Last week, Andrew Wakefield traveled to Minneapolis to meet with Somali parents. It was a closed door meeting. No media allowed. But I think we can safely assume that he wasn’t there to do good deeds. Not in the middle of a measles outbreak. Not when the outbreak is centralized in the Somali community. Not when a disproportionate number of measles cases have been Somali children.
It looks suspiciously like Andrew Wakefield traveled to Minneapolis to assure parents that there was no need to vaccinate. While their children were being hospitalized, Andrew Wakefield was there to tell them not to protect themselves, not to protect their babies, not to protect their community. Andrew Wakefield was there to assure Somali parents that yes, vaccinating is worse than the measles.
Likely, the Undoctor was trying to protect his work. Because this measles outbreak is his own magnum opus. The Minnesota Department of Public health announced today that this outbreak is directly related to his hoax study linking vaccines and autism.
Bravo, Wakefield! It takes a lot of strength to infiltrate an immigrant community and convince them to put their babies at risk of death to help you sell more books. I assume you will be donating a percentage of the proceeds from those sales to help children who have been hospitalized and the families of children who have died from preventable infectious diseases? No?
Good news… good-ish news, anyway. The good guys are on the scene.
I’ve made a commitment to save the world. For the past week, I’ve been in contact with the Minnesota Department of Health, and I am working with them to see if the Hug Me campaign can help with outreach. You will be updated with information on how you can help us reach out to the Somali community.
Children should not be hospitalized with a disease that should be eradicated. Not in an industrialized nation. Not on our watch.
I guess Wakefield needs a medical license just as much as energy healers need a Ph.D in physics.. It’s not like you really NEED those credentials to spread woo bullshit.
I’m sure even if Wakefield was dead, he would be sent around giving bad medical advice in a twisted weekend at Bernies kind of way.
Let us not forget the role that Generation Rescue’s J.B. Handley played, telling Somali parents that vaccines (in general, not just MMR) cause autism and not to trust state health organizations.
Also, from reports that I’ve seen, Wakefield’s soire (purportedly to drum up support/volunteers for a vitamin D/autism study in Somalis) was attended by something like 5 parents, some of whom were, shall we say, not pleased with him.
It keeps surprising me how someone like Andrew Wakefield manages to just keep going. He was interviewed by Adam Rutherford for a show on a BBC Radio 4 show that aired a week ago – it was really staggering. He kept proclaiming that his research is perfectly sound (and blissfully ignored the question whether he was paranoid).
I’d like to have a meeting with MISTER Wakefield as well…me visiting him and speaking to him on a prison handset.
I live in minneapolis. Is there anything I can do from here to help out?
@tocarde:
I’ll be posting once we have a plan. STAY TUNED!
Why isn’t this creep in prison??? I’d like to see him on the Steve Wilkos show!
@Todd W.:
I did hear that. But I don’t have even vague confirmation… you know, because no one was allowed in who could confirm this… in case something like this happened.
Maybe we could send him to meet with Somali pirates instead.
Thanks for the article ‘Minneapolis Measles Outbreak Traced to Fraudulent Autism Study’ linked in the post. I shared it with my ‘mom friends’ and a couple said that they are going to share it with their ‘mom friends’. :)
On the ground in Minneapolis and standing by to assist when/if you have work that needs to be done!
Thank you. Keep us posted here in the Twin Cities. I was appalled to find out he was here. I don’t think it was his first visit, either.
There is a Somali woman and mother working to combat this in her community as well.
I AM FILLED WITH RAGE AND THE DESIRE TO SMASH!!!
We’ve got a Jenny McCarthy body count.
Is it time for andrewwakefieldbodycount.com?
Thank you for doing the hard work. You’re amazing, really, wow.
Shouldn’t this be part of the responsibilities of the centers of disease control or something?
@benjaminsa:
It is the responsibility of the public health department and the CDC. However, there’s only so much they can do.
One of the problems with the vax/antivax conversation is that it’s moms vs Big Pharma and Big Brother. Who do you trust? A stranger in a lab coat with an agenda or your sister?
The parent spokesperson is a role that’s mostly unfilled. Mostly because vaccines work. We get the shots, nothing happens. Nothing at all. A day later we forget about them and life goes on.
That’s where Hug Me comes in. It is an outreach effort of concerned citizens. Not doctors. Not government workers. Just regular people, who happen to care about the health and safety of our children and our communities. It’s not that the health department isn’t involved, but there’s only so much they can do. There’s a limit to their perceived trustworthiness.
That said, I’m working with them. They need me. I need them.
OMFSM! Oh how I wish I had known about this beforehand. I would have put something up on my local skeptic meetup and done…something. GRRR. Missed an opportunity for Epic Awesome. Next time Mr. Wakefield… There will be sandwich boards!