It should go without saying, but that declaration is a copycat of other denialist efforts, like climate change denial and denial that genetics actually points at the racists to be more wrong than before regarding their “superiority”.
The method is to put a declaration, with some celebrities and fewer contrarian scientists. Then they get signatures (in the contrarian climate declaration, the fakers even posted fictional character names) to pretend that they are what the consensus of experts is in the US or the world. Then get some dunderheads in the media to report on this “new” consensus.
I mentioned upthread how my mother would put us on play dates to kids with common infectious diseases for immunity.
But when I contracted meningitis at age 10 it was straight to a “play date” at the hospital, where I was isolated. Fortunately a mild case, and I cannot recall if it was bacterial or viral. So I lived.
Anti-vaxers are able to drive a car. There is some science involved in that, even if it is well trained, the laws of physics are involved.
They would trust themselves to drive that car to the hospital when their pregnant wife went into labour. They would be fine with her getting nitrous oxide and maybe spinal anesthesia, especially in a ceaserian.
And then go on to deny that newborn vaccines? The cognitive dissonance between foolery and science is something to behold.
Edit: myself, my kids and my ex-wife are all fully vaccinated, including some unusual ones (rabies,for example)
ISTM that setting aside those just trapped in nutso conspiracy thinking, another large number of antivaxxers especially on the Right are God’s-Will-Be/Done-type fatalists, combined with Extreme Social Darwinists who look at it as “so, let the fittest survive”. The attitude in both cases is that if themselves or others perish, well too sad but that’s just how the world is, nobody gets out alive anyway.
The anti-vaxers aren’t quite as inconsistent as you make them out to be. It is possible that science gets some things right and some things wrong, It is always evolving and correcting itself, particularly in the area of medicine, where there have been some serious mistakes thalidomide being a very famous example that most anti-vaxers keep in the back of their minds when they are thinking about vaccines.
Now the science has a pretty good track record with many more hits than misses, and the evidence that vaccines work is particularly strong to the point of undeniable, while their safety has been studied to death such that if there had been but recurrent side effect even an infrequent one, it would have been identified. So if they investigated the science they would realize that they don’t have a leg to stand on, But it is not completely inconsistent to say that they believe the science that led to the internal combustion engine, but that the scientists got it wrong when it came to vaccines (or else there is a cabal of money grubbing child haters who want autistic children).
A common theme is “well, our ancestors in ancient times didn’t have vaccines and the human race survived anyway”.
I’ve even seen that attitude displayed in relation to the Great Plague of the 14th century. So what if 1/3 of the world’s population died, the rest were OK.
I wouldn’t be so sure of the latter. Many claim to reject all forms of medical care except maybe for severe trauma. I just saw one on Twitter proud that her daughter rejected her care team’s appeal to allow her newborn to receive vitamin K to prevent the possibility of brain bleeding, via a shot or even oral therapy.
Actually, the case of thalidomide provides a good example of antivax inconsistency as well as ignorance. Not infrequently I see them refer to thalidomide as an example of how the gummint and FDA in particular can’t be trusted re vaccines. They don’t know or care that it was an FDA scientist, Frances Kelsey who blocked thalidomide approval as a sedative in the U.S., averting an epidemic of birth defects.
Point that out to them and you’re met with stubborn silence, or an attempt to change the subject.
A figure who recently gained prominence in the antivax world, tech entrepreneur Steve Kirsch, was asked if he’d accept rabies vaccine if bitten by a rabid dog.
His amusingly evasive answer was that he’d demand a detailed look at the vaccine’s safety profile first.
The Wall St. Journal has an article today about plans to elimiinate cervical cancer in the U.S. through expanded screening and HPV vaccination* (the latter, if really high uptake is achieved, has a chance of accomplishing the task, in the U.S. and other countries).
A commenter on the article disdains the idea that such measures are needed, saying that all you have to do is not have sex with “HPV people”.
I’m not sure if he means you should ask for Pap test results on the first date, thinks that HPV-positive people glow in the dark, or believes that abstention until marriage to a good Christian nationalist spouse will do the trick (and good luck with that last strategy).
*a major push is on in Alabama to reach the medically underserved.
I wish I’d had that vax! I have it and its high risk. Yes, I am stupid and don’t use condoms as theres no chance of pregnancy.
Edited to add-most males who carry it are asymptomatic, its females who bear the brunt of std’s.
Yup, all those young’uns absolutely avoiding sex. Just sitting there not having sex, premarital or not, because they’re worried about catching a disease or pregnancy or whatever, needing some kind of encouragement to even try. Not learning dumbshit lessons on their own, like how post-coital application of Coca-Cola will prevent pregnancy.
