The Road to Hell is Paved With Good Intentions

The proverbial road to hell is paved with good intentions. The regressive road back to the Dark Ages may well be paved by irrational tolerance that is being imposed on society by ironically labeled “progressives” who have seized control of a modern day American political party and many leading universities.

Unlike the reference to hell, the danger of returning some aspects of the Dark Ages is very real, according to Dr. Marc Siegel, a professor at New York University Medical School. In a chilling op-ed published in The Hill, Dr. Siegel warns that “Diseases are reemerging in some parts of America, including Los Angeles County, that we haven’t commonly seen since the Middle Ages.” Among the diseases that are staging a comeback in 21st Century America are typhus and leprosy.

Focusing on Los Angeles, Siegel notes that nearly all cases of leprosy reported in Los Angeles County between 1973 and 2018 were found in people who arrived from Mexico.   Typhus, a disease carried by fleas that feed on rats, which in turn feed on the garbage and sewage that is prominent in people-packed “typhus zones” is also making a comeback. Although typhus can be treated with antibiotics, the challenge is to identify and treat the disease in resistant, hard-to-access populations, such as the homeless or the extremely poor in developing countries.

Siegel said he also believes that the homeless are at risk for the reemergence of leprosy, aka Hansen’s disease.  While  Leprosy is easy to treat with a cocktail of three antibiotics,  the CDE says that there are more than 200,000 new cases report every year throughout the world.  The poor are disproportionately affected because close quarters, poor sanitation and lack of prompt diagnosis or treatment  can convert a disease that should be rare to one that is more common.  

Untreated, Hansen’s disease causes disabilities over time, with the peripheral nerves affected and the fingers and toes becoming numb. Multibacillary Hansen’s disease, the more serious version, also causes skin lesions, nodules, plaques and nasal congestion. With eye involvement, corneal ulcers and sometimes blindness can occur.

The CDC says there are between 100 and 200 new cases of leprosy reported in the U.S. every year.  According to a recent study by the Keck Medical Center at the University of Southern California, from 1973 through 2018 most cases involved Latinos originating from Mexico where the disease is more common and less likely to be diagnosed resulting in side effects that are usually irreversible. 

Leprosy is still more prevalent in Central America and South America, with more than 20,000 new cases per year. Given that, there is certainly the possibility of sporadic cases of leprosy continuing to be brought across our southern border undetected.

And it seems only a matter of time before leprosy could take hold among the homeless population in an area such as Los Angeles County, with close to 60,000 homeless people, 75% of which are lacking even temporary shelter or adequate hygiene and medical treatment. All of those factors make a perfect cauldron for a contagious disease that is transmitted by nasal droplets and respiratory secretions with close repeated contact.

Tolerance is a virtue. Our nation’s founders bequeathed us a Constitution that protects the rights of minorities and the powerless, and it has served us well. Irrational tolerance is worse than a vice; it’s a danger. “Progressive” irrational tolerance asserts rights that do not exist, and dictates that those contrived rights must always take precedence over the interests of society as a whole.

When that philosophy takes hold, as it has in many of our major cities, Dr. Siegel’s question, “Is a Dark Ages disease the new American plague threat?” ceases to be rhetorical.

Source: The Road to the Dark Ages is Paved by Irrational Tolerance  By Ira Mehlman, Immigration Reform;  Is a Dark Ages disease the new American plague threat?, by Marc Siegel , M.D, The Hill

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