Alright – so, Two time Oscar winner Robert De Niro who has an 18 year old son with autism pulled a movie directed by Dr. Andrew Wakefield from his prestigious film festival after he received the usual criticism from big government agencies, big pharma companies and all of their media friends. Vaxxed – from cover up to catastrophe is a documentary film that sort of linked vaccines to autism. It talks about Dr. William Thompson, the so called CDC whistleblower who never really came out to blow anything, prove or disprove anything.
I personally like Dr. Wakefield. I think he is charming, cute (oh please – take your mind out of the gutter), and really cares about kids with autism and their families. I also like and respect many of the CDC researchers that Dr. Thompson is talking about. I honestly don’t believe Dr. Thompson especially when he says CDC hid data that stated African American boys were more likely to get autism when vaccinated. There is no way in hell that Dr. Allsopp nor Dr. Boyle and I know both of them personally and respect more than words can express would ever allow such deceit. In fact, the study done here in Minnesota – the rate of autism in African American (non Somali) children was much lower than Caucasian and Somali kids. Plus, if this guy has any guts then he needs to come out and explain what the heck he means instead of hiding behind CDC walls and the statement posted in his lawyer’s site.
Nevertheless, something is causing autism rate to keep going higher every year and we can’t just say “well we know it is not the vaccines, we don’t know what else it is and we are not going to look at anything else”. For example, Somali American families are extremely hesitant to vaccinate their children fear of autism. I recently asked a new father why he didn’t vaccinate his new son and he said “unless someone can tell me what causes this life long disability that so many families in our community are struggling with, I am not going to take any chances”. I then asked what do you think will ease your mind and he replied “the state health department needs to do research that looks into why our kids are getting autism higher, why it is silencing our kids and why autism is so severe in our community”. I could not have said it better.
You see the problem is not that our community does not trust CDC or facts, it is that we don’t trust the Dayton Administration’s health department. Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) has not allocated one iota or one dollar looking into causes of autism. All they do is preach the same message which no one seems to be buying. If you remember when Dayton was campaigning in our community, he kept saying his administration would look into autism. Well – add that to many of his campaign lies. MDH has zero desire to help our kids or our community. Autism is not a joke, it is tiring, exhausting, emotionally and physically draining and my advice to anyone having children would be to tell MDH to take a flying leap.
In other words, listening is a two way street. Why should we listen to them when they clearly don’t listen or care about our children’s health. Governor Dayton, shame on you for using lying words to get votes and Commissioner Ehlinger – shame on you for being a children’s doctor that does not care about children’s health.
Above words do not reflect any agency, committee or candidate.
Idil – Somali Autism Mom & Minority Advocate.