We've been asleep at the wheel on a story about the influence of anti-vaxxers in Minnesota's Republican party.
Torey Van Oot tweeted on February 12:
Outgoing treasurer to be replaced by Mark Blaxill, who was confirmed by party exec board: pic.twitter.com/WPFsF1nTyx
— Torey Van Oot (@toreyvanoot) February 12, 2021
Star Tribune editorial board writer Jill Burcum pointed out in a tweet on Friday:
Further evidence of how entrenched vaccine conspiracy theorists are: Anti-vax author Mark Blaxill is the Minnesota Republican party's new treasurer. https://t.co/zkBQr9R4Be https://t.co/Hh5oqP0BUr
— jburcum (@jburcum) February 19, 2021
To read critiques of Blaxill's scribblings, start with this search of his name at Scienceblogs.
This isn't the first incident of an anti-vaxxer raising money for the MNGOP. In January 2018, we posted Anti-vaxxer moneypot Jennifer Larson is Republican Party of Minnesota finance chair. Worth noting that Blaxill makes guest appearances in many of our posts about Larson or other anti-vaxxers, example Notorious anti-vax apologist Melanie Phillips to speak about something in Maplewood on May 10 .
We'd posted on February 3 in MN23B special: Anti-vax Canary Party's Jennifer Larson contributed $1000 to Jeremy Munson:
Larson is also a co-founder of the Vaccine Safety Council of Minnesota, which is gearing up for the Minnesota legislative session, according to its Facebook page. It's holding a briefing for legislators only on February 7:
Minnesota citizens, we need YOUR help!
We are hosting a legislative briefing to share your concerns of health freedom and Informed Consent with our legislators so they will be prepared going into the 2018 session.
They are not in session YET so can you all please via Facebook, twitter, Ig, Snapchat, email, snail mail and/or phone personally invite your legislators? Let them know you appreciate their service and as your representative you are asking they attend on your behalf because the issue is so important to your family. Say as much as you like about why and that you look forward to being available to answer any questions the may have afterwards. The more invitations and calls, the better!
****This briefing is LEGISLATORS ONLY. Admittance will be monitored and limited to them only. This is a safe space for them to listen and discuss with no pressure from the media or an audience.**This final item caught the attention of political news reporter J. Patrick Coolican, who posted about it in the Star Tribune's Morning Hot Dish earlier this week.
In Saturday's edition, the Star Tribune's editorial board wrote in Fringe anti-vaccine groups peddle misinformation to Minnesota legislators:
Less than six months after the official end of the Minnesota measles outbreak, a group notorious for spreading childhood vaccine misinformation is holding a secretive reception in Minneapolis to convince state legislators to sign onto its dangerous agenda.
Exactly what policy changes the Vaccine Safety Council of Minnesota is seeking during the 2018 session is unclear. The invitation for hors d'oeuvres at the Minneapolis Club clearly states that the event is for lawmakers only. A spokeswoman for the reception said the media is not welcome.
The "council," which led an anti-vaccination event during last year's measles outbreak, did not respond to an editorial writer's other questions, such as who is paying for the reception? And is there legislation already drafted for the 2018 session for which reception sponsors are seeking support? Apparently, those seeking critical public health policy changes in Minnesota don't want Minnesotans to know what they're up to.
Shame on any lawmaker who shows up or signs on. The 2017 measles outbreak sickened 79 people between April 11 and Aug. 25, when state health officials declared the outbreak over. Chillingly, 73 cases involved children under 10, and 71 had not been vaccinated.
Lawmakers should be focused on preventing another outbreak. A sensible policy response: ensuring that more Minnesota children get the widely available, generally inexpensive shots to protect them from measles and other diseases. To do that, lawmakers should tighten the state's lax vaccine-exemption laws.
Compared to other states, parents here are currently given broad personal discretion to opt out of required school-aged immunizations. That's a problem when anti-vaccination propaganda proliferates online and groups such as the vaccine council are so active in Minnesota. Last year's outbreak hit the state's Somali-American community hard — a group that has been targeted by anti-vaccine groups, which continue to spread the scientifically debunked falsehood that the shots cause autism. . . .
In the Facebook screengrab above, state representative dogwhistles a debunked conspiracy theory about vaccines and Bill Gates. Her prompt? A story about vaccinations cards, a document long issued after receiving a vaccine. Back when I walked to school uphill both ways in howling blizzards, my parents received records of my smallpox and polio vaccinations.
The December 3 CNN article reported:
"Everyone will be issued a written card that they can put in their wallet that will tell them what they had and when their next dose is due," Moore said. "Let's do the simple, easy thing first. Everyone's going to get that."
Friends are posting their cards on social media, where comments are overwhelmingly cheerful. Lots of them are Apple users, so Bill Gates can't be that happy.
In December 2020, we noted in Small town MN freedom fighting restaurateur's anti-vaxx pals make us pause about her savvy:
. . .we find ourselves just as concerned by McFarquhar's views about vaccination. One of the signature triumphs of the waning days of the Trump administration is the approval and distribution of vaccines to quell the killer corona, though corners of MAGA world sow fear of the remedy.
In late October, McFarquhar attended the 2020 Vaccine Awareness Event - Minnesota in Alexandria, where (judging from her Facebook page photos) she hob-knobbed with some of the stars of the anti-vaxxer world, described on the gathering's Eventbrite page:
This will truly be a once in a lifetime educational event to hear these amazing speakers speak on vaccine awareness and our health freedoms!About this EventJoin us for our Fall 2020 event on Saturday October 24th 9am-5pm as we welcome Del Bigtree, Dr. Bob Zajac, Shelia Ealey, Leah Wilson, Dr. Joel Bohemier, Senator Scott Jensen and Andrew Wakefield! This will truly be a once in a lifetime educational event to hear these amazing speakers present on vaccine awareness and our health freedoms! We anticipate this event will sell out so grab your tickets now!
Andrew Wakefield? The Guardian reported in 2018's How disgraced anti-vaxxer Andrew Wakefield was embraced by Trump's America:
There cannot be many doctors as thoroughly discredited and ostracised as Andrew Wakefield has been in the UK who are subsequently seen smiling at the inauguration ball of a US president and later discovered to be dating the Australian model Elle Macpherson.
But there he is. Wakefield was all but drummed out of Britain. The gastroenterologist lost his job, had his scientific paper linking the MMR vaccine and autism retracted by medical journal the Lancet and, in 2010, was struck off the medical register. He disappeared to the US and it was assumed he had gone to ground, having lost all credibility. He was a spent force, even though his name was often in the air as the anti-MMR views he seeded around the world led to many parents shunning the vaccine and outbreaks of measles wherever anyone had heard Wakefield’s creed. . . .
We posted a couple of selfies of McFarquhar and world-class anti-vaxxers, then this:
At the top of the post, we shared her photo with Alexandria Republican state representative Mary Franson, a leader long seduced by the forces of ego and anti-science. Franson was at the very least passing though the neighborhood.
Nope, we wouldn't be turning to McFarquhar for COVID-19 advice given the medical experts she consults.
It's worth noting that COVID-denier darling former Minnesota state senator Scott Jensen was a speaker at the event. No surprise; we'd posted Minnesota, kiss your herd immunity good-bye: Senator Scott Jensen cuddles up to anti-vaxxers.We're only surprised the Facebook page celebrating the gathering was deleted.
In February 2020, Ricardo Lopez reported for the Minnesota Reformer in Anti-vaccine movement finding allies among Minnesota GOP lawmakers:
The small but vocal group of parents propagating fringe views about the safety and effectiveness of childhood immunizations have found unlikely allies — Minnesota lawmakers.
Through personal and official Republican Senate media channels on Facebook, as well as appearances at an anti-vaccination rally last year at the Capitol, more than a dozen state legislators in the House and Senate have lent the support of their elected offices to groups that medical professionals say are sowing disinformation about vaccinations. Other Minnesota lawmakers made appearances at a February 2019 event featuring vocal anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the Minneapolis Club.
The Minnesota lawmakers include state Sen. Jim Abeler, R-Anoka, chair of the Senate Human Services Reform Finance and Policy committee, who formed the Minnesota Autism Council, an advisory panel. His decision to appoint two vaccine skeptics touched off criticism, given the 2017 measles outbreak in Minnesota, which was attributed to the work of anti-vaxxers spreading disinformation among the Somali community. . . .
State Sen. Mary Kiffmeyer, R-Big Lake, shared an article on her own Facebook page headlined: “Kenyan Doctors say UNICEF is Making Women Barren Through Polio Vaccine.” Such doubts about the polio vaccine have helped fuel the resurgence of polio in countries like Pakistan. . . .
Minnesota Reformer reached out to 14 lawmakers, including Abeler, Jensen and Kiffmeyer, seeking comment on their positions. None returned messages left for comment. They are:
State Sens. Bruce Anderson, R-Buffalo Township; Justin Eichorn, R-Grand Rapids; Dan Hall, R-Burnsville; Mark Johnson, R-East Grand Forks; Andrew Matthews, R-Princeton; Eric Pratt, R-Prior Lake; Greg Boe, R-Chaska; and, state Reps.Mary Franson, R-Alexandria; Tony Jurgens, R-Cottage Grove; Eric Lucero, R-Dayton; Jeremy Munson, R-Lake Crystal; and, Marion O’Neill, R-Maple Lake.
“We live in an era where some politicians embrace untrue information and use that as the basis of their decision-making,” said Dr. Mark Schleiss, of the division of pediatric infectious diseases and immunology at the University of Minnesota Medical School. “They can believe whatever they want and support any legislation they want, but ultimately it’s up to the voter if that’s who they want representing them in a legislative body.”
Abeler was just one of eight state senators who expressed skepticism about vaccines in opposing Senate File 1520, a bill drafted by DFL state Sen. Chris Eaton, a Brooklyn Park nurse. The bill would have mandated vaccines for all school-aged children.
Abeler later said in a Reformer interview after this article first published that parents should be allowed to have “informed consent,” and he said parents who are skeptical of vaccines are being impugned.
“Most of the people who have concerns about vaccines never thought twice about it until their own child got damaged or their friend was injured by a vaccine,” Abeler said. “It turns out they’re not nearly as safe as they’re told, and they’re not even as effective as they’re told.”
Abeler’s claims are wrong, according to vaccine experts and scientific consensus that vaccines are safe and effective. Anti-vaccination groups continue spreading similarly debunked information that have caused immunization rates to fall in some pockets of the state. The World Health Organization estimates that at least 10 million deaths were prevented between 2010 and 2015 worldwide thanks to vaccinations.
Although Eaton’s bill did not receive a hearing nor win any House co-sponsors, it attracted vocal opposition, including demonstrators who rallied at the Capitol and contacted her office stating their opposition. Eaton said her bill is again unlikely to receive a hearing in the GOP-controlled Senate. . . .
We're curious what shape the anti-vaxx caucus would take should the Minnesota Reformer take a look at the current legislature.
Photo: Vaccines. We got a flu shot as early in the fall as we could, and are on the list in a nearby health care center here in South Dakota for COVID-19. Our partner, an elder citizen in the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate, received the first of his two anti-COVID shots at the Sisseton IHS clinic. We also vaccinate our pets for rabies. We encourage readers to do the same for their furbabies, especially those living in Minnesota districts represented by barking mad anti-vaxxers.
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