Childhood vaccine exemptions are at an all-time high. Doctors worry diseases like measles could return
Childhood vaccine exemptions are at an all-time high. Doctors worry diseases like measles could return
Science: We've eradicated many diseases through vaccines!
Republicans: Hold my beer!
Unfortunately, this particular brand of dumb has found a home on both sides of the isle. Part of the reason it’s been so successful at proliferating and creating problems with reemerging diseases.
Going back maybe a decade or so I remember most anti-vaxers I encountered being real crunchy-granola, hippie liberal types, often the types who would go on about natural remedies, crystals, etc. There was the odd conservative looney in the bunch, but they were more of a fringe minority.
I haven't personally encountered many of them liberal types lately, it definitely seems like there's been a pretty significant shift. I'm absolutely certain they're still out there, but at least in my area in the sorts of groups I'm tuned into, they've become a minority.
Annecdotally, I used to have a pretty good track record for being able to sway people's opinions on vaccines. I have a enough things going for me on both sides of the aisle that liberals and conservatives will both usually give me the benefit of the doubt and a bit of a reputation among people who know me for being fairly knowledgeable about a lot of things. Since the pandemic, that's not really the case, everyone's opinion is pretty much set in stone at this point. I have had a couple people I know thank me for straightening them out before COVID hit though so it's nice to know my lessons stuck and who knows, maybe even saved a life or two.
Never forget that when asked about vaccines in 2016, Jill Stein gave a tepid answer and did not unequivocally confirm they are safe nor that they don't cause autism.
The antivaxxers "science and logic" will kill children and adults in all communities.
And they will blame the vaccinated for the surge in tiny coffin sales, with a complete lack of irony or any hint of self awareness.
COVID was just a warmup, there's going to be all sorts of fun stuff with all the tropical stuff moving into broader regions.
Honestly, this is what scares the fuck out of me. I feel like COVID was just a sample of what's to come. Between anti-vaxxers and climate change we are going to be in for a wild ride.
I think it is a mixed bag. Maybe there are people who are god damn idiots especially looking at these parents trying to deny "proven" vaccines, this isn't a comment on the covid vaccines, I'm vaxxed and had the most recent booster but I can at least in a way understand people's fear around it. I think Covid was able to slip on by because "2% VeRy SmAlL NuMbEr, StOp BeInG CoWaRdS!" maybe I'm wrong and this whole thing was a trial run for the next super bug that will come out in the coming decade but I think a disease with a mortality rate comparable to the black death (30-60%) with a spreadability of covid though may lead to people taking it slightly more seriously. There will be obvious exceptions, hell I imagine many industrial leaders will still push the front line staff saying its "fake news" so they keep making profit while not caring about their people. Then again a disease with that kind of mortality rate would probably collapse modern society for better or worse at the bare minimum greatly reform it, the after effects of black death are fascinating read.
Nah don't be afraid. Just keep on investing in better gear. The antivaxxers will be dying in the street and you can walk over their corpses.
Remember folks, all our vaccines are going to make us autistic and mutate multiple new limbs before we zombify and haunt the streets like ghouls.
And somehow all our vaccines will be at fault when the offspring of these mouth breathing fuckers die off en masse. I don't feel a lick of sympathy.
I do. For the kids. Some of them are organising and finding ways to get vaccinated without their parents knowledge. No kids should have to deal with that.
It should be a law that a child can choose to be vaccinated without parental consent.
Well, they say the best way to learn is from experience... ¯__ _ __ (ツ) __ _ __/¯
I had a family member that nearly died from covid (and one that did). Before they caught it, it was a hoax. After they got it, they were mad that the doctors didn't prescribe enough ivermectin.
They will learn nothing.
Well yes but also no, learning from experience is all fine for just the people that refuse any kind of vaccine but as soon as they're actively killing other people then that's a big no.
As far as I'm concerned, if you opt your kid out of vaccines for any reason besides sound medical concern, you should also be opting your kid out of public education.
I shouldn't have to put my kids at risk because the people in your dumb little church group are too stupid to inoculate their offspring.
The problem is that punishes the kids a lot more than the parents. Quite frankly, if they send their kids to school unvaccinated without medical documentation, they should be getting vaccinated at school. Parental rights are not absolute. Plenty of kids were vaccinated at my school as a kid, and it was generally ones whose parents couldn't afford to go to the doctor so nobody made a fuss.
The problem is that they agree. A lot of the same dipshits that aren’t vaccinating their kids are also pulling them out of public education so they don’t learn about things like slavery.
Sadly enough, that problem will take care of itself eventually. Unfortunately it also means that people will suffer who had no say in this or may actually not be eligible for vaccinations.
I dunno, plenty of people continue to do pointlessly unhealthy things despite consequences.
O'Leary points out that while vaccines have been used as political tools in recent years, most parents care more about what their medical provider says than any politician. Talking to parents at health visits about the importance of vaccines is important.
Our pediatrician approached the question of COVID vaccination for my daughter very gently with me. As soon as she started I saw her demeanor change and I could tell she was getting ready to change course quickly (presumably) in case I went off on a rant or something.
She immediately snapped back to normal when I told her "Absolutely, yes, if she can get it let's make it happen." We had just been waiting for it to be available.
I feel bad for what she likely had to deal with from others. She's a fricking doctor, trying her best to keep children healthy, and now she is clearly getting enough shit from some parents that she's gunshy about even bringing up certain important topics. It's crazy.
I told my pediatrician to give my daughters more vaccines. I want them to be able to walk in a sewer system in the 3rd world and be like Moses parting the Red Sea as pathogens flee from their incredible immune systems.
Lol my brother just moved doctors until he found one that he said "wasn't allowed to advise me not to get vaccinated but it was clear with how he talked to me". Pretty sure he just shopped around until he found someone willing to or accidentally spoke in code to him to feed his confirmation bias.
That's assuming we have a working health care system, and people can afford to see the doctor regularly. :/
I work with a doctor who is an anti vax, ivermectin prescribing election doubter. Religious exemptions are a regular convo for this person.
Catholicism is a hell of a drug.
Only when enough of these ant-vaxxers lose children to these diseases will they reverse course. Then they will blame the experts again for not warning them. I have a 2 yo great-nephew and I shudder to think of him getting some disease that we were close to wiping out. Are there no people left alive that remember polio?
Polio still circulates in Afghanistan and Pakistan
Would you like to know more?
You're too optimistic. Anti-vaxxers can and do still blame everyone and everything else before changing their minds. Only select few will have the awareness to change. People were literally on their deathbeds dying of covid still cursing the doctors who were supposedly killing them. The children and other people they spread to, they don't deserve to die. But I have no patience left for contrarian wilful assholes, they deserve(d) their deaths.
Didn't you know? If you get polio, it means God is punishing you for your lack of faith.
Bold of you assume that there will be enough dead children to change their minds. See also: guns.
They absolutely won't. This is a group of people willing to put their kids through 'treatments' like chelation, HBOT and bleach enemas to get rid of 'the toxins' and kids have died from some of these alternative treatments. All that their own kids dying guarantees is a spot as a parent-martyr on some antivaxx podcast and a handshake from Jenny McCarthy.
The interesting thing about polio, is if I understand it right, it's very similar to covid in terms of what a non serious case looks like in additon to asymptomatic people. It would easily be brushed off as not serious.
If Polio killed people like covid, and didn't give the public the chance to see the damage it does with all these paralyzed people on the streets, I don't know if we'd ever have a chance of stopping it.
It's hard to argue with kids in wheelchairs vs deaths of people you don't know.
They won't reverse course at that point. Because at that point they would lose face.