Posted by Dale Carpenter:
Lou Dobbs and leprosy:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_05_27-2007_06_02.shtml#1180547228
A [1]good column today about Lou Dobbs' latest whopper, that
"invading" immigrants are bringing an epidemic of leprosy to the U.S.:
�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.
There is no denying that this country�s immigration system is
broken. But it defies belief � and a whole lot of economic research
� to suggest that the problems of the middle class stem from
illegal immigrants. Those immigrants, remember, are largely
non-English speakers without a high school diploma. They have
probably hurt the wages of native-born high school dropouts and
made everyone else better off.
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?
References
1.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/30/business/30leonhardt.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
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