Warnings of Impending Epidemic - Obama Will be Blamed

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) yesterday issued seven "Haiti Pre-Decision Briefs for Public Health Actions," which may well become primary legal evidence in upcoming impeachment proceedings against President Barack Obama, for his intentional decision to condemn hundreds of thousands of Haitians to needless death, under the Nuremberg criterion of "knew or should have known."

In their brief on malaria, the CDC reports that "the island of Hispaniola [consisting of Haiti and the Dominican Republic] is the only island in the Caribbean region where malaria has not been eliminated," and that the most prevalent strain—P. falciparum—is "endemic in low-lying areas of Haiti." Gordon Dickinson, chief of infectious diseases at the University of Miami Medical School, who just returned from Haiti, states that "Falciparum is the killer strain of malaria.... It can cause intestinal hemorrhaging, cerebral inflammation or pneumonitis, which is an inflammation of the lungs. Cerebral malaria has a significant death rate."

The main vector for transmission is the mosquito, and therefore transmission peaks following the May-July rainy season. Before the earthquake, Haiti had 30,000 confirmed cases of malaria per year, although officials believe the actual number is closer to 200,000, with a few dozen dying each year. But that was before the quake. Now, the CDC reports, "displaced persons living outdoors or in temporary shelters and thousands of emergency responders in Haiti are at substantial risk for malaria."

The CDC's brief on dengue hemorrhagic fever also points to the near certainty of mass epidemics and death, if current conditions prevail—as they will, under Obama's thumbs-down decision on relocating up to a million displaced Haitians, as Lyndon LaRouche has demanded.

Dengue is also transmitted primarily by mosquito, and it is widely present in Haiti. A 1996 study of children in Port-au-Prince showed that 85% had been previously infected with one or two [of the four] dengue virus serotypes. Prior exposure to any one dengue serotype confers lifelong immunity against that serotype only, but it predisposes patients to severe disease in subsequent infections with different serotypes. Therefore, the CDC reports, "Substantial population susceptibility to infection will exist, and thus outbreaks are likely to occur. The population is largely unprotected against mosquito bite. Infrastructure destruction encourages water storage. Further, once the rainy season starts (typically between March and May), every fallen building will harbor mosquito breeding sites. These circumstances will likely sustain transmission ... [and] displaced person camps will most likely have unique vector (and dengue virus) population dynamics."

"Given Obama's aggressive negligence," said Lyndon LaRouche, "he will be blamed for anything like that. We must say this now, rather than waiting for it to happen."