The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread

by Cailin O'Connor

In 2017, a tight-knit Somali-American community in Minnesota experienced the state’s worst measles outbreak since the 1980s.85 After learning that rates of severe autism were particularly high in this group, anti-vaccine advocates posted fliers and ads throughout the Somali community center cautioning against vaccination. They also distributed pamphlets at community health meetings. Andrew Wakefield, the scientist who infamously, and falsely, first reported a link between vaccines and autism, visited Minneapolis repeatedly in 2010 and 2011 to talk with Somali parents of autistic children.86 As a result of these efforts, vaccination rates in the community dropped from 92 percent in 2004 to 42 percent in 2014, precipitating the measles outbreak. Even after the outbreak, the Vaccine Safety Council of Minnesota, an anti-vaccine organization, doubled down, hosting events and spreading misinformation about MMR vaccines and autism. There have even been reports of anti-vaxxers going door to door to try to persuade people that the measles outbreak was actually caused by the Health Department, whose goal was to pressure Somalis into vaccinating their children! What we see here is anti-vaxxers peddling their beliefs—beliefs completely unsupported by evidence—to a close-knit group particularly susceptible to their message. In doing so, they take advantage of conformity effects.