In 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder said, “Disturbingly, intimate partner homicide is the leading cause of death for African American women ages 15 to 45.” The statement was wrong, but at least two of Holder’s speeches referring to it remain uncorrected on the Justice Department website, says the Washington Post. Logically, Holder's statement does not make much sense. Intimate-partner homicide is the leading cause of death?
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data show that, for the year 2008 (the year before Holder's speeches), cancer, heart disease, unintentional injury and HIV/AIDS all topped homicide. Then if you break out intimate-partner homicide, that ends up being seventh or eighth on the list (depending on whether you also include all homicides.) The Justice Department's National Institute of Justice Journal apparently made the misstatement. Justice Department officials said that in the coming days they planned to append a note to the Web pages in question making clear that the claim is not valid.