Political Scare Tactics: The Worst Disease of All

LATINO VOICE-It never seems to fail that the lowest point of campaigns of any kind are political scare tactics that have always been around. 

In the 1960 presidential campaign, the scare tactic was John F. Kennedy’s Catholicism and the fear critics tried to instill – that Kennedy would be a puppet of the pope of the Roman Catholic Church. 

In 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney faced a similar scare tactic from opponents who insinuated that his Mormon religion would make it troublesome for him to be president. 

So perhaps it’s not surprising, as the crisis over the unaccompanied Central American minors crossing the border takes on political overtones, that there are some conservatives injecting a health scare into their controversial presence. 

Such a scare tactic – suggesting these kids could be bringing the ebola virus into the U.S. — comes at an opportune time as an outbreak of the incurable disease has killed hundreds in Saudi Arabia and leapfrogged into Africa.   

In recent days, two American health workers who had been treating Ebola patients in Liberia and contracted the disease were flown to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta and have been showing signs of improvement. 

There is no report or indication that the ebola virus has hit Central America, but some people never let the facts stand in the way of a good health scare. 

A few days ago, a press release began circulating with a headline that was bound to raise eyebrows: “Illegal Immigrants Bring Risk of Ebola and Global Array of Viral Illnesses.” 

There was little doubt in the story that it was written with the Mexican border and the unaccompanied young Central American immigrants in mind. 

“Instead of being quarantined, illegal border crossers are being dispersed rapidly across the U.S., with those of school age being registered in public schools opening soon for all,” the story said. 

It was written by Dr. Elizabeth Lee Vliet, a physician who was identified as a recipient of the “Ellis Island Medal of Honor,” conceivably as giving her some credibility on immigrant issues. 

But she more accurately should have been identified by her politics. 

Although she calls herself a political independent, Vliet has shown her conservative Republican leanings in the past. 

In 2009, she resigned from the American Medical Association in protest of the AMA’s endorsement of the administration’s health care bill, then in the House of Representative. 

Vliet has continued to be an outspoken critic the Affordable Health Care Act, speaking against Obamacare at the Arizona Legislative District’s Republican Party March meeting in Tucson.

She also has endorsed GOP candidates there in her home state and even gone so far as to defend the party on its record on women’s issues. 

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“Yes, there IS a war on women and women’s health,” she wrote in one article, “but it’s not being waged by Republicans.” 

Of course, leave it to conservative news organizations to jump on the report, the apparent first being the Breitbart.com site, citing anonymous Customs and Border Protection sources but sounding a lot like the Vliet report which also cited similar sources. 

The reality, however, is that the hardest fact contained in this made up health scare is the report that individuals from the three nations affected by the current Ebola outbreak have been apprehended illegally entering the U.S. by authorities between January 2014 and July 2014. 

Not one of those individuals, though, has been diagnosed with the ebola virus. 

They seem to be as healthy as the people trying to do the scaring.

 

(Tony Castro is the author of the newly-released "The Prince of South Waco: American Dreams and Great Expectations," as well as of the critically-acclaimed “Chicano Power: The Emergence of Mexican America” and the best-selling “Mickey Mantle: America’s Prodigal Son." Castro writes for voxxi.com  where this piece was first posted.)

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CityWatch

Vol 12 Issue 65

Pub: Aug 12, 2014