petardier

Lou Dobbs seems willing to say anything in his crusade against illegal immigrants. He recently claimed that they may bringing leprosy to America on the basis of some very flimsy "evidence".

He has precisely one source for this claim - Madeleine Cosman, a known racist loon. Cosman, in her 2005 article, cites no source of her claim of 7,000 cases in the last three years.

A U.S. Department of Health and Human Services document puts the actual number of cases for the last 30 years at 7,029.

Is Mr Dobbs repentant about using a dubious source? Seemingly not.

On Dobbs' show Monday, during a conversation with Romans, Dobbs said: "Following one of your reports, I told Lesley Stahl, we don't make up numbers, and I will tell everybody here again tonight, I stand 100 percent behind what you said." He later added, "And the fact that it [the number of leprosy cases] rose was because -- one assumes, because we don't know for sure -- but two basic influences: unscreened illegal immigrants coming into this country primarily from South Asia, and secondly, far better reporting."

... In the "60 Minutes" piece, Dobbs told Stahl, "Well, I can tell you this. If we report it, it's a fact."

"How can you guarantee that to me?" Stahl asked.

"Because I'm the managing editor, and that's the way we do business," Dobbs replied. "We don't make up numbers, Lesley. Do we?"

Got that? It's true because he doesn't make up numbers. Maybe not, but he seems totally happy to uncritically accept someone else's made-up numbers.

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2007/05/lou-dobbs-making-up-racist-shit.html

BTW, leprosy (or Hansen's disease) is not very infectious at all:

http://rarediseases.about.com/cs/infectiousdisease/a/071203.htm