CBS contributor Dobbs defends false leprosy claim after confrontation by CBS' Stahl

[NNN0LHI]

http://mediamatters.org/items/200705110004?f=h_top

During a CBS News interview with correspondent Lesley Stahl, which aired on the May 6 edition of CBS' 60 Minutes, CNN host and CBS Early Show special contributor Lou Dobbs defended CNN correspondent Christine Romans' citation -- initially made on the April 14, 2005, edition of CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight -- of the false claims that "there were about 900 cases of leprosy {in the United States} for 40 years," and that "{t}here have been 7,000 in the past three years." The day after the 60 Minutes interview, during the May 7 edition of Lou Dobbs Tonight, Dobbs and Romans again defended the claims, with Romans attributing them to the late "Dr. Madeleine Cosman" (who did not have a medical degree but, rather, a Ph.D. in English and comparative literature). In fact, according to the National Hansen's Disease Program (NHDP) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), there have been just 431 reported cases of Hansen's disease, or leprosy, over the "past three years." The NHDP reported 8,490 cases of Hansen's disease from 1966 to 2005, as compared with Cosman's claim in a 2005 article that "in 40 years ... 900 people were afflicted." Cosman appears to have derived her false claim by misinterpreting a February 18, 2003, New York Times article.

[Rev. Mother Ramallo]

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