Representative Phil Gingrey (R-GA) has cooked up another reason why you should be very afraid of undocumented children — they may carry Ebola.
Last week, Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) wrote a letter to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with a dire warning: Some of the child refugees streaming across the southern border into the United States might carry deadly diseases. “Reports of illegal immigrants carrying deadly diseases such as swine flu, dengue fever, Ebola virus and tuberculosis are particularly concerning,” Gingrey wrote. “Many of the children who are coming across the border also lack basic vaccinations such as those to prevent chicken pox or measles.”
As Mother Jones points out, Gingrey’s concern about undocumented children who haven’t been vaccinated comes off as little more than concern trolling given that Gingrey himself opposes mandatory vaccinations.
Gingrey is a surrogate for the anti-vaccine Association of American Physicians and Surgeons and in 2007 he sponsored an amendment to allow parents to block HPV vaccinations.
Furthermore, the sad truth is the children migrating from Central America are actually more likely to be vaccinated than American children according to a report from the Texas Observer.
According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Guatemalan kids are more likely than Texans to be immunized for most infectious diseases. Guatemala has universal health care. Vaccines are 100 percent funded by the government.
By comparison, one in six kids in Texas is uninsured, and even insured families often must pay for vaccination. [...]
UNICEF reports that 93 percent of kids in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador are vaccinated against measles. That’s better than American kids (92 percent).
Republican leadership in Texas has refused to expand Medicaid under Obamacare, denying healthcare to at least 1.5 million people.
USA! USA!