WASHINGTON — As thousands of Americans lie helplessly in hospitals rotting away, many are now asking whether the Democratic Party is to blame.

"We see new cases arriving every day," Dr. Kevin Paulson, chief oncologist at Georgetown University Hospital, told Fox News.

"I know it flies in the face of decades of medical research, but new indications point to liberal depravity as the leading cause of this epidemic," he added.

Cancer statistics have been grim in recent years despite many exciting developments pioneered by the ingenious efforts of large pharmaceutical companies. Every day, hundreds of people are diagnosed and hundereds more succumb to vairous forms of the illness.

A recent study conducted in Gertans, Mississippi is one of those that have given voice to those such as Dr. Paulson that think they may have found a root cause to the trend. Gertrans was thought to be a success story of the Bush recovery, having selected by the Republican congress for the Barry Goldwater Memorial Toxic Waste Depository. With the new jobs at the Depository, Gertrans became a boomtown, and everyone expected health standards and quality of life to rise with incomes. Instead, cancer rates have tripled, and researchers were at a loss as to why.

"We selected nearby Carthage as a control city," says Matthew Wilson, the lead researcher. "Carthage had been selected by Congress for the site of a major highway interchange about the same time Gertrans got the Depository. We wanted to compare to towns with equivalent prosperity."

Despite the similarities, Gertrans' cancer rate rose significantly while that of Carthage remained steady. The only difference between the two towns, the study found, was that Gertrans voted heavily for Al Gore, while Carthage voters leaned heavily towards President Bush.

"It's as clear as the wart on my head," said local Carthagian merchant Wanda Mables "Gertrans is full of sodomites. Here in Carthage we respect ourselves and our Great Leader." When asked if her 'Great Leader' comment was intentionally similar to the way in which brainwashed North Koreans refer to their dictator, Ms. Mables lambasted the liberal media and stormed off.

Meanwhile, research continues. "We've expanded our study into other Democratic strongholds," Wilson said recently in a press release. "Of course, to be balanced, we are also studying Republican-leaning areas populated primarily by hard-working entrepreneurs who succeeded without handouts from the government. As it turns out, they hardly get cancer at all."

Harold Baines, a medical researcher and activist on the faculty of Mississippi State, dismisses the findings. "I think the conclusions from the Wilson study are highly suspect," he told Fox News.

"They make dozens of assumptions about causality which have no basis in science whatsoever. To think that a political party is the cause of a disease sets science back 300 years. This is obviously part of a vast right-wing conspiracy to relegate Democrats to the fringe of society," he added. In the interest of fairness, it should be noted that Dr. Baines is currently the subject of an ethics investigation.

A closer look at the Wilson study reveals more disturbing patterns. States like New York and California, which are traditionally dominated by the Democratic Party, each had twelve times as many cancer deaths last year as Kansas, a much more conservative state. Some studies show an uptick in cancer cases in Vermont, ever since former-Governor Howard Dean authorized so-called "civil" unions.

"I think there's a certain irony here," GOP chairman Mark Raicot said in a phone interview with Fox News. "For twenty years [the Democrats] blamed AIDS on Reagan. Now it turns out that they are the ones who are killing people."

Some scientists have hypothesized that liberalism eats away at one's soul, and that in turn leaves them vulnerable to such afflictions as cancer, and even rickets. Others suggest that even voting for a Democrat, just once, sets in motion events that lead to a person's ultimate slow and painful death.

Opinions on Capitol Hill are divided. "I don't know about cancer," said House Speaker Dennis Hastert, "but I think Dick Gephardt gave me Herpes."

Congressional Democrats declined to be interviewed on the matter, deferring to the DNC Chairman, Terry McAuliffe. Fox News spoke with him after last week's Democratic Presidential debate, and discussed these very serious allegations.

When asked whether the Democratic Party causes cancer, Mr. McAuliffe simply replied "No we don't."

Fox News' Louie Ponson contributed to this report.