Immigration foes say study links illegals and disease, but study’s author denies it

Immigration foes have mistakenly claimed that a new study of tropical diseases found that a rare tapeworm infection is being spread in the United States by Hispanic illegal aliens, according to the study’s author.

The study, by Dr. Peter Hotez, was reported in December by the Reuters news service. Hotez wrote that the tapeworm infection was impacting Hispanics in this country.

“This is not an immigrant issue, per se,” said Hotez, who is the chair of microbiology, immunology and tropical diseases at George Washington University. “It is a health issue for any group living in poverty in the U.S.”

Hotez was unaware the Reuters piece had been picked up by immigration foes until contacted by the Michigan Messenger. The story has appeared on the Americans for Legal Immigration Political Action Committee (ALIPAC) News Forums and commentary threads on the net. The Young Americans for Freedom chapter at Michigan State University posted the story under the headline, “Illegal Aliens Spread Tapeworms,” with the comment, “just another reason why illegal immigration is a bad thing.”

Continued -But Hotez said they all had it wrong. “If they had asked me about it, I would have told them this is not an immigrant issue,” Hotez said. “I would have told them they took what I wrote and took it out of context. The point is, the common denominator is poverty, not immigration.”

In the study, Hotez discussed roundworm infections in inner-city African-American children, as well as tapeworm infections in U.S. Hispanics. The roundworm infections are caused by the same parasites as dogs and cats harbor, and most children are infected by the eggs of the worms in playground sandboxes. Tapeworm infections, on the other hand, are caused by a tapeworm in pork.

Dr. Peter Schantz, an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Parasitic Diseases, said the problem is poverty in Mexico. He said poverty allows the tapeworm infection to continue to spread as pigs mingle with people. But in order for people to get the infection, they have to eat raw pork infected with the larvae of the tapeworm.

“The data is sparse (on how widespread the tapeworm infection is in immigrants). I would feel comfortable saying 1 to 5 percent of Mexican immigrants have this tapeworm,” Schantz said.

Hotez agrees to a point with Schantz, saying Mexican poverty is a key issue in the disease, but that there are numerous cases in the United States now caused by fecal transmission when people with the infection do not properly wash before serving food. He said his study cited a report showing 2.8 percent of Mexican immigrants have the infection.

Frosty Wooldridge, a writer and vocal opponent of illegal immigration and one of many warning about diseases spread by illegals, said Hotez’s study was of no consequence.

“Yes, immigrant-driven poverty is the reason for these diseases. And the reason for poverty stems from unending and relentless illegal immigrants coming into the U.S.A. without medical screening annually from third world countries where illiteracy remains the norm,” Wooldridge wrote in an e-mail to Michigan Messenger. “That illiteracy creates fertile ground for many diseases, transmission and explosion.”

Hotez said if he had it to do over again, he would spell out in his study that the problem was poverty. “I would have written this is not an immigration issue.”