We Must Stand Up and Be Counted: Saving HB 393

We are in danger of seeing a commonsense change in Minnesota's immunization law go down without a fight, thanks to the anti-vaccine movement's attempts to derail it. HB 393 would add an education component to our existing personal belief exemption.

Though they present themselves to the legislators as champions of parental rights and "informed consent" these individuals do not want vaccine requirements of any kind on the books in Minnesota, or in any state. They have deluged the representatives with e-mails, and several representatives now believe their point of view represents that of parents and have "concerns" about the bill. Those of us who vaccinate--a whopping 9 out of 10--have stayed silent. We have let, and even after the measles outbreak, are continuing to allow the anti-vaccine fringe to speak for us. This must change. You may contact the following Minnesota legislators to ask them to holding a hearing on HB 393. Even if you live out of state, please consider e-mailing the representatives--the anti-vaccine movement has done so, with great success. Below you will find my letter and the names and e-mail addresses of the representatives who need to hear from you.

Rep. Tara Mack (chair): rep.tara.mack@house.mn
Rep. Roz Peterson (co-chair): rep.roz.peterson@house.mn
Rep. Jeff Backer: rep.jeff.backer@house.mn
Rep. Dave Baker: rep.dave.baker@house.mn
Rep. Matt Dean: rep.matt.dean@house.mn
Rep. Duane Quam: rep.duane.quam@house.mn
Rep. Joe Schomacker: rep.joe.schomacker@house.mn


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Dear Representative X,

I am the parent of two young children who is writing to you today to urge you to give HB 393 a hearing in committee. I am part of the “silent majority” of parents who vaccinate their children on time, every time—and do so as a commonsense part of our family’s healthcare. In fact, well over 90% of us choose to vaccinate—that is 9 out of 10 parents who believe that vaccines are a valuable, in fact, essential tool to keeping our children and communities healthy. The reason we’ve been silent is because few of us ever imagined that we’d have to advocate for disease-free schools.

Like many new parents, I researched vaccines online before my children received their immunizations, and I was scared to my core by the “horror stories” I read about. At the time, I took these anecdotes at face value, a fact made even more embarrassing by the fact that I was an environmental investigative journalist for much of my twenties. In fact, I was being sold a bill of goods by individuals who have made it their aim to sow fear and doubt in the minds of parents in order to protect their own ability to keep their unvaccinated children in the schools and day cares with absolutely no trade-off whatsoever.

The measles outbreak of 2015 was, of course, an inevitable result of this fear and doubt spread by the anti-vaccine movement, which cleverly refers to its mission as “vaccine choice” or “parental choice,” or even “informed consent.” As a parent, it seems their choice to keep their children unvaccinated and at a higher risk of disease trumps my right to keep my own children safe from disease. In fact, their choices affected my own healthcare choices: During the measles outbreak of 2011, caused by unvaccinated children, I had to get my two-year-old toddler her MMR booster a full two years early. As a loving parent, I had no choice. The choice was made for me by the parents who did not vaccinate their children and yet were able to keep them in the schools and day cares of Minneapolis.

HB 393 is a bare-bones, commonsense change in the law that simply requires more education before a parent can simply choose not to vaccinate. It preserves a parent’s choice to refuse vaccines while giving parents who are simply hesitant—as I was—or who need more information the safety net of a meeting with a caring doctor. Those who don’t want to vaccinate, do not have to vaccinate. It’s curious that anti-vaccine activists, under the cloak of “parental choice,” could oppose a bill that preserves that choice. The truth is, this movement wants no laws on the books that require vaccines.

Of course, the bill does not address my concerns about leaving my children and the other children in my life whom I love in a school setting with unvaccinated children. But it’s a start. Not giving it a hearing would be elevating the vocal minority that is mischaracterizing this discussion as an attack on “parental rights” while denigrating the more than 90% of us who vaccinate, and disregarding the rights of infants, the children going through chemo, and other vulnerable people in our community.

I wish those of us who vaccinate were more vocal—we are well aware that the small anti-vaccine community has mobilized and enlisted people across the country to e-mail you and your colleagues with their objections. However, those of us who vaccinate our children face a dilemma—to us, vaccinating our children is one of the most important healthcare decisions we make, but it’s also so commonsense that we never thought we’d have to join a movement called the “pro-vaccine” movement. Please don’t mistake the many emails you’re getting from anti-vaccine voices for the true feelings of parents across this state. Our statistics speak for themselves.

Thank you,

Ashley Shelby 

Anti-Vax Parents vs. Pro-Vax Parents in Minnesota

The Minnesota Department of Health has proposed changes to current state immunization rules. These changes would merely bring Minnesota Immunization Rules into line with current CDC immunization recommendations. Predictably, anti-vaccine parents have protested these changes, which, in fact, do not affect them in any way, since the changes do not touch the philosophical exemption clause (much to my disappointment). There will be a hearing on these changes on June 27th, 2013, because more than twenty-five people asked for one. Chances are the people who asked for this hearing are anti-vaccine voices. And, as is unfortunately routine, those proposing these much-needed changes to immunization law, are hearing almost solely from anti-vaccine voices. Here is an opportunity for pro-vaccine parents to step forward and speak up in favor of vaccines. If you are a Minnesota parent, please write a letter of support regarding these rule changes. And please attend the hearing on June 27th, 2013, at 9:30 am to make your voice heard. 

Below is my letter.

To Whom it May Concern:

I am a Minnesota parent who is fully in support of the Minnesota Department of Health's proposed new immunization rules strengthening Minnesota immunization statutes and bringing them in line with current CDC recommendations. In the past three years, we have seen measles outbreaks in Hennepin County due to undervaccination, as well as one of the highest pertussis rates in the country. As a parent, I find this abominable. The economic cost of these outbreaks is substantial; the human cost is infinitely higher. And these outbreaks are preventable, if parents would vaccinate their children on schedule. 

I am also angry that my fully vaccinated children attend school with children whose parents have chosen not to protect their own offspring with vaccines, and therefore put their immuno-compromised classmates, and the infant siblings of others, at risk of contracting vaccine-preventable disease. There are so few obstacles to anti-vaccine parents and they bear no burden by not vaccinating. That burden is borne by the members of the community, including other children. I find that deeply unfair.

These proposed changes are reasonable and much-needed. I wish they would go further, and make it at least as difficult to opt-out of vaccines as it is to actually keep you kids on the CDC-recommended immunization schedule. I look forward to sharing my thoughts on this matter on June 27th.
Ashley Shelby

Anti-Vaxxers and Somali Immigrants: Biography of a Measles Outbreak

When I told my husband about the measles outbreak in the Minnesota Somali community, he was rendered speechless. As an immigrant himself—he immigrated to this country from Peru with his family when he was eleven—he found the idea of immigrants, especially from developing nations, refusing vaccinations straining his credulity. In Peru, and certainly in other developing nations, preventable diseases run rampant because of a scarcity of vaccines. Measles is widespread in Africa, including Kenya, from where the Somali infant believed to be the source of the current outbreak had just returned after a trip. Polio is still extant in Asia, including India. Seeing these horrors first-hand, and wanting vaccines for their children but being unable to get them, made vaccines a no-brainer when my husband’s family came to the United States.

“Immigrants are the first ones in line at immunization clinics,” my husband said. “I just don’t understand why this immigrant community would be anti-vaxxers.”

I know.

The Somali communities in both Minnesota and Sweden, which are roughly on the same latitude lines (this comes into play later), have been suffering what seems like higher than normal occurrences of autism in their children. Faced with a terrifying illness with no easy answers, Somali immigrants have often been understandably frightened and looking for reasons why their children have changed so dramatically. Autism rates in Somali are so low as to be considered non-existent. There must be something happening in this new country that is causing this dread disease.

Anti-vaxxers saw an in. Typically unconcerned with lower-income immigrant populations, they saw this cluster of fear as an opportunity to advance their misinformation campaign. Generation Rescue, in particular, made it their mission to begin “educating” Minnesota Somalis about the non-existent links between autism and vaccines. Patti Carroll, a mother living in Shoreview, Minnesota, and a Generation Rescue volunteer, took it upon herself to “advocate” for Somali parents who were parents of autistic children and didn’t want to vaccinate their other children because of the fear of vaccines. She attended a community meeting, that was also attended by representatives from the Minnesota Department of Health and, as she writes, “My suspicions were confirmed: the Department of Health was planning to assure the Somali parents that there was no connection between vaccines and autism.” Incidentally, here is a link to her article: http://www.autismone.org/content/minnesota-department-health-closing-door-truth-somali-children-autism-patti-carroll.


She subsequently was part of an effort to get copies of the film Autism Yesterday—Autism is Reversable, a 26-minute “documentary” that advances claims that autism is reversible and “preventable," subtitled in the Somali language and circulated in other “Somali settlements.”

            In 2009, the New York Times focused on Generation Rescue’s attempt to terrify Somali parents into not vaccinating their children, and to be suspicious of medical authorities, and even their own pediatricians. JB Handley of the organization actually told Somali parents, point-blank, that their children’s autism was caused by vaccines. From the New York Times, 

[Handley] warned them not to trust the state health department and suggested they slow down their children’s shots and get exemptions to school vaccination requirements. He also offered to pay for some to attend an antivaccine conference.

It is no wonder that vaccination rates among Minnesota Somalis have fallen to 30%. Yes. You read that right. 70% of Somali children are unvaccinated. And a large number of these children return regularly to the African continent, where communicable, vaccine-preventable diseases are commonplace. Generation Rescue, and anti-vaxxers caught up in the Somali question, have used these desperate parents as pawns in their despicable misinformation campaign. And it won’ t be long before these Somali families are not only coping with autism, but with children disabled, or killed, by preventable diseases. The anti-vax campaign has been so successful that last December, Andrew Wakefield was invited by the Somali community to speak on autism and vaccines. 


The blame for this will fall squarely on the shoulders of anti-vaccine advocates who gunned for this vulnerable population. Somalis are a vulnerable population because they are new immigrants, many of them don't speak the language, and precious few of us in Minnesota speak theirs, and they are suddenly faced with a strange new disease that seems to be affecting a large number of children in their community. Doctors, correctly, can give them no definitive answers. People from organizations like Generation Rescue tell these parents that they do have definitive answers--vaccines cause autism. And when these unvaccinated children begin developing autism at the same rate as the vaccinated population, I wonder what their answer will be then. We can no longer afford to sit by and watch this unfold. We must step forward as vaccinating parents and make our voices heard.

Incidentally, one of the more interesting theories about the cluster of autism cases in both Minnesota and Sweden has to do with Vitamin D deficiency. Individuals with darker skin require more Vitamin D, and with the sun too far from the earth in both Sweden and Minnesota during the winter months, even pale-skinned folks like me suffer from Vitamin D deficiency. But I’ll get into that in another post.

For now, we must begin try to repair the damage done by the anti-vax campaign in the Somali community.