Some days exhaust our sense of irony, as deep and broad as it may or may not be. On Monday, when Minneapolis state representative Ilhan Omar spoke passionately on behalf of a bill to increase immunization rates in communities afflicted by an outbreak of measles, we were researching the upcoming appearance in Minnesota by British author, newspaper columnist and notorious anti-vax apologist Melanie Phillips.
As a well-sourced Wikipedia article notes:
Melanie Phillips supported Dr Andrew Wakefield, whose fraudulent work triggered the MMR vaccine controversy and led to his being struck off the medical register. Through numerous articles in the Daily Mail and The Spectator, Phillips championed Wakefield's claims while casting doubt on their rebuttal by scientists, doctors and politicians.[37][38] Her attacks on MMR attracted criticism from scientists and science writers,[37][39][40] yet Phillips continued to support Wakefield even after his research methods and motives began to attract serious scrutiny and criticism: "While Mr Wakefield is being subjected to a witch-hunt, and while the parents of the affected children are scandalously denied legal aid to pursue the court case which may well have finally brought to light the truth about MMR, those powerful people in the medical establishment are continuing to misrepresent the evidence."[41]
In May 2010, Andrew Wakefield was struck off the Medical Register for "serious professional misconduct", and is currently barred from practising medicine in the UK.[42] Phillips's support of Wakefield's "findings" and her campaign against the MMR vaccine has been both widely noted,[43][44] and credited for significantly undermining public trust in vaccines.[43]
Melanie is visiting Maplewood
The topic for Phillips' appearance at the Josiah Center in Maplewood hasn't been announced, but it's being touted by the very folks using the outbreak of measles in Somali communities to damn refugee resettlement. Phillips' May 10 appearance is listed on The Call to The Wall's Minnesota & National Kingdom Events & Calendar.
Reader may remember our exploration of The Call to the Wall, the New Apostolic Reformation and "Seven Mountains" theology from our 2012 post, The peculiar tale of Minnesota's voter restriction amendment & the New Apostolic Reformation.
But it's not just the Gopher State's dominionists who are hot for Phillips' visit. Debra Anderson, Minneapolis-based Act! for America Minnesota Coordinator, shared a Facebook tease on April 27 about the upcoming event:
Payments to terrorists and/or their families ... and so much more. Melanie Phillips will be coming to MN in May. Watch for the announcement. Thank you.
Here's the screengrab:
Anderson's pretty upset about the measles outbreak, repeatedly sharing on her Facebook page a World Nutter Daily (WND) post that blames the measles outbreak on the Koran (here, here, here and here). A screenshot of one share:
Talk about having your hate and eating it, too. Bluestem recommends Tums for that churning stomach.
Meanwhile, Phillips' fellow travelers are misinforming Minnesota's Somali community about the long-discredited link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Erin Adler reports in Speaker says vaccines and autism may be linked, a view denied by public health officials:
A national speaker who believes there are links between vaccines and autism told a group of Somali-American parents Sunday night that they should choose whether to vaccinate their children by weighing risks and benefits. He also said the government has lied in its previous vaccine research and that the danger of measles is overstated. . . .
Others in the audience forcefully disputed the idea that vaccination causes autism, including a group of pediatricians.
Dr. Sheldon Berkowitz, who works at a Minneapolis clinic that treats many Somali-American patients, said Blaxill minimized the seriousness of measles.
“They’re our families,” said Paula Mackey, who works at the same clinic. “[Somali parents] are just trying to do what is right for their children, and this misinformation is hurting them.”
Attendees Sunday night had varied opinions about vaccines and autism, despite the fact that any link has been thoroughly discredited by the scientific community.
Like Phillips, Mark Blaxill defends Wakefield and his discredited theories. But for the likes of Kern and Anderson, and their anti-Muslim crusade, there's apparently no cognitive dissonance in touting anti-vax speakers while damning those who don't vaccine--if the latter are Muslims.
Given this atmosphere, Omar deserves praise for her leadership in working to address the need for vaccination education in Somali-Minnesotan communities. Let's hope that Republican leadership follows up on this as Golden reported:
Omar's attempt to suspend the rules and take a vote on her plan failed in a 59-73 vote. Lawmakers who opposed Omar's proposal [to suspend the rules] said they were willing to consider it [the bill] as a part of broader debates over budget bills in the final three weeks of the legislative session.
Phillips also promotes the War on Drugs and climate change denial; Stonewall awarded her the Bigot of the Year Award in 2011.
UPDATE: Melanie Phillips left the following remarks in the comment section:
This item is false and misrepresents what I wrote about MMR. I am not "anti-vax" at all. I support children being vaccinated against disease. I concluded merely that there were unanswered questions about the MMR vaccine and that Wakefield was the subject of a witch-hunt. In any event, I shall not be talking about vaccinations or any other aspect of health care. [end update]
Screengrab at top: Phillips, who was born in 1951, illustrated the announcement of her American speaking tour with Pre-Raphaelite wannabe John William Waterhouse's painting of Miranda, as the Shakespeare heroine watches the tempest created by her father destroy the ship that will bring Ferdinand, son of the King of Naples, to her. It's an odd choice, though perhaps Phillips was thinking of speculation about Western Hemisphere origins of the name of Shakespeare's anti-hero in The Tempest.
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This item is false and misrepresents what I wrote about MMR. I am not "anti-vax" at all. I support children being vaccinated against disease. I concluded merely that there were unanswered questions about the MMR vaccine and that Wakefield was the subject of a witch-hunt. In any event, I shall not be talking about vaccinations or any other aspect of health care.
Posted by: Melanie Phillips | May 02, 2017 at 04:09 PM