“It is not a violation of HIPAA for a doctor or nurse to speak out about a public health concern and not mention a patient’s name,” Vliet said. “Medical personnel should be free to be interviewed and speak about the kinds of diseases they are seeing and the frequency of them. This would serve the public good and safety–again, it is not a violation of HIPAA.”
Most of the border minors are being kept in overcrowded facilities ridden with poor hygiene; according to Dr. Vliet, this is the ideal condition for a viral outbreak.
She said, “Many people are trying to diminish the seriousness of this. They say, ‘We have these diseases in the U.S.’ Well yes, we do, but they’ve been well controlled, we have good hygiene, and most of our parents keep children home when they’re sick. … It’s a very real risk. It could get out of hand very quickly; but since these are common disease that people have heard of, the risk isn’t necessarily taken seriously.”
Vliet mentioned that chickenpox–one of the illnesses identified within the migrant population–can be deadly and has the potential to spread to the general public. She said, “Chickenpox is highly contagious. What’s worse about that is that it’s much more severe when adults get it–in older people, it can cause death. It’s very serious.”
In Vliet’s view, nurses and doctors in facilities have the right to speak out about medical dangers–and they should, she said, in order to decrease the chance of illnesses being contracted by the general public.
It is apparent, however, that the federal government is attempting to hide certain aspects of the border crisis. In June
Breitbart Texas reported that Border Patrol agents were threatened with criminal charges for speaking to the press. And one month earlier, in May, Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE)
ordered agents not to speak to reporters regarding the 36,000 convicted criminal illegal immigrants that were
released onto U.S. soil.