Southern Poverty Law Center Urges CNN to Retract False Reporting by Lou Dobbs

[ck4829]

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) today urged CNN to acknowledge that anchor Lou Dobbs has been spreading false information about the prevalence of leprosy and its supposed links to undocumented immigrants.

"We're not talking about a newscaster who simply made a mistake — we're talking about someone with a national platform who cites wildly inaccurate data to demean an entire group of people and who, when confronted with the truth, simply repeats the lie," said SPLC President Richard Cohen. "It's outrageous, and CNN should do something about it immediately."

In a letter sent today, Cohen asked CNN/U.S. President Jonathan Klein to take prompt action to correct the misinformation.

On "Lou Dobbs Tonight" this past Monday, Dobbs said he stands "100 percent behind" his show's claim that there had been 7,000 new cases of leprosy in the United States over a recent three-year period, and he further suggested that an increase in leprosy was due in part to "unscreened illegal immigrants coming into this country."

Dobbs' endorsement of the claim came after CBS correspondent Lesley Stahl challenged the leprosy figure during a profile of Dobbs on "60 Minutes" this past Sunday. Stahl cited a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services document that reported 7,029 cases over the past 30 years — not three.

http://www.splcenter.org/news/item.jsp?aid=254

[rocktivity]

1. And if that doesn't work

They should stand outside of CNN's offices ringing bells and yelling, "UNCLEAN! UNCLEAN!"

:rofl:
rocknation

[jojo54]

2. Did you see them on his show the other night?

Talk about total nutjobs!!!!

[SharonAnn]

11. Who is "them", the ones that were on "his" show?

[jojo54]

14. Sorry for the ommision.

It was Potok and Cohen, from the SPLC. They were on Lou Dobbs Wed. night.

[grizmaster]

3. Dobbs never said they were NEW cases

and there ARE over 7,000 current registered leprosy cases.

The SPLC has been a great organization for years. It's a shame they're making their organization look so foolish.

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. Don't fool yourself

Dobbs is linking every ill he can think of with immigration. This is one of the many false talking points he has promoted.

[grizmaster]

8. Dobbs' views might be extreme, but gross misstatements by SPLC reps

discredits those trying to criticize Dobbs.

[proud2BlibKansan]

10. How are they gross misstatements?

Is Dobbs misrepresenting the leprosy 'epidemic' or is he not?

[NNN0LHI]

13. Dobbs got busted being the racist a-hole he is

I seen it with my own two eyes.

Don

[proud2BlibKansan]

17. That's how I see it too

[Spazito]

18. Agree, having heard him make a plea for more

"European" immigrants (a cover for wanting more white immigrants) and then, yesterday, reporting in the immigrant bill and tying to it the "changing demographics" showing the percentage of Hispanics in the US growing, changing the "demographics" (cover for saying, 'too many brown people, not enough white, booga booga). The man has shown himself to be an out and out racist, imo, and he is so rabid now he isn't even trying hard to hide it anymore.

[MH1]

15. Can you post a link to the transcript? n/t

[Bitwit1234]

4. I think to contact leprosy

anyway, you must come in intimate contact over a period of time. And that they have drugs and medicine now adays to halt the progression.

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. Bingo!

Too bad Lou left that little factoid out of his 'reporting'.

[grizmaster]

9. the method(s) of transmission is unknown

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leprosy

The exact mechanism of transmission of leprosy is not known. The only other animals besides humans to contract leprosy are the armadillo, chimpazees, sooty mangabeys, and cynomolgous macaques. The bacterium can also be grown in the laboratory by injection into the footpads of mice. There is evidence that not all people who are infected with M. leprae develop leprosy, and genetic factors have long been thought to play a role, due to the observation of clustering of leprosy around certain families, and the failure to understand why certain individuals develop lepromatous leprosy while others develop other types of leprosy. However, what is not clear is the role of genetics vis-à-vis other factors in determining this clinical expression. In addition, malnutrition and possible prior exposure to other environmental mycobacteria may play a role in development of the overt disease.

The most widely-held belief is that the disease is transmitted by contact between infected persons and healthy persons. In general, closeness of contact is related to the dose of infection, which in turn is related to the occurrence of disease. Of the various situations that promote close contact, contact within the household is the only one that is easily identified, although the actual incidence among contacts and the relative risk for them appear to vary considerably in different studies. In incidence studies, infection rates for contacts of lepromatous leprosy have varied from 6.2 per 1000 per year in Cebu, Philippines<7> to 55.8 per 1000 per year in a part of Southern India.<8>

[FloridaJudy]

12. Absolutely.

Hansen's Disease (let's give it its proper name) is very, very weakly contagious - requires years of close contact to catch - and is easily halted in its early stages.

This is ridiculous fear-mongering. There are no diseased hordes of illegal immigrants dropping fingers in unsuspecting Americans' water supply. Maybe Dobbs thinks we've become jaded to cries of "terrorism" and is trying to scare us with "Leprosy": it sounds so Biblical and menacing.

If we should be scared of anything it's multi-drug resistant TB. We can lay the blame for that on homelessness, rising rates of imprisonment, AIDS, and a faltering Public Health system, after the Repubs gutted our safety net to finance their insane wars and channel money to their already obscenely rich cronies. That's Reagan's "Legacy".

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. Good for them

Lou lost all credibility with me a long time ago.

[NorthernSpy]

16. TB is a more valid concern

Most Americans are probably either immune or highly resistant to leprosy*, and we now have effective drugs for this disease in any case.

The same cannot be said of tuberculosis, which is much more readily contagious, and to which many more people are susceptible, and which includes a growing number of drug-resistant strains that we can no-longer effectively treat. TB infection is widespread in much of the world, and illegal immigration does pose a serious threat of increasing the American public's exposure to this deadly disease.





*If you want to feel really bad for a long time, read up on what happened when leprosy came to Hawaii. The ancestors of the Hawaiians would not have been exposed to this disease, so their descendants were highly susceptible.

:cry:

[antiimperialist]

19. Contact CNN. Urge them to issue a retraction

...by Dobbs, or CNN itself.
There have not been 7000 cases of leprosy in the last 3 years.

[wiggs]

20. Southern Poverty Law Center is an excellent group. nt