President Trump and Fox News continue to expel what they believe are the dangers the migrant caravan making its way from South America to the United States will bring if they make it into the country. In addition to the lamenting about the criminals and gang members they say are in the caravan, Fox News has had multiple pundits and hosts claim the migrant group will also bring disease.
"And they're coming in with diseases such as smallpox and leprosy and TB that are going to infect our people in the United States,” said former immigration agent David Ward recently on Fox.
Smallpox was eradicated in the 80’s.
Director of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center Art Caplan told Boston Public Radio Wednesday that the fears expressed by Ward and other Fox News employees, including Brian Kilmeade of "Fox and Friends," are completely unfounded and are a historically racist political troupe.
Caplan called the tactic of using diseased minorities to scare voters, “inglorious, horrible, incorrect scientifically, and invalid.”
“What they are doing is they are circulating this mythology which is viciously racist that immigrants have diseases,” he said. Caplan noted that this strategy was used by the Nazi’s to to help separate the Jews into ghettos and further dehumanize them.
“I am going to make a counter claim, there is probably as likely someone is going to be an immigrant and get in here and get the measles because people didn’t vaccinate here and the vaccination rates are higher in Honduras and Mexico.”
