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Our View: Sowing fear where truth is needed

As the measles outbreak in Minnesota continued over the weekend, with 32 cases reported as of Sunday morning, concerned parents, most of them in the Minneapolis Somali community that has been hardest hit were told to be afraid of the measles vaccine. Vaccination skeptic Mark Blaxill told a crowd at the Safari Restaurant in Minneapolis that he believes the MMR (Measles, Mumps, Rubella) vaccine causes autism, that the government lied in a 2004 study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about the lack of a link between autism and vaccinations, and that medical authorities are exaggerating the dangers of measles, anyway.

Pediatricians and health officials at the meeting tried to push back against the misinformation, but we have no doubt that concerned, confused parents will opt for caution and try to “protect” their children by refusing immunizations and exposing them to the possibility of contracting serious diseases that are entirely preventable.

The anecdotal evidence is shaky but compelling. “My child was vaccinated, and six months later was diagnosed with autism,” someone says. People will believe that story rather than the extensive, expensive scientific surveys that have failed time and again to find any link between autism and vaccinations.

This is a situation that calls for truth, not fearmongering. And the state should tighten its regulations on immunizations that allow too many parents to “opt out” for no good reason.

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