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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   19126 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026

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Gaines County

Mennonites

Mohave County

Fundamentalist Mormons

Spartanburg County

Slavic-language church

centered around political strongholds for the vaccine-skeptical party and away from population centers, is due to some other factor

Come on, man. You should know better than this. At least do the 30-second google research instead of jumping to the convenient correlation. I recall you being not so far away from this field professionally, and I've spent some time at the coalface on this, and when it comes to outbreaks of easily-avoidable communicable disease it's pretty much always oddball religious sects or low-trust immigrant communities or, in the latter case, apparently both. I'm totally happy to make the argument that "a nearly 100x increase in measles cases, centered around political strongholds for the vaccine-skeptical party and away from population centers, is due to some other factor", because it's right.

Feel free to cite this post smugly in a couple years if the possible trend continues and normie republicans do get memed into antivaxxing below herd immunity, or just down to the level of granola moms that have caused minor outbreaks in the past. Until then,

Minnesota has low vaccination rates, due to - uh, the Somali community and fears about vaccination there? Gosh, who knew there was a secret nest of Trump voters in that community!

In 2006, 92% of Somali 2-year-olds were up-to-date on the measles vaccine, according to the Minnesota Department of Health. Today's rate is closer to 24%, according to state data. A 95% rate is needed to prevent outbreaks of measles, an extremely contagious disease.

...Estimated autism rates in Somali 4-year-olds are 3.5 times higher than those of white 4-year-olds in Minnesota, according to University of Minnesota data. Researchers say they don’t know why. And in this vacuum of scientific certainty, inaccurate beliefs thrive.

Many blame the measles, mumps and rubella shot — a single injection proven to safely protect against the three viruses, with the first dose recommended when children are 12 to 15 months old.

In November, at one of Maalimisaq’s last Motherhood Circle gatherings, Somali mothers and grandmothers volleyed questions at facilitators. Won’t a shot for three viruses overwhelm a baby? Why does autism seem more prevalent here than back home?

...Most parents here vaccinate their children eventually. Many Somali families prefer to wait until a child is 5, despite a lack of evidence that doing so cuts autism rates. Measles is endemic in Somalia, where war and international aid cuts have crippled the medical system, and elsewhere in East Africa where residents here often travel.

“Measles is just a plane ride away, and measles is going to find the unvaccinated,” said Carly Edson, the state health department’s immunization outreach coordinator. “We are always at risk.”

Oh, look. The reason is not correlated with voting for Trump. Impeccably Blue and vaccinated California has outbreaks, one traced to someone who visited Texas and picked up a case from the outbreak there, plus exposure traced to international travellers (one of whom visited Disneyland).

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