Children of Somali immigrants in the Twin Cities appear to have a higher than normal rate of what appears to be autism.
I use “appear” twice because:
• Autism is still not clearly defined and overlaps with symptom definitions such as Pervasive Development Disorder, which is itself not a disease or syndrome;
• We don’t know what causes autism — adding that to not clearly knowing what autism is only compounds the issue;
• It’s not clear if the “spike” in Minneapolis-St. Paul is statistically significant or not.
None of these highly relevant facts, though, has prevented leaders of the anti-vaccination conspiracy crusade to scare Somalis into believing vaccines cause autism. As the story notes, this is compounded by the fact Somalia has a very high measles rate and many of the immigrants, children in tow, go back there from time to time.
Read the full sttory for more information.
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