# Anti-vaxxers are ignorant scumbags that kill children **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 1, 2016, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-vaxxers-are-ignorant-scumbags-that-kill-children/764626 "2016-09-01T01:59:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 44
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2019, 8:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-vaxxers-are-ignorant-scumbags-that-kill-children/764626/861 "2019-08-24T08:55:53Z")
Hyperbaric chambers also have a use in treating some types of infection by anaerobic bacteria and carbon monoxide poisoning. Possibly also in treating non-healing wounds due to circulation problems, where the increased oxygen helps with cell growth. That said - there have been time when people have died even when this treatment is given by trained professionals, along with injuries and side-effects. That said - I doubt the woo-woo crowd are using hyperbaric treatment as intended, and probably not with the same safety protocols as the professionals. ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2019, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-vaxxers-are-ignorant-scumbags-that-kill-children/764626/862 "2019-08-24T17:08:54Z")
You’re right. The list of conditions woo-woos claim hyperbaric chambers help include AIDS/HIV, dementia, asthma, infertility, hepatitis, cancer, heart disease, MS, stroke, and PTSD. AND they believe it’s good for overall health. In fact, devotees can buy their own hyperbaric chambers for around $4,000. Didn’t Michael Jackson own one? (Now there’s a ringing endorsement.) Alternative medicine, including anti-vaxx BS, includes just enough science-y sounding stuff to convince the gullible that it’s legit. One of the alt-health people I was with is a nurse practitioner, though she no longer practices. You’d think she’d know better, but no, according to her, MD’s are all money-grubbing tools getting money under the table from Big Pharma. _She knows_, she says, _she’s seen_. Her credentials make her an authority to these fools. I’ve decided alternative medicine is a belief system–a hokey spirituality, a world view, and a conspiracy theory combined. This is why anti-vaxxers are impossible to convince with scientific facts. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2019, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-vaxxers-are-ignorant-scumbags-that-kill-children/764626/863 "2019-11-21T21:13:18Z")
Anti-vaxxers don’t care how deadly measles can be: > [@](#): > > **Measles has killed nearly 5,000 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2019** , authorities said, after the disease spread to all the provinces in the country. > > Close to a quarter of a million people have been infected this year alone. > > The World Health Organization (WHO) says this is the world’s largest and fastest-moving epidemic. > **[DR Congo measles: Nearly 5,000 dead in major outbreak](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-50506743)** > > Almost 250,000 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo are thought to have been infected in 2019. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2019, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-vaxxers-are-ignorant-scumbags-that-kill-children/764626/864 "2019-11-21T21:24:29Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > [Speaking of Trump and anti-vax](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-wont-give-flu-vaccines-to-migrants-in-border-detention-centers-near-mexico-border/): > > The U.S. government will not give flu vaccines to migrant families being held in detention centers near the U.S.-Mexico border. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced the decision Tuesday, weeks before the flu season begins… Just one more reason to loathe that guy in the White House. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2019, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-vaxxers-are-ignorant-scumbags-that-kill-children/764626/865 "2019-12-03T02:43:00Z")
> [@](#): > > The government of Samoa will shut down for two days this week while officials try to curb a deadly measles outbreak that has sickened 3,728 and killed 53—48 of whom were children ages 0 to 4 years old. The Pacific island nation of around 200,000 first declared an outbreak of measles on October 16. The highly contagious viral infection spread rapidly, and officials declared a state of emergency by mid-November. The outbreak has continued to flare, however. On Sunday, the government reported that there had been 198 new measles cases in the last 24 hours alone… > > The World Health Organization and UNICEF estimated that Samoa’s measles vaccination rate for infants was just 31% in 2018. That’s down from about 60% to 70% in earlier years and a high of 90% in 2013… > > The drop may be partly explained by the tragic deaths of two infants in July 2018, according to the WHO… Most notably, the deaths were picked up by the Children’s Health Defense, run by the prominent anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. As The Washington Post noted, Kennedy’s organization spent months highlighting the deaths on Facebook while questioning the safety of the MMR vaccines. But the organization did not correct the posts or update its audience with information regarding the nurses’ error and convictions. > **[Measles outbreak spurred by anti-vaxxers shuts down Samoan government](https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/12/measles-outbreak-spurred-by-anti-vaxxers-shuts-down-samoan-government/)** > > Of the 53 dead, 48 are children aged 4 and younger. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2019, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-vaxxers-are-ignorant-scumbags-that-kill-children/764626/866 "2019-12-03T03:05:12Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > [Measles outbreak spurred by anti-vaxxers shuts down Samoan government | Ars Technica](https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/12/measles-outbreak-spurred-by-anti-vaxxers-shuts-down-samoan-government/) What a horror story. How the hell does someone accidentally add muscle relaxant to a vaccine? ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2019, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-vaxxers-are-ignorant-scumbags-that-kill-children/764626/867 "2019-12-13T16:32:50Z")
[Semi-amusing story](http://newsweek.com/anti-vaxxers-refuse-leave-nj-transit-meeting-despite-being-told-theyre-protesting-wrong-place-1477063) about a New Jersey Senate hearing yesterday on S2175, a bill that would remove religious exemptions to childhood vaccination. A crowd of antivaxers showed up to protest, only they wound up in the wrong room (it was where a NJ Transit hearing was scheduled) and wouldn’t leave, even when staffers and security told them it was the wrong room. Obviously they were hip to a ploy by the Gummint-Pharma-Illuminati conspiracy to fool them into leaving. :dubious::smack: Meantime, world events keep intruding into the lurid world of antivax alternate reality. [The Samoan measles outbreak](http://theconversation.com/measles-in-samoa-how-a-small-island-nation-found-itself-in-the-grips-of-an-outbreak-disaster-128467) is now up to nearly 5,000 cases with 72 deaths, mostly in young children. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2019, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-vaxxers-are-ignorant-scumbags-that-kill-children/764626/868 "2019-12-13T17:52:20Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > [Semi-amusing story](http://newsweek.com/anti-vaxxers-refuse-leave-nj-transit-meeting-despite-being-told-theyre-protesting-wrong-place-1477063) about a New Jersey Senate hearing yesterday on S2175, a bill that would remove religious exemptions to childhood vaccination. > > A crowd of antivaxers showed up to protest, only they wound up in the wrong room (it was where a NJ Transit hearing was scheduled) and wouldn’t leave, even when staffers and security told them it was the wrong room. Sounds like their protest succeeded. No legislation forcing vaccines on children was passed in the room where they protested. Suck on that big pharma! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2019, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-vaxxers-are-ignorant-scumbags-that-kill-children/764626/869 "2019-12-17T11:01:48Z")
Anti-vaccination is now a religion, and proponents are fighting a religious war with identical fervor, battling the forces of the Devil, like [in the New Jersey Senate](https://www.politico.com/states/new-jersey/story/2019/12/16/after-hours-of-protests-senators-dodge-vote-on-controversial-vaccination-bill-1232962) yesterday. > [@](#): > > After more than eight hours of pounding drums, invocations of a holy power and unrelenting screams from outside the New Jersey state Senate chamber, lawmakers in the upper house on Monday declined to take up legislation that would eliminate the religious exemption for mandatory childhood vaccinations. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2019, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-vaxxers-are-ignorant-scumbags-that-kill-children/764626/870 "2019-12-17T12:22:22Z")
I weep for humanity. I feel like we’re witnessing the failure of the enlightenment, and right at a point in history when we are most in need of reason and facts. Maybe that’s a little hyperbolic, but the stuff that’s going on… ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2019, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-vaxxers-are-ignorant-scumbags-that-kill-children/764626/871 "2019-12-17T21:08:25Z")
> [@davidm](#): > > I weep for humanity. I feel like we’re witnessing the failure of the enlightenment, and right at a point in history when we are most in need of reason and facts. > > Maybe that’s a little hyperbolic, but the stuff that’s going on… I was just thinking this yesterday, that we seem to be entering Dark Ages II: science is vilified, truth is whatever you want to believe, and logic is ignored. Every time there’s a crowd of anti-vaxxers trying to influence (successfully, in some places) legislation, there should be an equally large and vociferous crowd of pro-science counter-protestors. Yet there aren’t. I wonder why not. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2019, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-vaxxers-are-ignorant-scumbags-that-kill-children/764626/872 "2019-12-17T22:01:32Z")
This era shall be known as The Dumbening. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2019, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-vaxxers-are-ignorant-scumbags-that-kill-children/764626/873 "2019-12-17T22:28:07Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > This era shall be known as The Dumbening. The Dimwit Decade Generation Thug ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2019, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-vaxxers-are-ignorant-scumbags-that-kill-children/764626/874 "2019-12-18T00:47:20Z")
Too bad about the New Jersey Senate lacking the gonads to approve the bill. A correction to an earlier post: > [@Jackmannii](#): > > [Semi-amusing story](http://newsweek.com/anti-vaxxers-refuse-leave-nj-transit-meeting-despite-being-told-theyre-protesting-wrong-place-1477063) about a New Jersey Senate hearing yesterday on S2175, a bill that would remove religious exemptions to childhood vaccination. > > A crowd of antivaxers showed up to protest, only they wound up in the wrong room (it was where a NJ Transit hearing was scheduled) and wouldn’t leave, even when staffers and security told them it was the wrong room. It turns out that antivaxers were in the correct room, only hours early, so they had to sit through the transit hearing (and quite possibly people who had an interest in the transit bill were crowded out by these numbnuts). ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stainless_steel_rat/32/5727_2.png) [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stainless_Steel_Rat)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2019, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-vaxxers-are-ignorant-scumbags-that-kill-children/764626/875 "2019-12-18T01:50:50Z")
> [@nelliebly](#): > > I was just thinking this yesterday, that we seem to be entering Dark Ages II: science is vilified, truth is whatever you want to believe, and logic is ignored. > [@Atamasama](#): > > This era shall be known as The Dumbening. I am reminded of a quote by the SF writer Robert A. Heinlein, writing as “Lazarus Long”. I really hope he was wrong but I do wonder these days… > [@](#): > > Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded–here and there, now and then-- are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. > > This is known as “bad luck.” ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2019, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-vaxxers-are-ignorant-scumbags-that-kill-children/764626/876 "2019-12-18T06:45:16Z")
I was looking to see what other threads on vaccination might have existed before this one and am not surprised to learn [**Urban Redneck** is anti-vaxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=795814&page=4) and apparently impervious to all arguments to the contrary. A sad case. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Librarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_librarian/32/402_2.png) [@The\_Librarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Librarian)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2019, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-vaxxers-are-ignorant-scumbags-that-kill-children/764626/877 "2019-12-18T07:10:43Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > The Dimwit Decade > Generation Thug They’re called “Boomers”. (Name one prominent anti-vaxxer that isn’t) ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2019, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-vaxxers-are-ignorant-scumbags-that-kill-children/764626/878 "2019-12-18T11:33:59Z")
That idiot McCarthy is a boomer? ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2019, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-vaxxers-are-ignorant-scumbags-that-kill-children/764626/879 "2019-12-18T12:22:48Z")
Jenny McCarthy was born in 1972, so she is the youngest boomer in existence. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2019, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-vaxxers-are-ignorant-scumbags-that-kill-children/764626/880 "2019-12-18T12:28:40Z")
> [@The\_Librarian](#): > > They’re called “Boomers”. > > (Name one prominent anti-vaxxer that isn’t) You mean all those boomers who are refusing to vaccinate their young children? You may want to redo your math. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-vaxxers-are-ignorant-scumbags-that-kill-children/764626.md?page=43) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-vaxxers-are-ignorant-scumbags-that-kill-children/764626.md?page=45)