The Kissing Bug Invades the U.S. from South of the Border

Many of us have been wondering about diseases which may be brought into the U.S. by illegal immigrants. Little did we know that deadly bugs never seen in our country have now invaded half of our States. These bugs come from Mexico, Central America and South America. And the Kissing bug carries a deadly disease called Chagas.

The bug goes by various names. One of these names has a rather endearing sound to it: the Kissing Bug. But don’t be fooled. When you see why it was named this, you will be alarmed.

The Kissing Bug name came about because, when these insects enter your home, they wait till the middle of the night and bite around the mouth area and also around the eyes.

This bug was found in Maryland where we live

Click here to view Kissing Bug  < click to view Kissing/Assassin Bug

Map of U.S. States Where Kissing Bug Has Been Spotted  < Click here to see Map

While out on our screened porch recently, I saw a bug which was identical to the one online.

Chagas Disease

From forbes.com

Chagas: An Emerging Infectious Disease Threat in U.S.

Chagas, a parasitic disease, is the latest invisible killer infection to be recognized as a growing threat here. The infection is transmitted by the Triatomine bug, known as the “kissing” bug. The bugs infect people through bites—often near the eyes or mouth—or when their infected feces are accidentally rubbed into eyes or mucous membranes. Some transmission occurs from mother to child during pregnancy. Occasionally, transmission is through contaminated food or drink.

Most people in the U.S. with Chagas disease probably became infected as children, living in Latin America. The infection often has few symptoms early on, but after several decades, strikes fatally, often with sudden death from heart disease. I suspect that, similar to Lyme disease, the magnitude of disease and deaths from the protozoan parasite, Trypanosoma cruzi, which causes Chagas disease, is unrecognized in the U.S.

In Latin America, however, up to 12 million people might be infected, with a third going on to develop life-threatening heart complications. Chagas is a major cause of congestive heart failure and cardiac deaths, with an estimated 11,000 people dying annually, according to the WHO.

There are an estimated 300,167 people with Trypanosoma cruzi infection the U.S., including 40,000 pregnant women in North America. There are 30,000-45,000 cardiomyopathy cases and 63-315 congenital infections each year. Most of the people come from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, or Argentina; Bolivia has the highest rate of Chagas in the world.

But in the U.S., we don’t often think of Chagas. Even as an infectious disease physician, I’ve never treated anyone with it, and it is not on my radar. So when a physician sees a patient who may have come to the U.S. as a child, and now has diabetes and hypertension, he or she is likely to attribute the heart disease to that and not look for infection. In fact, though, there are large pockets of undiagnosed disease. For example, a survey in Los Angeles of patients with a new diagnosis of cardiomyopathy who had lived in Latin America for at least a year, found 19% had Chagas disease, and they had a worse prognosis than those without the infection.

There are other reasons Chagas is overlooked. One is that Chagas is not a reportable disease except in four states, and Texas only began reporting in 2010. Most cases here have been detected by screening of blood donations, which has found about 1 in every 27,500 donors to be infected, according to CDC. However, a 2014 survey showed “one in every 6,500 blood donors tested positive for exposure to the parasite that causes Chagas disease.” A map of positive donations is here. While the triatome bugs are most common in the southern half of the U.S., they are actually quite widespread, as shown here.

Much bigger barriers to diagnosis are social and cultural. Many patients lack health insurance. Others are undocumented immigrants fearing deportation. Health literacy and language barriers are huge. There is a stigma associated with the diagnosis, as there is for many patients with TB, as Chagas is associated with poverty and poor living conditions. As Daisy Hernández noted in her excellent story in the Atlantic, “it’s hard, if not impossible, for moms with Chagas and no health insurance to see the doctors who would connect them to the CDC,” and “patients don’t necessarily have savings in case they have adverse reactions to the medication and can’t work.”

There are pockets of Chagas in the states, including Los Angeles, the Washington metropolitan area, and the Texas border, where there are large immigrant communities from endemic areas. But I suspect that with climate change, we’ll see more Chagas in the southwest U.S., as more triatomine bugs are found further north. One recent study found more than 60% of the collected bugs carried the Trypanosome parasite, up from 40-50% in two similar studies. There are also now seven reports of Chagas infection that are clearly autochthonous, or locally acquired.

University of Pennsylvania researcher Michael Levy has shown that bedbugs might be capable of transmitting Chagas, but no one has shown that they actually do. Entomologist and Wired author Gwen Pearson nicely explains why bedbugs are an unlikely vector and notes that you’re “far more likely to be injured by misusing pesticides to try to exterminate” them.

There’s more bad news. Treatment for Chagas is effective if given early in infection, although with significant side effects. There is no effective treatment for late stages of gastrointestinal or cardiac disease. A newly released study showed that benznidazole was no more effective than placebo in reducing cardiac complications, even though it reduced levels of parasites in the blood.

The two drugs available to treat Chagas, benznidazole and nifurtimox, are not yet FDA approved and are only available through the CDC under investigational protocols. Both carry significant side effects. Treatment of children with early Chagas is generally effective but, as with many drugs, treatment is hampered by lack of data on pediatric dosing and limited formulations. There is little research funding for new drug development, with less than US $1 million (0.04% of R&D funding dedicated to neglected diseases) focused on new drugs for Chagas disease, according to the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi).

Where do we go from here? The most immediate and cost-effective proposals are to increase surveillance for disease and screening of high-risk populations. Since the most effective treatment is given early in the course of infection, screening of pregnant women and children is a priority, as is education for these women and Ob-Gyn physicians.

While there is no effective treatment for advanced disease, efforts are underway to develop a vaccine against Chagas. The National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine just received a boost from a $2.6 million grant from the Carlos Slim Foundation for their initiative. source

This bug and Chagas disease is affecting our pets as well.

From simplewag.com

Kissing bugs aka Assassin bugs bring Chagas disease to our pets

Here are links from this pet website. These links contain very important information for pet owners about this bug and Chagas disease. We can contract Chagas from affected pets! Please share this with others.

Have you ever heard of the kissing bug taking the lives of many North Americans and dogs?

• 1 What is Chagas Disease?
  • 1.1 How Does Chagas Disease in Dogs Spread?
  • 1.2 Chagas Disease in Dogs — Geographic Distribution
• 2 Kissing Bug Bite Mark—The Kissing Bug
  • 2.1 Who’s At Risk of Acquiring Chagas Disease in Dogs?
• 3 Is The Assassin Bug Deadly To Humans?
  • 3.1 Chagas Disease—Prevalency in Dogs and Humans!
• 4  Chagas Disease Symptoms
  • 4.1 Chagas Disease Symptoms in Humans
• 5 Chagas Disease in Dogs — How Veterinarians May Diagnose Your Pooch!
• 6 Chagas Disease Treatment
• 7 Chagas Disease Prevention: How To Get Rid of Kissing Bugs
• 8 A Modern Day Assassin That Can Infect You and Your Pet
• 9 FAQs
  • 9.1 Can I get Chagas Disease from my dog?
  • 9.2 What is a kissing bug?
  • 9.3 How can I stop Chagas Disease before it affects my dog?
• 10 Resources

This morning, one of our dogs was chasing a bug and then ate it before I could get to him. Although I am not certain that it was one of these deadly bugs, because I found one on our porch just days ago, I called our vet. Our vet said to bring Buddy over immediately because this bug can cause severe neurological symptoms in dogs.

Our dog was frantic in wanting to go out into our yard, so my husband took him out. He ate grass as if he were a cow and then vomited. The vet looked Buddy over and basically said it’s a wait and see at this point.

Brethren, although I do feel compassion for those in various other countries who have contracted Chagas disease, I cannot express the anger I feel because the Leftists in our Congress care not for the American people and have refused to build a wall along our border. The wall may not have protected us from any of these bugs or people carrying “Chagas,” but I believe that it would have made a huge difference in slowing this down in our country.

Now, we’re infested. There is no known cure for Chagas. It can be fatal. It causes congestive heart failure and heart attacks.

My Bizarre Discussion with a Top Editor of the Washington Times

To say that I was shocked would still be an understatement. When I got this gentleman on the phone, I began to tell him that I was a freelance writer, presently doing research on the Kissing bug which had been spotted in the Balt/Wash area. I told him that most of these insects carried Chagas disease which could be fatal. When I told him that America had never had to battle this very dangerous insect in the past; and that they came from Mexico, Central and South America – the editor was enraged!

He said to me, “Are you trying to say that we have these bugs because of immigrants coming into America?! Do you think that they boxed many of them up and imported them maliciously?”

In my state of shock, I found myself almost speechless. But, again, the editor broke in and said to me, “NO – this is certainly NOT something the Washington Times would consider covering!”

Then he hung up. I was so confused. One would have thought that I had called the Washington Post. I would have expected that response from them – but certainly not the Times, which is the most Conservative news source in our area.

That experience has stayed with me. I can’t help but wonder if the Washington Times may, in the near future, lean left. This would be disturbing to many of us who have come to love the Times for their Conservative viewpoints.

But nothing surprises me anymore.

Brethren, be on the lookout for the kissing bug in your area, especially if you live in a wooded area.

I’ve read that if you do spot one, place it in a baggie and put it in the freezer. Then get this bug to the Health department nearest to your residence. The CDC is taking this very seriously.

God help us all!

How Can I Be Saved?

Shalom b’Yeshua

MARANATHA!!!

grandmageri422@gmail.com (For those without gmail, copy and paste this into your email to write me.)

Articles at grandmgeri422.me

Let’s go back in time when reciting the Lord’s Prayer was the first thing we did in public school.

I was from a Jewish family, and yet saying that prayer was truly the high point of my day. My siblings are atheists, but my older sister recently asked me this:

“Do you remember that prayer we said in school?”

I responded by telling her that the prayer comes from the Bible. Jesus taught His disciples to pray that prayer. My sister said that even though no one ever talked about God in our home, saying that prayer made her feel warm and happy.

Prayer Taken Out of Schools

I’m sure that many of the readers of this article remember infamous Madalyn Murray O’Hair. She was called “The Most Hated Woman in America.”

From allthatsinteresting.com

Madalyn Murray O’Hair founded the American Atheists organization in the 1960s following the landmark Supreme court ruling that banned prayer in public schools — of which O’Hair pushed for herself.

The mission of the American Atheists was in part inclusive, and O’Hair opened her arms to people of all kinds — including ex-cons. It would be this willingness and openness, though, that would lead to her grisly demise more than 30 years later.

After the war, O’Hair earned her law degree from South Texas College of Law in 1952. She then joined the Socialist Workers Party because she was unhappy with the American government’s policies towards the Soviet Union, and even tried to emigrate to the U.S.S.R. in 1959 and 1960, but the country denied her son William citizenship.

At about the same time, William, then in junior high, attended a public school in Baltimore. It was here that O’Hair first made a name for herself. O’Hair was incensed that William had to say daily prayers while in school. She sued the school district for failing to adhere to the separation of church and state, and the case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In 1963, the court voted 8 to 1 to ban mandated prayers in public schools. O’Hair proclaimed in the case that Americans had “an unalienable right to freedom from religion as well as freedom of religion.” She then appeared on the first episode of Phil Donahue’s talk show to publicly discuss her views.

Read rest of article HERE

The Effects of Removing the Bible and Prayer From our Public Schools

From cnsnews.com

Education Expert: Removing Bible, Prayer from Public Schools Has Caused Decline

Education expert William Jeynes said on Wednesday that there is a correlation between the decline of U.S. public schools and the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1962 and 1963 decision that school-sponsored Bible reading was unconstitutional.

“One can argue, and some have, that the decision by the Supreme Court – in a series of three decisions back in 1962 and 1963 – to remove Bible and prayer from our public schools, may be the most spiritually significant event in our nation’s history over the course of the last 55 years,” Jeynes said.

On June 25, 1962, the United States Supreme Court decided in Engel v. Vitale that a prayer approved by the New York Board of Regents for use in schools violated the First Amendment because it represented establishment of religion. In 1963, in Abington School District v. Schempp, the court decided against Bible readings in public schools along the same lines.

Since 1963, Jeynes said there have been five negative developments in the nation’s public schools:

• Academic achievement has plummeted, including SAT scores.
• Increased rate of out-of-wedlock births
• Increase in illegal drug use
• Increase in juvenile crime
• Deterioration of school behavior

“So we need to realize that these actions do have consequences,” said Jeynes, professor at California State College in Long Beach and senior fellow at the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, N.J. “When we remove that moral fiber — that moral emphasis – this is what can result.”

Other facts included a comparison between the top five complaints of teachers from 1940-1962 — talking, chewing gum, making noise, running in the halls and getting out of turn in line – to rape, robbery, assault, burglary and arson from 1963 to present.

“Now the question is, given that there is a movement to put the Bible as literature back in the public schools and a moment of silence and so forth, can we recapture the moral fiber – the foundation that used to exist among many of our youth?” Jeynes asked rhetorically.

To that end, Jeynes said, there is a movement across the country to reinstate the Bible as literature in the public schools, with 440 school districts in 43 states currently teaching this type of course.

Ten states have passed a law or resolution to bring the Bible as literature in the public schools statewide.

The movement, however, is secular in nature, with the Bible being taught as literature rather than the word of God. And rather than prayer, a “moment of silence” is established that “can be used as the students choose,” Jeynes said.

When CNSNews.com asked about the secular nature of this approach, Jeynes said data from nationwide surveys show that both students of faith and those with no faith both respond positively to the Bible as literature curriculum – the former said they learned more about the Bible in class than in church, and the latter said they have an increased interest in the Christian religions.

“The effects are very, very positive,” Jeynes said.

Jeynes said the data he used in his presentation comes from the federal government (Departments of Education, Justice, Health and Human Services and the U.S. Census Bureau), and research by the advocacy groups Bibleasliterature.org, the Bible Literacy Project, the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, and California educator and researcher Nader Twal. source

The Damage is Done but We Must Press On

Through the years we have seen such horrific violence as mass shooters taking the lives of so many of their peers in public schools. We watched in horror this past weekend as two young men shot and killed over two dozen people.

My last article dealt with depression in young people and the psychotropic medicines they are prescribed. This depression which is so pervasive in young people (even in children) is a direct result of God being taken out of schools and public life. Many of these children have only one parent and come home from school to an empty house.

And we wonder why there is so much depression!?

Mass Shootings

Mass shooters have become the norm. As usual, our leftwing politicians politicize the killing and blame it on our president. It’s interesting to note that most of these Leftist accusers are also atheists.

The same things are said by governors and congressmen/women: “We have to come together at this sad time. This will make us stronger as we care for one another.” No mention of returning to God. No mention of the correlation of gun violence and the removal of God and the Bible from every area of life in America.

They can’t see the correlation between the violence and the removal of our Lord from public life because they DO NOT KNOW HIM.

And if brave brothers and sisters in our government step out in faith, and attempt to get prayer and Bible reading put back in our schools, The Freedom From Religion Atheist organization will be on the steps of the Supreme Court in a flash. This evil organization is very powerful in these last days.

Satan is Emboldened in America 

Gone are the days in which many Christians would stand up for righteousness in the face of evil. Many are fearful of being accused of “Hate speech.” The public knows that true Christians believe the Word of God and know that the Word condemns homosexuality. But atheists do not care what is written in the Bible. They claim that God and His Word are a crutch for weak people.

I love this website:

From creationtoday.org

Prayer in School Affects all of Society

Since prayer was eliminated from public schools, the quality of education has shown a steady statistical decline. Is there a link between the two?

Prayer Sets a Standard

Humanism assumes that the supernatural does not exist and that reality must be discovered purely from man’s reasoning. Our public school system has been operating on this foundation since prayer was removed in 1962. Returning prayer to school would be an affront to this philosophy because prayer acknowledges the existence of someone greater than man.

Allowing prayer in school sets an important standard. It tells students that they are more than just a collection of chemicals and energy that happen to be occupying space and time. Prayer is an action which proclaims that life is more than saving the environment or accumulating wealth. The fervency with which school prayer is opposed is not because the ACLU (an anti-Christian legal group) is trying to protect atheists from being indoctrinated by religion. It is opposed because it represents the antithesis to the beliefs of those who set policy for much of our public school system. Prayer is a frontal attack on the notion that mankind is in autonomous control of his own destiny and an insult to those who believe that friends, possessions, or power can bring meaning or joy.

Morality Declines Without Prayer

A primary purpose of public education is to shape good citizens. This involves more than just the memorization of facts. Most Americans are in favor of prayer in public school because they realize that there is something to be gained from the open acknowledgement of God’s existence. Morals can only be built on the basis that a moral source—God—exists. Once acknowledgement of God’s existence is removed, there is no absolute basis for morals, and a free society drifts toward anarchy.

Since prayer was removed from public school classrooms in 1962, we have had a six-fold increase in violent crime, our divorce rate has tripled, births to single mothers have increased five-fold, the teenage suicide rate has tripled, and SAT scores (standardized college entrance test) have dropped 80 points (approximately 10%). The removal of prayer may not be the only cause of social ills, but the negative trends are certainly a symptom of the spiritual decline which is at their root.

What a hypocritical message we send to our children when we allow laws to be passed which limit the free expression of speech in public by banning public prayer in classrooms. Federal and Supreme Court judges should be impeached who undermine the freedom upon which this country was founded. The situation has become so absurd that congressional prayers cannot be voluntarily read in a school building.

Take a Stand

Our nation was founded on the freedom to publicly acknowledge God’s existence. Allowing prayer in schools will improve, not detract from a student’s understanding of the universe. Our experiment with replacing affirmation of God’s existence with atheistic humanism has been a dismal failure. Whenever the opportunity arises to support the public acknowledgement of God by prayer (or any other means), it benefits all of society to take a vocal stand. As Edmund Burke correctly noted in 1795, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” As with all truths, this is still applicable today. source

I wrote recently on “taking a stand” and how the child of God is like an army when defending righteousness, because God stands with him/her! We should never forget this.

The evil of this world is thick and sometimes so intimidating. I’ve read that it is in vain to stand against such evil. NO! It is never in vain to stand up for what is right. How do we know if some people hearing or reading our words might just pick up a Bible and read for themselves!?

“But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you are blessed. And do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled. But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear; having a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed” (1 Peter 3:14-16).

How Can I Be Saved?

Shalom b’Yeshua

MARANATHA!!

grandmageri422@gmail.com (copy and paste this address in your email to write to me)

grandmageri422@gmail.com

Article at grandmageri422.me