Fourteen confirmed cases of measles have been reported in Minnesota. State officials have linked all but one of the cases to an unvaccinated Somali infant who returned from a trip to Kenya in February. Minnesota reported no cases or only one case of measles for most of the past decade. In fact, measles had been all but eradicatd in the United States, but it accounts for 200,000 annual deaths worldwide.  The Minnesota Dept of Public Health found in 2009 that young Somali children in Minneapolis public schools were over-represented in autism programs.  However, that fact alone didn't prove a higher rate of autism.

A discredited British researcher, Andrew Wakefield, who claimed there was a link between vaccines and autism has been meeting with Minneapolis Somalis.  Wakefield's work fueled a backlash against childhood vaccinations after he published a 1998 paper in the medical journal Lanclet linking autism to the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine in a dozen children. The Lanclet retracted his paper last year. Wakefield continues to stand behind his work. However, numerous studies addressing autism and vaccines, or the mercury-based thimerosal, which was formerly used to preserve vaccines, have so far found no link. Researchers still do not know what causes autism.

One Minneapolis Somali family practice physician says that Wakefield has caused a global hysteria that has cost lives and he has warned the Somali community to stay away from the researcher. Meanwhile, health officials are working with the Somali community leaders to urge more parents to get their children vaccinated, although few people have taken advantage of the recent clinics offered. One clinic prepared 600 doses of the MMR vaccine, but only 20 children showed up to get the vaccine.