The Anti-Vaccination Movement Is Working with the Nation of Islam to Scare Black Families.
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The Anti-Vaccination Movement Is Working with the Nation of Islam to Scare Black Families
http://jezebel.com/the-anti-vaccination-movement-is-working-with-the-natio-1796021231
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The Anti-Vaccination Movement Is Working with the Nation of Islam to Scare Black Families.
Anna Merlan
Today 10:10am Filed to: ANTI-VACCINATION MOVEMENT
It was October 2015, and a crowd of thousands were gathered on Washington D.C.’s National Mall, where Minister Tony Muhammad of the Nation of Islam claimed to be uncovering a conspiracy. In front of a throng gathered for the anniversary of the Million Man March, he accused the federal government of systematically poisoning black and Latinx children.
“It has been brought to our attention,” he thundered, “that the senior lead scientist for the Center for Disease Control has admitted that the MMR vaccines and many of the vaccine shots have been genetically modified to attack black and Latino boys.”
He paused for effect.
“I don’t think you heard me,” he told his audience. “We are living in a wicked time, where we’re dealing with a spiritual wickedness in high places!”
Muhammad likened vaccinations to Pharaoh killing the sons of the children of Israel. “Now they’re trying to force vaccines on baby boys—at least 80 shots before they’re three years old.” He urged his audience of thousands to march on the CDC in Atlanta. “We’re going to say, ‘Not another Tuskegee on our watch!’” he roared. “We’ll be damned if we’re going to sit around and let someone else pump us up full of viruses!”
There’s no evidence whatsoever that the CDC is systematically poisoning black and Latino boys. It’s no mystery where Muhammad got that sentiment. He heard it, he told the crowd, from the scion of one of the most influential political families in American history: the famous environmental activist and vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
In the summer of 2015, Kennedy enlisted the help of the Nation of Islam, a black separatist organization, in his years-long campaign to convince Americans that vaccines cause autism. According to several reports, Kennedy wanted to encourage black families to consider not vaccinating their children, based on a debunked claim that a mercury-based preservative in vaccines causes autism. At the time, Kennedy was trying to stop SB 277, a California bill which eliminated a personal-belief exemption that some parents had used to avoid vaccinating their kids. In April, in promoting an anti-vaccine movie called Trace Amounts, Kennedy referred to vaccine injuries as “a holocaust.”
Kennedy and the Nation of Islam didn’t succeed in opposing SB 277, but the relationship between the Nation of Islam and anti-vaccine groups has only grown. It’s one of the strangest political alliances in America—and one that, if it’s effective, could have serious public health consequences.
This is an exciting time for the American anti-vaccine movement: Before taking office, the president repeatedly tweeted that vaccines cause autism. (There’s an enormous body of evidence proving that’s not true, including a 2014 meta-analysis that looked at studies involving over one million children.) The lead proponent of that claim is Andrew Wakefield, the former gastroenterologist who was the lead author on a 1998 study linking the MMR vaccine and autism. During the election, Wakefield reportedly claimed to have met privately with Trump and then endorsed him, although he’s British and was unable to vote in the U.S. While we don’t have confirmation that meeting took place, Wakefield did attend an inaugural ball held in Trump’s honor, in January.
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