Well done Stephen Lewis (August 6) for challenging the nasty attempt by Tory front-bencher Liam Fox to blame infectious disease on immigrants and asylum seekers.
Yet again a politician risks whipping up racism for the sake of cheap popularity with the self-righteous anti-immigration lobby.
The past few years have seen the re-emergence of diseases such TB in some parts of Britain, but that's by no means restricted to migrants.
It is the inevitable result of continued Government under-investment in areas of poverty and poor housing, and their refusal to heed the warnings from health professionals of the disastrous impact of these factors on public health.
As an activist in the public service union UNISON, I also know that a high proportion of workers in the NHS are themselves immigrants.
The truth is, far from being a burden, without them our health service would have collapsed years ago.
Ben Drake,
Danum Road,
York.
Updated: 08:20 Saturday, August 09, 2003
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