Conservative media mogul Glenn Beck on Thursday called reports of a measles outbreak a “hoax” designed to make Americans “obey government.”
“The measles hoax,” Beck began, “is it possible we have been lied to about the measles, this outbreak?”
Beck said that the reports are designed to instill a “herd mentality,” so that parents would “grab their children and obey the government.”
Beck then embarked on a complete misreading of the origins of the recent cases of measles, traced to Disneyland in December, by blaming it on Filipino immigrants that infected Amish communities in Ohio in April.
The Center for Disease Control And Prevention has established this as a separate outbreak from the current cases spreading from California.
Within this mistaken explanation, Beck got more facts wrong: there was no “Filipino family” that traveled to the U.S. that infected Amish people. Rather, unvaccinated Amish missionaries traveled to the Philippines and brought the disease back to Ohio last year.
But Beck and his co-host were satisfied with blaming the current outbreak on “immigrants.”
“You don’t wanna blame it on immigrants,” Beck’s co-host said sarcastically, “because we want them to flow into America freely.”
“So it’s gotta be about vaccinations,” he continued. “That’s what they had to make it about and they have. They’ve done that pretty effectively.”
h/t RightWingWatch
