This article at Mic Daily makes it sound like it is all about a fear that vaccines cause autism in vaccinated children. However not mentioned is the Islamic prohibition on the use of vaccines.
Here is the story at Mic Network Inc. Golly gee, why can’t we get our message heard, say health officials.
Minnesota’s Hennepin County is in the midst of the state’s largest measles outbreak since 2011. Nine cases have been reported since last week, and officials expect the number to rise.
So far, all of the cases are among unvaccinated children. They have something else in common too: The affected children are all part of Minneapolis and St. Paul’s Somali-American community. According to a health department official, Minnesota’s Somali immigrant community has been a particular target of the anti-vaccination movement, colloquially known as “anti-vaxxers.”
“They’re very much engaged with and targeting this community,” Kris Ehresmann, infectious disease division director at the Minnesota Health Department, said in a phone call Wednesday.
According to Ehresmann, anti-vaccine groups began to target the Somali community around 2008, amid concerns about autism among Somali-American children. Anti-vaccine groups started reaching out to the Somali community and showing up at community health meetings, she said, disseminating misinformation linking autism to the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, or MMR.
Since then, the population has seen a “steady decline in MMR vaccine rates.”
[….]
She [Dr. Diane Madlon-Kay, a practicing physician who has studied the low vaccine rates among Minnesota’s Somali community] and other doctors who serve that population have had little luck dispelling myths about autism and vaccines that travel quickly though the community via word-of-mouth, she said.
“We don’t seem to be making any headway with that at all,” Madlon-Kay said.
Despite countless studies indicating there’s no connection between vaccines and autism, Madlon-Kay doesn’t have much hope that science will change the minds of scared parents within the Somali community anytime soon.
Continue reading here.
What about Islam?
Not a word in the story about Islam and vaccines which is likely the bigger reason why health officials can’t educate the Somalis. In only a few minutes search, here is one of many articles about “religious” prohibitions in Islam.
Islam and Medical Science Must Oppose Vaccination
The case against vaccination is first an Islamic one, based on Islamic ethos regarding the perfection of the natural human body’s immune defence system, empowered by great and prophetic guidance to avoid most infections. The case against vaccination is also a medical and health-related one. Incredible evidence, unbeknownst to most, has emerged in the West regarding the many serious health hazards that affect those who have been vaccinated.
For inquisitive minds, we have hundreds of articles about refugees and health issues (including mental health issues) in our ‘Health Issues’ category, here. Measles is not the worst illness you will find there.