The Epic U.N. Editing Error Behind Rush Limbaugh's Latest "Welfare State" Attack

[DonViejo]

No, Greeks Aren't Intentionally Giving Themselves HIV to Get Government Aid


No, people in Greece are not intentionally giving themselves HIV in order to receive government benefits, the World Health Organization said Tuesday, correcting a rather epic mistake in one of the agency's recent health reports that had prompted the erroneous claim to spread like wildfire online Monday thanks to social media and a host of breathless headlines.

The now-debunked claim in question was buried about two-thirds of the way into a 188-page that was published late last month (emphasis mine): "H.I.V. rates and heroin use have risen significantly, with about half of new H.I.V. infections being self-inflicted to enable people to receive benefits of €700 per month and faster admission on to drug substitution programmes," stated the report in a small case study on page 112.

The sensational claim went largely unnoticed until yesterday, when it fueled headlines such as "Greeks self-inject HIV to claim benefits" (Al Jazeera), "Greeks 'Injecting HIV To Claim €700 Benefits'" (Sky News), "European Crisis: Half of HIV Infections in Greece Are Self-Inflicted" (Fox Business News), and "Desperate Greek citizens 'are intentionally infecting themselves with HIV' to qualify for state benefit which is set aside for addict" (Daily Mail), among others.

The now-debunked story probably hit peak hysteria stateside in the conservative media, where it earned a traffic-driving link on the Drudge Report, and Rush Limbaugh made the implicit criticism explicit when he cited the story as evidence of "what the welfare state does to people." Here's a snippet from Rush's show:

"It's all the fault of government, according to the UN. It's all the fault of the Greek government. So the people — ignorant though they are, blissfully ignorant though they are — they're always victims, they are always innocent. They never have one responsibility, not one iota of responsibility in any aspect of their lives."

full article
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/11/26/who_greece_hiv_un_agency_corrects_report_that_claimed_half_of_greeks.html?wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

1. It's not clear what was intended to have been written orignially if this is an "error".

The person writing the text of the report may have improperly extrapolated some anecdotal stories to make an unsupported conclusion, but the title of this article and OP comes across like it was a typo or something.