Déjà vu: leprosy and immigration discourse in the twenty-first century United States

Leprosy, or Hansen’s disease, continues to be feared and poorly understood in the United States, where knowledge of the disease is limited and prevalence is low. The presence of leprosy among immigrants, however, provides fuel for those with an anti-immigration agenda. In recent years, there have been several examples of popular media distortions of statistics and of information on leprosy’s properties and contagiousness. As in previous eras of U.S. history, public fears about leprosy seem to be related to anti-immigration or nativist sentiment, which often mask underlying concerns about the potential economic threat of immigrant populations. In this article, I analyse the role of the U.S. media and other stakeholders who may have an interest in generating public fear associated with leprosy, in presenting and at times manipulating data about the disease to create an association between leprosy and undocumented immigration.