Leprosy! Tuberculosis! Illegal Immigrants! Oh My!

[shecky]

A couple years ago ago, CNN's Lou Dobbs show claimed unscreened illegal immigration was responsible for a rise of leprosy in the United States,
7,000 cases over the previous three years.

According to a woman CNN identified as a medical lawyer named Dr. Madeleine Cosman, leprosy was on the march. As [Christine] 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.

He stood by this claim recently on a 60 Minutes interview. Questioned by CBS correspondent Lesley Stahl, Dobbs “Well, I can tell you this,” he replied. “If we reported it, it’s a fact.”

Pat Buchanan backs Dobbs up on MSNBC

He‘s right about leprosy! I can give you the numbers!
_____

There are reports by all kinds of doctors and others on the increases not only in Hansen‘s disease, which is leprosy, where they found 7,000 cases in the first three years of this century, only 900 in the last 30 years before it.

In light of the recent drug-resistant-tuberculosis scare, Pat Buchanan wastes no time blaming the dark skinned hordes from south of the border:

Well, this is a serious problem because he‘s got what‘s called multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis, Joe. Something like 60 percent of them die. It costs $200,000 to $1.2 million to treat folk with this. But let me tell you, it underscores a larger problem. TB is back in the United States primarily because of mass illegal immigration, folks who have got poor hygiene, poor health services in their country, walk across the border. Many of them don‘t know they got it. Out in Prince William County in Virginia, in my book, it‘s got a 188 percent increase in TB. Immigrant kids are 100 times as likely as an American kid to be carrying tuberculosis.

Dobbs, it turns out, is full of crap. There haven't been 7,000 cases of leprosy in the last three years prior to 2005. Rather there were 7,029 cases in the last 30 years prior to 2005, not 3 years, peaking in the early to mid 80s. Where did Dobbs get his information? Oh, yes, the late Dr. Madeleine Cosman, seen in this brilliant performance on youtube.

And that illegal immigrant responsible for possibly spreading resistant TB around the world? He turns out to be this guy, undoubtedly a man of poor hygiene who walked across the border, Andrew Speaker, personal injury lawyer.

 

[The Painter]

I would have done the same thing to marry her. I wouldn't let her slip away. Oofah.