“The invasion of illegal aliens is threatening the health of many Americans,” Mr. Dobbs said on his April 14, 2005, program. From there, he introduced his original report that mentioned leprosy, the flesh-destroying disease — technically known as Hansen’s disease — that has inspired fear for centuries.
According to a woman CNN identified as a medical lawyer named Dr. Madeleine Cosman, leprosy was on the march. As Ms. Romans, the CNN correspondent, relayed: “There were about 900 cases of leprosy for 40 years. There have been 7,000 in the past three years.”
“Incredible,” Mr. Dobbs replied.
Mr. Dobbs and Ms. Romans engaged in a nearly identical conversation a few weeks ago, when he was defending himself the night after the “60 Minutes” segment. “Suddenly, in the past three years, America has more than 7,000 cases of leprosy,” she said, again attributing the number to Ms. Cosman.
To sort through all this, I called James L. Krahenbuhl, the director of the National Hansen’s Disease Program, an arm of the federal government. Leprosy in the United States is indeed largely a disease of immigrants who have come from Asia and Latin America. And the official leprosy statistics do show about 7,000 diagnosed cases — but that’s over the last 30 years, not the last three.
The peak year was 1983, when there were 456 cases. After that, reported cases dropped steadily, falling to just 76 in 2000. Last year, there were 137. . . .
So Mr. Dobbs was flat-out wrong. And when I spoke to him yesterday, he admitted as much, sort of. I read him Ms. Romans’s comment — the one with the word “suddenly” in it — and he replied, “I think that is wrong.” He then went on to say that as far as he was concerned, he had corrected the mistake by later broadcasting another report, on the same night as his on-air confrontation with the Southern Poverty Law Center officials. This report mentioned that leprosy had peaked in 1983.
Of course, he has never acknowledged on the air that his program presented false information twice. . . .
I have been somewhat taken aback about how shameless he has been during the whole dispute, so I spent some time reading transcripts from old episodes of “Lou Dobbs Tonight.” The way he handled leprosy, it turns out, is not all that unusual. . . .
The most common complaint about him, at least from other journalists, is that his program combines factual reporting with editorializing. But I think this misses the point. Americans, as a rule, are smart enough to handle a program that mixes opinion and facts. The problem with Mr. Dobbs is that he mixes opinion and untruths. He is the heir to the nativist tradition that has long used fiction and conspiracy theories as a weapon against the Irish, the Italians, the Chinese, the Jews and, now, the Mexicans. . . .
More to the point, if Mr. Dobbs’s arguments were really so good, don’t you think he would be able to stick to the facts? And if CNN were serious about being “the most trusted name in news,” as it claims to be, don’t you think it would be big enough to issue an actual correction?
That's a very good question. What does CNN have to say?
Was the MSM supposed to be "better than the blogs" because of fact-checking?
Also, this is from 2005? What happend to bring this up now?
There's an immigration bill pending and supporters are interested in discrediting critics.
That said, we have had a cure for leprosy since 1969 so it is unlikely to become a major health problem anyway, unlike the new form of TB which seem to be very tough to cure.
Also, we now know tht you have to have a genetic predisposition to get leprosy, so many would not get it even if they were in direct, repeated contact. I don't recall the % of the population with the genetic factor for getting leprosy. I don't think it is huge, but I could be wrong.
We have a lot more to worry about with MRSA and VRE, among other things, that are killing many, many Americans every year mostly by their just going to the hospital. (Although, it is getting into the general population more and more esp. among athletes, which is a cause for grave concern.)
Next time you hear about the evil drug companies, just remember, they are losing the battle against these bugs and it will take us back to the time before penicillin if they don't figure out how to win. Before you want to go after their profits, be aware that they are all that stands between us and some very horrific casualties from infectious diseases and that could easily be you.
It would be so much better if the media would focus on the things that are really likely to kill us as opposed to remote and unlikely scenarios. Government, also. As in lowering arsenic levels to 10ppb from 50 ppb with no sollid study to show that it will make more than an iota of difference, if that. and it is costing billions of dollars to accomplish that could be going into fights of far greater gravity. The Eropeans and every other first world country are quite comfortable with 50 ppb and have no intention of accepting our EPA's flawed study to change their requirements.
I fear though, that we can keep on wishing for Lou Dobbs. CNN, our government and the rest of the media to properly analyze the science as opposed to fear mongering and playing politics.
The whole controversy involving Lou Dobbs and leprosy started with a “60 Minutes” segment a few weeks ago.
WHOI Jacket:
[T]his is from 2005? What happend to bring this up now?
Say what?
I’m sure now that Dale Carpenter realizes that contrary to the title of his post, the “whopper” didn’t – based on the editorial he’s citing – either originate from Lou Dobbs nor was it was even repeated by Lou Dobbs. It came from a CNN correspondent.
Come to think of it, the author of this editorial probably needs to issue a correction as well.
DC: Dobbs allowed the statistic to be aired on his program, without correction, two years ago. Next, after he was challenged about it on 60 Minutes, he allowed the false claim to be repeated by a CNN correspondent. He has never corrected the error he twice allowed to be aired on his program.
Remember: the MSM has layers of editors and fact checkers so these kinds of things just can't happen--you all are imagining it.
"Mr. Dobbs has a somewhat flexible relationship with reality."
-May16th Kausfiles from slate magazine.
Dead on analogy for this debacle. The only way Bush can cement his legacy as the dumbest president in history is with Domestic Iraq. He wants to mess up our country like he has messed up our foreign policy.
We have to secure the borders over there so we don't have to secure em over here. Where can I sign up to secure Iraq's borders??
http://www.slate.com/id/2166678/
Thanks you for an excellent rendering of facts. Too bad Lou Dobbs does not have someone on his staff with your knowledge. Of course, he would have to care about accuracy first.
Acroso,
Democrats have NO desire to secure the border, in case you missed that in your hatred of Bush. Bush and the Dem's are on the same side of this one as have been all of our past Presidents and Congresses.
Also, you can easily sign up to secure Iraq's borders. It is called the US Military. Please avoid the Marines. Accurate and quick assessment of data is necessary to protect and defend one's life and those of a Marine's comrades. My son is one and I would not want his life depending on you.
In recent decades, we Texans have had to deal with terrorist fire ants and africanized honey bees illegally crossing the border. The need for better border security is obvious!
Before you decide to get down on your knees again for the pharm industry, you might want to realize that they also are part of the problem. pharmaceutical companies have resisted attempts to withhold drugs from the market and take older drugs off of the market. Both help contribute to the formation of antibiotic resistant bacteria. Both of these would be great for the patient but would hurt the drug companies bottom line.
Sounds not unlike that whack job Judith Reisman, a woman with a PhD in "communications" who has been held up some on the Right as an expert on neuropsychology. To her we owe the novel pseudoscientific concept of brain damage from "erototoxins" after exposure to pornography.
During the course of my medical training in the Army, I spent a week at the US Hansen's Disease center in Louisiana in 1991. It was one of only two "leper colonies" left in the US at that time. Most of the patients were diagnosed years before and some were living out their days there, relics of an era reminiscent of Dobb's hysteria. One patient in particular stands out as she had been dropped off at the gate by her father when she was 16 years old and had never lived anywhere else since. In 1991 she was 108 years old!
The other "colony" was in Hawaii.
By now the inpatient population at the Hansen's Disease Center has either passed on or moved out and the facility is an infirmary for the Federal Penal System now.
Interestingly, TB is also a mycobacterium. They are, in essence, cousins. However, Hansen's is not as virulent as TB and is not contagious unless you are already susecptible or have it surgically implanted a la human experiments conducted on convict volunteers about 100 years ago.
The drug-resistant forms of TB, as well as malaria, VSE, MRSA, etc are becoming more dangerous every year. As articulated above, we have a dearth of effective medications for many of these organisms to begin with...patient noncompliance (that is, when a patient either cannot or refuses to comply with the doctor/pharmacist's recommendations for taking an anti-infective) is the leading factor in many, if not all, of these resistant organisms. (Some, like MRSA, probably mutate in hospitals where a few survive sterilization regimens and exposure to environmental antibiotics to produce resistant progeny.)
We do need new pharmaceuticals to combat new microorganisms as well as "old" germs that have mutated. However, this must be tempered with a strong push for naturopathic remedies. Such remedies were eliminated from consideration in North America back in the late 1800s due to political partnerships between the American Medical Association and the pharmaceutical industry.
We don't need ill-informed commentators to whip up public ire regarding long disproven canards while more pressing matters obtain.
De oppresso liber.
Which "remedies were eliminated from consideration in North America back in the late 1800s due to political partnerships between the American Medical Association and the pharmaceutical industry"? And just to be entirely clear, what exactly are those "long disproven canards" to which you allude?
Did you receive that "medical training in the Army" as an Army Medical Corps officer? I am not aware of any "naturopathic remedies, that is remedies not subscribed to by allopathic physicians, that the Army teaches corpsmen, nurses, or other health care providers.
Is that your website that clicking on the link after your user name brings us to? I ask because the profile there gives no hint of medical/scientific credentials of any sort.
I can understand making a mistake about the numbers. All news sources make mistakes. But the test for integrity is what they do when they learn of a mistake. All Dobbs need have done was to say, "My guest got her number wrong. There have only been a total of 7,000 cases. The annual number of new cases for each of the last ten years is . . . ." This controversy would be over. But instead, he has to play dishonest word games.
Dobbs is little more than a cheap (OK, not so cheap) knock off of Bill O'Reilly.
CNN used to be a reliable news source, but it's Foxified itself for ratings.
And then we get the crew who, again without a fact check, thanks someone making medical claims about illegal immigrants spreading filthy diseases.
Guess what, chumps? Dengue is spread by mosquitos . Not people.
The entertaining thing it, getting proven wrong on this yet again isn't a deterrent to the anti-immigrant right, as far as I can tell. They still keep beating the same drum. It's like watching Young Earth Creationists at work, which is unsurprising, considering the 2 groups work for the same end of the political spectrum.
Still, much like Andrew Sullivan used to need, Dale Carpenter needs a good education on the face of Modern Conservatism. And the VC is the right place for him to get it. Dale, you're to attached to the truth for this place. Either you surrender that hold it has on you, or you'll never fit in among the conservatives.
In the XVII century, Native American populations of the East Coast suffered tremendously from yet-unknown diseases like malaria and plague, borne by mosquitoes and rats. It was not an issue, though, until a massive influx of, ahem, illegal immigrants from Britain that were infected. Only then mosquitoes had disease to transmit. Read recent National Geographic.
"Know-Nothing."
Here's the group behind the 'research'
A fake medical group with ties to the John Birch society. So now we know who's informing Lou Dobbs, and the rest of the crowd here that claims that illegal immigration spreads disease.
Articles published in the journal have argued that the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are unconstitutional, that "humanists" have conspired to replace the "creation religion of Jehovah" with evolution, that HIV does not cause AIDS, and that the "gay male lifestyle" shortens life expectancy by 20 years. A series of articles by pro-life authors also claimed a link between abortion and breast cancer; such a link has been rejected by the National Cancer Institute. - From the Wikipedia article.
Thanks for being so blatantly insane in public, guys. I've always maintained that tie anti-immigrant movement was using lying racist methodology. You helped confirm that.
Right, dengue is spread by mosquitos, but people are part of the equation. Read further along in the CDC webpage you linked to and see...
Although travel-associated dengue and limited outbreaks do occur in the continental United States, most dengue cases in US citizens occur as endemic transmission among residents in some of the US territories
...
Increased travel by airplane provides the ideal mechanism for infected human transport of dengue viruses between population centers of the tropics, resulting in a frequent exchange of dengue viruses and other pathogens.
It isn't dengue-carrying mosquitos that get on those planes and bring the disease to a new locale, it is dengue-infected people who bring it in their bloodstreams to where resident mosquitos can acquire it from them and pass it along to other individuals. (In the same way, malaria, a disease not endemic to Illinois, has been contracted by those living around the Hines VA Medical Center.)
I'm still waiting to hear from Christopher Nordby about the "naturopathic remedies" that might be helpful with these infectious diseases.
I would love to hear those as well.
Public Defender,
You wrote, Dobbs is little more than a cheap (OK, not so cheap) knock off of Bill O'Reilly. CNN used to be a reliable news source, but it's Foxified itself for ratings.
Can you give a few examples of where Bill O'Reilly gave false facts and refused to correct them? This is an aside, I know, but I am interested in hearing some specifics.
Ditto re FOX.
One word: Peabody.
Yeah, he eventually bowed to reality when it was proven that he didn't have one, but it's just not credible to say that it was an honest mistake. He out-and-out lied, and only retracted when faced with irrefutable evidence.