Narrator: Good news!
We found a cure for measles.
It's hard to believe, but before 1963
nearly everybody got measles as a kid.
By 2000, measles was pretty much eliminated in the US.
But since then, outbreaks of the disease keep popping up.
What do these outbreaks have in common?
This clown.
An early pioneer in fake news
Andrew Wakefield published a study
that linked vaccines with autism.
The terrifying idea that vaccines cause autism
spread like wildfire.
Millions of parents started refusing to vaccinate their kids.
Turns out, he had faked his results
and was promptly stripped of his medical license 
Instead of apologizing,
Wakefield has been continuing to push his bunk science around the US.
Vaccine concerns have traditionally flourished 
in predominantly educated white communities
fueled by fears of chemicals.
Kid: Hey! That's Jenny McCarthy
Jenny McCarthy: Chemicals! That's what you're putting inside your children.
In 2008, Wakefield and anti-vax groups
began relentlessly targeting a Somali community in Minneapolis
with fears that the measles mumps rubella vaccine causes autism.
Vaccine rates dropped.
This year a measles outbreak ripped through the community
sickening 70 people
66 of whom were unvaccinated.
Anti-vaxxers exploited a community with limited english skills
and less access to doctors
to push their agenda.
Then they acted like they had nothing to do with the outbreak.
Now, anti vaccine activists say they were just providing information.
After the measles outbreak, Wakefield told reporters
Wakefield: I don't feel responsible at all.
Narrator: The only way this could get any worse
is if our new president was an anti-vaxxer.
Narrator: Oh
Ohh...
Okay
It's been proven a bajillion times
but we'll say it again:
Vaccines don't cause autism.
For vaccines to work
people need to use them.
Weíre not living in the 50's anymore. 
We donít have to listen 
to an uninformed McCarthy.
