could it be the next trigger for a mass migration.

there is a crisis underway now in central america. already a million people in guatemala alone are in jeopardy de. the unexpected danger is star invitation. a result of the monster elnino underway. it is a crisis caused by the weather system. a closer look at what's happening. >> reporter: this man's family worked hard to prepare these fields and plant them with corn, but nothing could prepare them for the effects of elnino. it is being blamed for a draught which gripped guatemala for much of the past year. the 34-year-old subcysteine farmer says-- subsistence farmer says his entire crop was ruined.

it has disrupted the normal weather pattern on which farmers depend. dry when it's supposed to be wet and vice versa. this is a third year in a row he has been hit by draught. he is worried how his family will survive. >> translation: no translation . >> reporter: poverty in guatemala is widespread with millions of people surviving off the land. the changing weather is cause for alarm. the world afood program's office officer, some farmers have told him they have been a month

without rain. an estimated 60% of corn and 80% of bean crops may be lost to. hundreds of thousands of families will need food assistance. >> translation: this is the worse crisis we have had since 35 years ago. it is affecting not only guatemala, but from nicuagura up to here. they have been hit very hard. a million people are affected by this. >> reporter: inside their tin ape mud shack, his wife prepares corn tortias for her children. it's what they eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner-- eat. today she had to borrow a few pound for the noon time meal. as each day passes, make sure their five children get enough to eat becomes more of a struggle. working to buy food isn't much of an option iritides.

jobs-- either. jobs pay as little as $5 a day if you're lucky enough to find one. >> translation: no translation >> reporter: in guatemala when food is scarce the young often suffer the most. nearly half of all guatemalanchildren are ma malnourished. children are treating here for ma'am nutrition. in child is nearing the end of her stay. she suffers from a disease which

is a fatal type of malnutrition caused by protein deficiency. when she arrived a week ago, she was so swollen with fluids she could hardly open her eyes. multiply her case thousands of times and it's clear why the consequences for guatemala are far-reaching. >> translation: no translation >> reporter: health care workers worry that child malnutrition will rise. people working in draught ravaged areas, say there are signs also re happening they're trying to conserve as much as they can.

diminishing the rations that they give to their children and that they eat them self. they even are trying to get the rotten corn in the fields to eat and that is not a good corn for that. >> reporter: some small farmers have turned to other work to try and rise out the crisis. this man is focused on his sewing after losing the equivalent of three months of food to the draught. in past years he would use money from selling some of his crops to buy shoes or other necessitates for his five children. he hopes to sell enough suits to make up the difference. next-door his wife and children salvage what they can of the harvest. 21 yeermd a teacher---year-old, a teacher by training dreams of a better life far from her community. >> translation: no translation.

>> reporter: the majority of guatemalans who migrate are subsistence farmers. while there are no numbers, experts say that el nino could drive people north. while that may appear to be a solution, it could hit the communities. >> translation: no translation

>> reporter: the current draught and extreme weather are likely here to stay. according to the global climate risk index guatemala is one of the ten countries most vulnerable to climate change. without the proper resources to study things like el nino and global warming, scientists are concerned you have heard that information is power and that is information. if we don't have information in this case, data, we are powerless to predict how these conditions are going to be in the near future. i mean, i'm not talking in five years; i'm talking about next year >> reporter: ngos and guatemala's government are turning their attention to climate adaptation. in this community it means applying new techniques like planting draught resistant varieties of corn and beans. he says these techniques are giving him hope. >> translation:

no translation >> reporter: el nino is expected to continue until march bringing more wild weather. guatemala's subsistence hope this is wrong. the families futures depend on it moving to the waters of the california coast where the big indication of how big this el nino will be may come from the tiniest creatures who live there. another killer threat moves north, the kissing bug and its dangerous embrace.

starving in the city, the hunger in one of america's biggest cities and l.a.'s recipe for

a sign of how this season's el nino will be. on the california coast, the impact will be very different of the more storms set to saturate much of the west. already the first signs of trouble have emerged, sometimes from the smallest messengers. >> reporter: he is only a few

inches long, but this little guy is the biggest indicator of a giant el nino at work. a huge die off of the red crab near sandiego this summer was a surprise to scientists. they are unheard of here. the aquarium have needed special permission to have these here. it moves through the entire food chain because everything is so intimately inter connected. >> reporter: this man has led visitor education groups here for 28 years. he tells me the bay has begun to see some rare visitors who have ridden north along with the warm el nino waters.

there's also blue fin tuna around here. hammerhead sharks. they are south towards mexico mexico. it's the animals that tend to be the first ones to tell us something is different >> reporter: today a senior scienist points out stories about el nino go back hundreds of years. even the inkas noticed it long before anyone mentioned climate change. for those people who say this is a climate change, global warming?

remind me plays host to an enormous range of creatures great and small. those tiny crabs to the predators who follow them north to eat them. trevor says we should try and understand these waters. el nino he says is like moving all the lines from one side of the continent to the other, except that the big predators here are even less predictable. an frenzy. that's a great white. >> reporter: great white sharks have been spotted in the bay before. but the attack on a sea lion in full view of tourists made waves because a video of it went viral on youtube sparking fears that el nino could be to blame for the increase in sightings. it's long be understood the sharks are in the bay.

it's the first time it has been documented >> reporter: this man runs the shark research foundation. his group is one of several in the area that is dedicated to monitoring and researching sharks off the california coast. great whites aren't new here, but he says the warmer waters have made an impact on the shark population. what is new is the assemblyage of juvenile white sharks. it's not so much the population is growing but the center of aggravate has moved north >> reporter: on the water researchers are tracking the changes el nino is bringing up the coast. the animals are telling us that we're going to get a relatively big el nino >> reporter: this underwater explorer can chronical not just temperature changes but the very dna of these waters. each organism leaving a trial for scientists to study what's happening beneath the waves. this is one of the pieces that we have.

they tell us different things. some of them tell us the environmental conditions. others like our rvs with cam aroad accidents tell us what is swimming around >> reporter: they can see? reporter: the the question for the scientists is this one event or a long-term change underway. you're like the doctor doolittle of the sea in some ways, yes. >> reporter: are they telling you, is it clear that there's anything to worry about?

headed north into communities across the southern states a small creature that carrys a huge and potentially deadly >> we're here to fully get into the nuances of everything that's going on, not just in this country, but around the world. getting the news from the people who are affected. >> people need to demand reform... >> ali velshi on target

we talked about the enormous changes coming north with this year's monster el nino, but health officials have discovered another dangerous traveller. a deadly tropical disease transmitted by the so-called kissing bug has been reported more than two dozen states. turns out it is one of many

health threats even doctors need to learn about. a startling look at the diseases among us now. >> reporter: martin redder is on the move trying to coral killers roaming around houston. asmt we will be will be there in 15 minutes. >> reporter: it's mosquitoes, culprits behind a public health crisis. they're testing positive for tropical diseases which are spreading across america. they're on the front line fighting back and they have their hands full we're trying to keep them alive until we get back to the lab >> reporter: the city is now one of the hot zones tore tropical syrian refugeess. he-- for. >> reporter: why are these enemy number one? reporter: and these are

serious ilnesses? reporter: ilnesses you're likely to associate with other places than houston. lots of diseases that i can't even pronounce. >> reporter: these are names most people can barely pronounce let alone has any knowledge. that's exactly right. they're the most important deceases you've never heard of. the billion people who live on no money has at least one of these neglected tropical diseases. >> reporter: including 12 million americans nearly all undiagnosed. according to the college's dr peter hotat. one of the leading experts. neglected because there is so little research being done on them and no fda approved medicines or vaccines. i thought when we started finding these diseases, wow,

people are going to care about this issue. it was just the opposite. nobody cared. >> reporter: why? because most victims are poor. not exactly the ideal demographic for big fharma. he showed us why some i impoverished are the breeding ground. in the piles of tyres >> reporter: stray dogs, run down homes, broken window, heaven for disease-carrying bugs you will see these big water. these provide perfect breeding grounds >> reporter: while they're considered diseases of poverty, they're also perceived as an immigrant problem. that needs to change says the doctor. we have got to get over this mentality that these are not diseases that are coming across our southern border.

they're for the most diseases having transmission here in the united states. >> reporter: case in point, this woman, born and raised in texas. i did not live in a mud hut. i lived here in texas, grew up in a brick home, i don't live in poverty. i've never even been on a cruise. i've never left and went to another country. >> reporter: yet? reporter: chagas is blood born and causes heart disease. it can go undetected for decades. two years ago she learned she had it after donating blood >> reporter: what did the doctors tell you?

with the disease. >> reporter: never treated anybody with this condition? reporter: she doesn't know when she got it, but she knows how. >> reporter: you know that you must have come into contact with some kind of so-called kissing bug. that's right. that's right. >> reporter: sometimes a kiss isn't just a kiss. no. it's not. this was a deadly kiss judge typically found in most of latin america, kissing bugs are now popping up in the u.s. and spreading chagas. 300,000 people in america are expected to have the number, a number considered to be grossly june estimated by the doctor. here they're studying the bugs as part of research into chagas. it is huge. imagine that being on your face at night while you're sleeping. it can either bite close to your lips >> reporter: is that where it tries to go? reporter: the bug carrys

parasites, those fast-twitching objects you see. it eats the cells around the heart. a third of its victims will develop heart disease. see how it is dilated. the point is this is not a rare disease. 9.4 million people living in poverty have chagas disease. >> reporter: frustrated by the lack of attention these diseases are getting, he help establish the national school of tropical medicine, the only one of its kind in north america. with financial backing with non-profits, including the gates foundation, the doctor and the team are doing what big pharma isn't. what happens in here?

no idea that they're living on the front lines of this. yeah. i mean the level of awareness of the neglected tropical disease is not only among people but also physicians and health care providers. >> reporter: he warns of the effects of these tropical diseases go beyond the physical. it is a huge social cost as well they actually cause poverty and they do that because they make people too sick to go to work. they actually shave iq points off of kids. they reduce intelligence in cognitive abilities among kids >> reporter: no-one, not parents or teachers, are the wiser. most doctors don't screen for neglected tropical diseases. many patients will die. never knowing why. you could say this woman is among the lucky ones if chagas is going to affect my heart, i want to know. i don't want it just to sneak up on me and i die from a heart

attack and not have plans for my children. i've already increased my life insurance. because i don't know when it's going to happen. >> reporter: for this woman having annex on theic disease-- an exotic disease hasn't gone down well. >> reporter: have you told people?

it's time my town and everybody else knows about it >> reporter: why?

written everyday. it's not always pretty, but it's real... and we show you like no-one else can. this is our american story. this is america tonight. i'm ali velshi. on toroth tonight something fishy in the food supply. genetically altered salmon is fit for consumption says the government. u of the s food and drug administration has sparked a new debate about genetically modified food. in particular frankenfish that salmon produced by a company is just as safe for humans to eat as regular salmon. theyw