How would you react if you heard a “child safety expert” was coming to Minnesota to meet with community groups, advising parents to remove all the seat belts from their cars?
Or what if a doctor started advocating drinking alcohol before driving.
At the very least we would be outraged. A case could be made that this “expert” should be arrested at the border for knowingly advocating behavior that puts people at risk.
But today in Minnesota a man who is doing something very similar will once again be allowed into our state to espouse fraudulent information that is having a very real impact on the health and safety of some of our most vulnerable residents.
Andrew Wakefield is the controversial physician who published an article in a prominent medical publication alleging a link between the Measles Mumps Rubella (MMR) vaccine and Autism. The article created a global stir, and convinced large numbers of families to forgo the MMR vaccine.
The publication that published Wakefield’s report has since retracted it, and an investigation revealed that the study was nothing short of fraud. Wakefield’s methodology was flawed, his findings have been refuted by numerous studies since his article was published. No link between MMR and autism has ever been demonstrated. Wakefield has since been banned from practicing medicine in Britain.
There was a time when a man found to have committed this kind of fraud would have been run out of town on a rail. Today, despite his repudiation by the medical community, Wakefield is welcomed into communities, and is hailed by some as a hero.
Andrew Wakefield is scheduled to meet with Somali community leaders today in Minneapolis. The state’s Somali population has been a frequent target of Wakefield in Minnesota, and vaccination rates in that community have suffered.
As Wakefield arrives this time, however, he will face one unfortunate reality. Minnesota is currently seeing an outbreak in Measles, the very disease MMR can prevent.
Measles is a very serious, very contagious disease. The only reason that we don’t see major outbreaks, and death tolls, is due to vaccination. Vaccination protects not only the individual who gets the vaccine, it also protects others in the community who may be too young for vaccination, or who have compromised immune systems and can’t be protected. People with cancer, HIV and other serious illnesses rely on this “community immunity” to stay safe and healthy.
The initial Measles cases that have been seen in recent weeks have been in children who were either not vaccinated or who were too young to be vaccinated. Some of the children have been Somali. It’s terrible to see such sick children and to know that this is a preventable illness.
Wakefield is a danger to community health. He is also a distraction. His continued insistence on a link between MMR and Autism has prompted numerous studies, all of them rejecting his “science” and taking valuable time and resources away from what needs to be an exhaustive investigation into the real causes of Autism.
Autism is a serious and emotionally draining diagnosis for families. They deserve to know the truth, and to stop having people like Wakefield throwing costly red herrings into the discussion.
It shouldn’t take a Measles outbreak to convince our community to reject Wakefield. We should not be asking him into our state. We should not be allowing him to prey upon the fears of parents who are understandably looking for answers. It’s time for Minnesota to once again be a leader, rejecting myths and protecting our children.
I appreciate your comments but encourage you to look a little more closely at the facts.
There has never been a single credible study showing a link between MMR and autism. Even if you still buy into Wakeflield’s study, the fact is there has never been another study that has corroborated his findings. Many people have tried all over the world, but no other study has been able to show a link. Also… countries that have banned thimerasol from vaccines have reported NO decrease in autism. The science simply doesn’t back up the theory.
As for the mercury levels… you actually get more mercury from a tuna fish sandwich than from a vaccine with thimerasol. It’s a red herring… and it is distracting time and resources away from real, scientific studies to try to find the causes of autism.
Minnesota is in the middle of the largest measles outbreak in a decade. We have more measles cases this year than we’ve seen in the last ten years combined. Infants, and people with compromised immune systems (cancer patients, etc.) are put at serious risk when people who CAN get vaccinated don’t.
Measles, mumps, rubella, etc… these are terrible diseases and completely preventable. And to continue to focus on vaccines as an autism cause doesn’t do anyone any good.
Vaccinations have caused all kinds of problems – though in principle the idea is sound for preventing illness – the problem is in the delivery and the preservatives etc that are added into the delivery which are full of neuro-toxins for instance mercury (called thimerisol). We already know that mercury is not good for infants and advise pregnant women not to eat much fish while pregnant but then the pharmaceutical companies supported by government mandates require that we shoot this stuff into our kids before their neurological system is even developed. Then they ignore that 1 in 100 kids now have autism spectrum disorders and more with other disorders.
Further information regarding Wakefield has come to light recently that shows the person who was trying to show Wakefield as a fraud was actually the fraud. The person who wrote this article would do well to do further research into both sides of the issue and add that information to this article.
Glad to say that there are people all over the world care about the autism care.
Brian
there is an epidemic of autism in the Somali comunity in Minisota , 7 times greater than the native population. after 3 years pleading for help they have had NOTHING from the CDC.
Somalis were blaming vaccines for the 1 in 25 rate of autism rate in Minnesota in 2008.
http://www.ethiopianreview.com/content/3711
Somali immigrant Farah Osman told WCCO that she blames immunizations for her son’s autism. “In rural Somalia, there’s no immunizations.” Harrington told the MinnPost, “They’re given more [vaccines] then we get, and sometimes they’re doubled up. Then their children are given immunizations. In Somalia, their generations have not received these immunizations, and then suddenly they’re getting just a wallop of them in the moms and then in the babies.”
Now what really is the problem here autism or measles ??
by all means shoot the messenger like we have in the UK
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id_AxZ3zHAc