This was a really unusual story," Oneida County Public Health Nurse Ann
Ovsak said. "The state hasn't notified us to be vigilant about it."

The measles vaccine, which is usually given in combination with rubella and
mumps vaccine (MMR), is recommended for children at 12-15 months of age and
at 4-6 years of age. According to the Wisconsin Department of Health and
Family Services, two doses of the vaccine provide lifelong immunity.

The disease begins with cold-like symptoms such as a cough, runny nose,
high temperature and red watery eyes. On the second day, a red blotchy rash
appears at the hairline, spreading down to the arms and legs. Then the rash
disappears, starting from the head and moving down. It takes about 8-12
days after exposure for symptoms to occur.

"There's been a mumps outbreak in Wisconsin, but only in certain areas,"
Ovsak said. She says most immunization measures were specifically
recommended for those living near the Iowa border, where the outbreak
started, and for southern Wisconsin.

The Oneida County Health Department has not seen a case of mumps or measles
in over two years.

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http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1035172

Tuesday, June 13, 2006 12:49:00 AM

Indian programmer blamed for measles outbreak in Boston

Sachin Kalbag

WASHINGTON, DC: An Indian software programmer is at the centre of a Robin
Cook novel-like scenario in Boston, where a measles outbreak has led to
authorities distributing 23,000 doses of vaccine costing $400,000 (Rs1.8
crore) across the city.

They have also ordered hundreds of people working in three buildings,
including the citys tallest skyscraper where the programmer went to
work, to stay home until they can prove they are not susceptible to the
disease.

The programmer, whose name has not been made public, flew in from India on
April 26, and began showing symptoms of measles -- cough, fever and rash
-- on May 5. The disease soon spread to six more persons in the same
building.

Health authorities branded the outbreak, Massachusetts first since 1999,
as "potentially lethal". Boston is the setting for most of Robin Cooks
medical thrillers such as Coma and Fatal Cure. The 1995 hit movie Outbreak
featured a Boston man who spreads a mysterious disease brought in from
Africa.

Authorities are concerned over the possibility that the programmer had not
been vaccinated. According to a World Health Organisation report published
in 2004, only 56 per cent of Indian children are vaccinated against
measles.

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