November 25, 2014 01:09 PM UTC

Sen. Marble delivers falsehood that immigrants bring eradicated "disease"

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• by: Jason Salzman

(Your Senate majority leadership in action – Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Warning: KLZ talk-radio host Ken Clark tells me the following blog post is a "hit piece consisting of lies and deceit in order to continue to manipulate the public and your readers at the expense of an elected official who is simply tying to protect her constituents." If only this were true….

The elected official Clark refers to is Republican State Sen. Vicki Marble. At issue is a searing falsehood Marble delivered to Clark on his nooner Freedom 560 show on KLZ 560-AM Nov. 19:

Marble: “Those illegals infiltrate into the system, of the United States, and they bring the disease. They bring whatever from across the border — things we haven’t seen in decades and thought we eradicated. Our whole country is at risk.”

A lengthy search (still in progress) for a factual basis backing up Marble yielded nothing, and I asked Clark why he didn't correct her on air:

Clark: The evidence is overwhelming that we are facing a health risk due to our administrations failure to protect our boarders and as a result are continuing to put our citizens at risk. Senator Marble is 100% correct when she states this fact and by failing to accept the truth and the evidence you are simply attempting to attack a public servant rather than seek the truth. She has been briefed by the Colorado Center for Disease Control as well and is privy to information that is not public, maybe you should try to get some information from them. [BigMedia emphasis]

I asked the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment if there was any evidence that undocumented immigrants are bringing any disease, much less ones that we thought were eradicated, into Colorado.

"CDPHE is not aware of any such evidence," was the simple answer from Mark Salley, CDPHE spokesperson.

Clark provided me with numerous links, none of which named a specific illness thought to be eradicated and brought to the United States by undocumented immigrants.

You can find Marble's comment at the 2:45 mark on this audio recording: https://soundcloud.com/bigmedia-org/state-sen-vicki-marble-claims-immigrants-bring-eradicated-disease-to-us

Like other people, undocumented immigrants get sick with chicken pox, scabies, lice, and even tuberculosis, but, again, there's no evidence that they are spreading these illnesses in our country. There's speculation, yes, but nothing much more.

Marble's comment goes beyond the usual Tea-Party regurgitation of this speculation by accusing immigrants of introducing eradicated diseases, raising the specter of polio, lepers, etc.

This summer, Tea Party activists were up in arms about diseases allegedly being brought by migrant children crossing the border into the U.S. These concerns were shown to be basesless.

The New York Times reported in July:

Carrie Williams, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of State Health Services, said there have been only three cases of tuberculosis reported among the undocumented children who have come into Texas. More than 1,000 cases are reported annually in Texas. She also said that while there have been cases of scabies among the children, “it’s not outside the norm of what we would expect and not exotic to the United States.”

What does seem to spread in the United States is not diseases from immigrants but falsehoods from talk-radio hosts. KNUS host Peter Boyles broke the misinformation back in September that undocumented immigrants are spreading disease in Colorado.

And now the rot has jumped to KLZ. Maybe it's time to fumigate the offices at both KLZ and KNUS?

For transcripts and more info visit the bigmediablog.