What an ignorant and offensive little shithead.
Even setting aside how ridiculously inappropriate it is, the comment doesn’t make any sense. I think he’s bemoaning the fact that anti-vaxxers are social pariahs? But in the modern world, it’s people who use that racial slur who become social pariahs, not the targets of the slur. I suspect that he doesn’t really intend to equate antivaxxers with those who use the n-word.
Vaccines don’t cause autism.
I’m autistic. If you’d rather have a very sick or dead child instead of someone like me, that’s pretty messed up.
The guy who said that ignorant nonsense is Terry Rossio, who is working on making a hagiography of Andrew Wakefield based on Wakefield’s book. Just FYI.
A lot of people are terrified at the idea of having a child who is not “normal,” in no small part because that might mean they are not “normal.” And while they’ll never admit it, a lot of people are terrified of having to navigate parenthood that requires more effort than “normal.”
“I want my kid to be healthy and normal” really translates to “I don’t want to have to raise a neuroatypical child because it might be super hard and I might possibly risk having to devote my entire life to their care.”
.
Poor dear.
Antivaxer is a useful and accurate term to describe someone who opposes vaccination (whether mandatory or not), and is dedicated to spreading misinformation on the subject despite repeatedly being shown his/her errors.
Angst about being called an antivaxer has to do with public perception, i.e. the belief that people will look askance at you for being anti-something, and thus a negative sort of person. :dubious: Antivaxers prefer the deceptive euphemism “pro-vaccine safety”, anti-abortion activists use the term “pro-life” and so on.
I found it interesting that in his new book “Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel’s Autism”, physician and pro-immunization activist Peter Hotez said that he would rather use the phrase “antivaccine” than “antivaxer” in order not to provoke hostility among his opponents. I highly doubt that they’d find much comfort in the distinction.
It’s difficult to fully imagine the sacrifices involved in raising a severely autistic child (Hotez’s book goes into it in describing the upbringing of his daughter Rachel). Some parents in this position have turned virulently against physicians, researchers and other supporters of immunization; many more have not.
I mean, it’s a bit like calling someone a “9/11 troofer” – the form of the epithet, with its use of non-standard spelling, carries an extra implication of ignorance, doesn’t it? It is … well, just a little bit more mean. (Am I nuts for thinking so?)
Not that the implication of ignorance is unfair, or that I feel at all charitable towards antivaxxers! But I can see why Hotetz might choose not to use it if he is attempting to educate these folks. Better him than me.
My brother was diagnosed with autism in the very early 1980s – before the vaccine “link.” Parents were looking for explanations then, too – often including blaming themselves, or others. I get the impulse – it’s just so unfortunate that this support network eventually built up around disinformation.
I have a friend who’s a former nurse and a vehement anti-vaxxer. And yes, she uses her background in nursing to try to establish herself as an authority on vaccination. After several fruitless attempts to fight ignorance, I told her I will no longer discuss the issue with her. Anti-vaxxers are, in my experience, pharmaceutical conspiracy theorists; there’s no arguing with them.
I keep telling her I don’t take medical claims seriously unless they’re backed by repeated, large-scale clinical trials. Of course, anti-vaxxers can’t cite any. Her response: that’s because all those studies are backed by Big Pharma, including those done by universities and independent (She would put quotation marks around that word.) research organizations. Anti-vaccination organizations are the brave Davids against the murderous Goliaths in her view, and as such don’t have the money or resources to conduct large-scale clinical trials. Oh, and of course, the FDA is TOTALLY controlled by Big Pharma. :rolleyes:
One thing I didn’t ask her before the ban was this: do anti-vaxxers accept any responsibility for the deaths from measles outbreaks? Or is that somehow the fault of Big Pharma, too?
Yeah, sort of.
And they’ll just tell you that if your kids had better immune systems made healthier by the right foods and vitamins, then measles wouldn’t be such a problem and neither would any other disease.
Anyone who whines about “Big Pharma” establishes by the use of that terminology that they are absolute morons.
From the link:
Ironic quote of the day.
No shit.
I was never “terrified” that raising my child might take more effort than normal, but I sure wanted my child not to have any major health problems.
I will absolutely admit that I don’t want to devote my entire life to the care of an offspring (or anyone else).
Not nuts. I’ll just cordially disagree (I never get to say that to antivaxers :)).
You want mean? Now this is kinda mean.
What kind of drugs are those fools running that site on? They list the numbers of deaths caused by the measles vaccine but say, “Hey, there weren’t any deaths in this time period from measles.”
Okay, boys and girls. Let’s have a fun little quiz right now.
Are you ready?
Good.
Care to guess WHY there weren’t any deaths from measles during that freaking time period?
The power of magic? The power of Jesus? wait, was it the Power of Magic Jesus?
Ooo! Ooo! I know!
It’s because measles isn’t actually dangerous at all, let alone lethal, but Big Pharma has edited all the history books and run a scurrilous smear campaign to portray it as bad in order to sell more vaccines filled with mercury!
Because of better nutrition and clean water, silly. America was a veritable Third World country up until the early 60s, then suddenly they built modern sewers and water treatment facilities and good food became available, so bye-bye measles (measles incidence and deaths plummeting after vaccine introduction was just a coincidence).
And you gotta wonder why we vaccinate against diphtheria, when hardly anyone gets diphtheria now. 
:smack:
Um, have you read the title of the thread you’re contributing to?