Birdnow's Aviary

August 02, 2026

Lettuce Talk Sense

Timothy Birdnow

I've always said green leafy vegetables are bad for you.

The Cyclospora outbreak is just one of the many party favors we receive from globalism. We import a lot of our produce from Mexico and other Third World countries, and what we buy that is American made is often handled and picked by Third World people working in the fields and the packing plants.

Lettuce is particularly vulnerable because it is not cooked but eaten raw.

Cyclospora is transmitted through infected produce and water contaminated by human excrement (and, as it causes diarrhea it becomes a self-perpetuating system).

Michigan seems to be the center of all of this. Interesting; Michigan has a LOT of migrant farm workers and they live under Third world conditions (since they come from the Third World) and that probably has something to do with it.

From the University of Michigan article:

In interviews conducted as part of the Michigan Farmworker Project, workers described crowded housing, being provided dirty mattresses, sewage and other odors from bathrooms. They detailed common areas such as living rooms often doubling as bedrooms and a lack of air conditioning.

Additionally, some said they experienced food insecurity, fears of polluted drinking water, high rents, low wages and a general lack of safe, affordable and quality housing—not unlike the situation many US residents are facing.

The five-year-old community-engaged research project led by Lisbeth Iglesias-Rios and Alexis Handal of the University of Michigan School of Public Health has examined a variety of topics related to treatment by farm owners and supervisors over time.

The latest study, published in the Journal of Agromedicine, assessed housing, labor conditions and general health, using phone interviews with 63 seasonal, migrant and H-2A farmworkers, who, the researchers say, are relied upon to bring produce to market each year. The findings are especially important given the miniscule pool of US workers seeking farming jobs, the researchers say.

"This is about basic human rights, and it’s also about treating these workers as the valuable contributors to the state’s $104.7 billion agricultural economy that they are. They are not afforded the same protections as other workers with federal and state occupational health and safety rules, and the treatment reported by some is dehumanizing and unhealthy,” Iglesias-Rios said.

Housing conditions are especially relevant as local, state and federal officials continue to monitor the spread of avian flu, which was detected in another Michigan dairy herd this week. It has also infected two farm workers in Michigan and one in Texas.

The workers live in a mix of employer-provided agricultural housing or in rental properties in the farming communities where they work. About 19,000 migrant, H-2A and seasonal farmworkers, either live in Michigan or travel from other states or countries to provide the labor for Michigan farming operations each season.

Naturally the solution wouldn't be to not let these people come for those jobs but to make taxpayers fund better living conditions for them.

But you can take the boy out of the Third World but you can't take the Third World out of the boy. Expecting these people to maintain First World hygiene is like expecting people in India to use birth control.

They are naturally unsanitary. In their homes it's not so bad but here, doubled up as they are, it's an epidemic waiting to happen.

Infected produce is just one of many reasons why unrestrained immigration and open borders is a terrible idea. Migrants drove the cost of housing through the roof. Migrants brought a crime wave with them. Migrants clog up emergency services and make an ER visit into a day-long affair. They drive prices up around the country on all manner of goods and services. And in the end the American taxpayer gets to foot the bill. Why? So some people - Jefe - can get cheap labor and so the Democratic Party can mint new voters to keep their party in power (and they ARE voting whether one wants to admit it or not).

We've seen this with other diseases, Third World diseases that are making a comeback in the U.S. T.B., Scarlet Fever, and Plague are all roaring back and we act as if it is a big mystery why.

In fact a whole plethora of Third World diseases are coming back to the U.S. The powers that be want us to believe it's because people aren't vaccinating their children and while there may be a kernel of truth to that the more obvious answer is because we have millions of aliens who have come here from the Third World, who aren't vaccinated and who are living as Third World people in America. Third World lifestyles mean Third World problems.

People carry diseases and mix them all together and you have a petri dish of unique illnesses that get to march through non-immune communities. There is fertile ground for mutation, and antibiotics become less effective.

Our fault, dear Brutus is not in ourselves but in our immigrants.

While I do not wish them ill, and certainly understand why many of them come for work, we aren't doing them any favors in the long run. Their countries will never reform as long as they have the safety valve of outsourcing their "problems" to the U.S. And our economy cannot prosper with a permanent serf class. We saw what dirt cheap labor did to the economy of the Antebellum South; the Southern economy was much poorer than in the North and was largely a caste system with wealthy planters and the rabble. Most of the rabble couldn't find work, or if they could fin it were horribly underpaid, because the plantation owners owned slaves to do the work southern Americans Just Wouldn't Do. How do you compete if you own a cotton plantation and have to pay employees while your competitor does not? It is a terribly destructive thing for a nation. I wrote about that some years ago.

Cheap farm labor via aliens is much the same. While they are paid they are paid less than market rates (which is why the farmers want them in the first place) and they suppress wages for everyone. Oh, and it's a machine; as a farm laborer's position improves he will seek better work, taking a good job from an American. But his job will still need to be filled so the jefe farmer will just go and recruit himself another. More illegal aliens come and the cycle repeats.

Meanwhile we wind up with cyclospora on our lettuce and other produce. And with tuberculosis and the Black Death infecting our children. And with fewer jobs for our families, and higher taxes, higher costs of living, etc.We might die waiting for medical treatment because the hospitals are overfull with migrant laborers who don't have insurance.

Illegal immigration is not a victimless crime. We all pay for it.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 11:48 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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