23.6 - Anti-vaxxers convince Somali immigrants in Minnesota to avoid vaccines; biggest measles outbreak in decades follows

Anti-vaxxers convince Somali immigrants in Minnesota to avoid vaccines; biggest measles outbreak in decades follows

Because that was related to health care, I'm using it as an excuse to raise this:

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2016 there were 70 cases of measles in the US, ranging across 16 states.

But recently, there have been 41 cases of measles in just Minnesota. Of those 41 cases, 34 are Somali immigrants. Forty of those cases involve children under 10; most of them children who were unvaccinated.

Why are the numbers so high and so heavily concentrated in the Somali community? Contrary to the bigots, it's not because of the Quran or Muslim beliefs: Vaccination rates for Somali-Minnesotan children in 2004 were as high as 92%, a rate 3% higher than the state as a whole. But by 2016, the vaccination rate for those children was just 42%, making the sort of outbreak we now see all but inevitable.

What happened in the interim?

The anti-vaxxers happened. The anti-vaxxers, still spinning their inane, thoroughly-debunked claims that vaccinations cause autism. They went to the Somali immigrant community, a community that is vulnerable and marginalized, and hosted a series of "information workshops" where they spewed their fantasies all over concerned parents - with the predictable result: Vaccination rates among Somali immigrants were cut by more than half (while the rate among the general population stayed the same) and we have the worst measles outbreak in Minnesota in decades, concentrated in exactly that vulnerable community.

The anti-vaxxers should be ashamed of themselves, but sadly, they won't be.

However, there is one thing the anti-vaxxers, consisting overwhelmingly of elite liberals, do make clear: Paranoid fantasies and a refusal to accept scientific fact are not limited to the alt.right.