# Now public health and safety is being debated about, just as if its a political belief? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 4, 2015, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-public-health-and-safety-is-being-debated-about-just-as-if-its-a-political-belief/711830 "2015-02-04T19:18:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![CGav8r](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@CGav8r](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CGav8r)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-public-health-and-safety-is-being-debated-about-just-as-if-its-a-political-belief/711830/21 "2015-02-04T20:23:54Z")
When folks talk about someone winding up with a “profound mental disorder”, the first thing I think is “Of course, they mean \*temporary \*mental disorder.” ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-public-health-and-safety-is-being-debated-about-just-as-if-its-a-political-belief/711830/22 "2015-02-04T20:29:13Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > _“Wound up with”_ definitely _implies_ causation > [@Terr](#): > > Only if you _really really_ want it to imply causation. Okay, smart guy. Persuade me. Give me an example of a usage of the phrase where it clearly doesn’t. :dubious: On edit: > [@VinylTurnip](#): > > I know a lot of people who’ve tried to get a straight answer out of **Terr** , and wound up with a big bucket of monkey shit. Uh-oh. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-public-health-and-safety-is-being-debated-about-just-as-if-its-a-political-belief/711830/23 "2015-02-04T20:36:59Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Give me an example of a usage of the phrase where it clearly doesn’t. :dubious: [http://www.littlethings.com/woman-didnt-know-she-was-pregnant/](http://www.littlethings.com/woman-didnt-know-she-was-pregnant/) ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-public-health-and-safety-is-being-debated-about-just-as-if-its-a-political-belief/711830/24 "2015-02-04T20:42:06Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > [http://www.littlethings.com/woman-didnt-know-she-was-pregnant/](http://www.littlethings.com/woman-didnt-know-she-was-pregnant/) So…the belly ache was unrelated to her being pregnant? And why am I bothering to follow your links and respond? I think I’d rather have the bucket of monkey shit than waste more of my time on you. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-public-health-and-safety-is-being-debated-about-just-as-if-its-a-political-belief/711830/25 "2015-02-04T20:44:48Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > [http://www.littlethings.com/woman-didnt-know-she-was-pregnant/](http://www.littlethings.com/woman-didnt-know-she-was-pregnant/) How is this responsive to the request for an example of using “wound up with” to not imply “caused”? I don’t see the phrase in the link. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-public-health-and-safety-is-being-debated-about-just-as-if-its-a-political-belief/711830/26 "2015-02-04T20:46:13Z")
> [@WPA-Guy](#): > > Maybe because I read too many blogs that highlight people spouting stupid assertions, but has there been an upturn of people making downright stupid statements and presenting as fact? > > Sen. Thom Tillis described his own history of opposing certain health and hygiene regulations, including those that require employees to wash their hands after using the bathroom. (Why would you even have such a history?) > > Sen. Rand Paul is standing by his statement that most vaccinations should be “voluntary,” telling CNBC that a parent’s choice not to vaccinate a child is “an issue of freedom.” Paul, who is an ophthalmologist, also asserts that he’s heard of cases where vaccines have caused “profound mental disorders.” > > Gov. Chris Christie said that parents should have “a measure of choice” in whether children are vaccinated. > > I can’t form a proper rant since my mind is blown. And now I have to worry than my health safety is really just a belief? > > Has there been an upturn in being stupid? [Well, here’s what it comes down to:](http://www.salon.com/2015/02/04/americas_vaccination_nightmare_what_christie_pauls_nonsense_is_really_about/) > [@](#): > > Something happened on Monday, something I expect we’ll see many more times before the Republican Party’s 2016 presidential primary is said and done: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul inadvertently affirmed their critics’ worst assumptions, and earned widespread ridicule from the media in the process. But something else happened that day, something I also expect we’ll see repeated in the years to come: All of the attention devoted to these two politicians’ missteps distracted us from what still remains one of the most important political development of our time — **the pervasiveness of a crude, anti-social understanding of American individualism.** > > \ > > So Christie and Paul had a bad day. What makes their bad day important, however, isn’t so much what it tells us about them as individuals, but rather what it says about the voters they’re courting so assiduously. While many lefties are likely to assume that the anti-vaccination movement is simply another manifestation of conservative ambivalence about science, the truth is that the vaccination truther impulse appears to be cross-ideological. Run into an anti-vaxxer, as they’re called, and you’re just as likely to find yourself face-to-face with an archetypal San Francisco liberal as an archetypal Dallas Tea Partyer. President Obama recently urged parents to vaccinate their children, so it may eventually end up as a partisan issue. But as of now, the anti-vaxxers’ prominence speaks to something deeper in American society. > > What that “something deeper” is, I can’t definitively say. But I think we recently got a glimpse of it from a third source, who did us all a favor by expressing a common sentiment with an uncommon lack of grace. Monday was a bad day not only for would-be presidents, but for an Arizona cardiologist and anti-vaxxer, Jack Wolfson, who earned his 15 minutes of infamy during an interview with CNN. Asked by a CNN reporter whether he would struggle to live with himself if he found out that a child with an immunodeficiency had died after catching a virus from one of his non-vaccinated kids, Wolfson, with a chilling lack of affect, responded with a firm no. “I could live with myself easily,” Wolfson said. “It’s an unfortunate thing that people die, but people die. And I’m not going to put my child at risk to save another child … It’s not my responsibility to be protecting [someone else’s] child.” > > To be clear, the borderline sociopathy manifested in Wolfson’s answer is hardly widespread — that’s part of the reason his interview got so much attention. But the basic premise of the worldview Wolfson shared — which holds that American society isn’t a single community so much as a massive collection of individual families, and that these millions of families owe nothing to one another beyond the bare minimum, expressed in the pseudo-legal language of “responsibility” — is far from unique. The most famous articulation of the idea probably comes from the U.K.’s Margaret Thatcher, who once declared there was “no such thing as society.” But it’s been one of the key tenets of Americans’ self-perception for a while now, and has become ever more rigid and prominent as of late. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-public-health-and-safety-is-being-debated-about-just-as-if-its-a-political-belief/711830/27 "2015-02-04T20:48:16Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > So…the belly ache was unrelated to her being pregnant? It was related. But did it cause the pregnancy? What was asked was the use of the phrase that didn’t imply causation, right? ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-public-health-and-safety-is-being-debated-about-just-as-if-its-a-political-belief/711830/28 "2015-02-04T20:49:18Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > How is this responsive to the request for an example of using “wound up with” to not imply “caused”? I don’t see the phrase in the link. “She Called Out Of Work With A Belly Ache And\*\* Wound Up With\*\* The Surprise Of Her Life!” You don’t see “wound up with”? ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-public-health-and-safety-is-being-debated-about-just-as-if-its-a-political-belief/711830/29 "2015-02-04T20:51:25Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > It was related. But did it cause the pregnancy? What was asked was the use of the phrase that didn’t imply causation, right? Ah, there’s my bucket! Perfect! ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-public-health-and-safety-is-being-debated-about-just-as-if-its-a-political-belief/711830/30 "2015-02-04T20:52:57Z")
Eep eep. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-public-health-and-safety-is-being-debated-about-just-as-if-its-a-political-belief/711830/31 "2015-02-04T21:04:47Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > “She Called Out Of Work With A Belly Ache And\*\* Wound Up With\*\* The Surprise Of Her Life!” > > You don’t see “wound up with”? :smack: Nope. I missed it. I think the phrase “wound up with” implies that the two issues are related, rather than that one caused the other (your own link is an example of this). But it still begs the question of whether Rand Paul believes that vaccines are related to mental disorders. If he doesn’t think so, then he’s just spouting non-sequiters. “Some babies drink breast milk and wind up committing murder when they grow up”; “I ate a plum and wound up with the flu”; “I saw the movie Titanic and wound up with the shits”. If that is the type of discourse he is offering up in interviews, the man is profoundly disturbed, and not worthy of elected office (or practicing medicine). Question for you: Do you think that there is some relationship between vaccines and mental disorders? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-public-health-and-safety-is-being-debated-about-just-as-if-its-a-political-belief/711830/32 "2015-02-04T21:10:06Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > Question for you: Do you think that there is some relationship between vaccines and mental disorders? Yes, there is; many anti-vaxxers appear to have them. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-public-health-and-safety-is-being-debated-about-just-as-if-its-a-political-belief/711830/33 "2015-02-04T21:22:35Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > Question for you: Do you think that there is some relationship between vaccines and mental disorders? Yes, as **BrainGlutton** correctly suggests: anti-vaccination activists appear to suffer cognitive defects. But the anti-vax movement is more associated with the political Left than with the political Right. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Bill Maher are certainly not right-wing. More generally, the worst states in the nation for vaccine compliance are also mostly those that lean solidly blue. Oregon, the single worst with over 7% of its kindergarten population “exempted” from vaccinations, was a solid Obama carry. It’s true that #2, Idaho, was a Romney win, but then the list goes solidly blue: Vermont, Michigan, Maine, and Wisconsin. At the bottom of the list, Mississippi, the supposedly backward redneck gun-toting bigoted ignorant state, permits exemptions only for medically verified reasons and has less than one-tenth of one percent of its kindergarten population unvaccinated. The #49 state is West Virginia, a Romney win as well. [http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6341a1.htm](http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6341a1.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-public-health-and-safety-is-being-debated-about-just-as-if-its-a-political-belief/711830/34 "2015-02-04T21:30:41Z")
I’m not crazy about that methodology for assessing anti-vax political tendencies. My working hypothesis is that anti-vax is roughly 60/40 as between hippies and anti-government whackos. Just like fluoride. According to that hypothesis, we would expect very high numbers in states like Oregon and Maine with large numbers of both kinds of people, and fewer in states like West Virginia that have few hippies but also few libertarians. ---
**Author:** ![Locrian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/locrian/32/14146_2.png) [@Locrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Locrian)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-public-health-and-safety-is-being-debated-about-just-as-if-its-a-political-belief/711830/35 "2015-02-04T21:40:24Z")
I think this whole this is spewing into a more pro-science/anti-science debate in the media. Sprinkle that with the religious or “family” values of hard right wingers and suddenly it’s Obama to blame. How hard is this? There’s a disease. It can kill your kid. Even if it doesn’t, wherever your kid goes, kiddie puts other kids too young to have the vaccination at the same risks-- disease coming, might kill you. Then we get dummy McCarthy-- blonde, sexy, rich and HEY! She’s on Fox News! You know, the more conservative news channel who always gets their facts right! Because they’re conservative too! They wouldn’t let her speak her views if she wasn’t right, would they? Of course not! It’s television! Then the bigger dummies come up with “religious reasons” for not vaccinating. I’d say some of them are full of shit and aren’t religious at all. Those who aren’t kidding with the religion should simply have the kids go straight to foster homes and get vaccinated. I know there’s no test for being a qualified parent, but when you actually have to stop and debate yourself for whatever reason that potentially saving my kid and others from a disease by getting a FREE VACCINE requires thought, you’re more dumb shit than when the dumb-shits first founded dumb-shit town. :rolleyes: ---
**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:** [February 4, 2015, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-public-health-and-safety-is-being-debated-about-just-as-if-its-a-political-belief/711830/36 "2015-02-04T21:50:23Z")
I have heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking politicians making moronic statements out of their asses and winding up with moribund careers. ☹ > [@Bricker](#): > > But the anti-vax movement is more associated with the political Left than with the political Right. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Bill Maher are certainly not right-wing. But Michele Bachmann, Dan Burton and Rand Paul certainly are. Bottom line: Being antivax is the crazy that knows no political/ideologic boundaries. It afflicts both the Left and Right, Democrats and Republicans. As to overall anti-science stupidity, the Right still holds a solid lead over its adversaries, despite efforts from the Left to catch up using the issue of GMOs. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-public-health-and-safety-is-being-debated-about-just-as-if-its-a-political-belief/711830/37 "2015-02-04T21:50:58Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > [http://www.littlethings.com/woman-didnt-know-she-was-pregnant/](http://www.littlethings.com/woman-didnt-know-she-was-pregnant/) Hmm. Looks like monkey shit. Smells like monkey shit. Definitely in a bucket. Gonna pass on tasting it, I think, and just treat it as I would monkey shit. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-public-health-and-safety-is-being-debated-about-just-as-if-its-a-political-belief/711830/38 "2015-02-04T21:55:24Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > Ah, there’s my bucket! Perfect! What an amazing coincidence! ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-public-health-and-safety-is-being-debated-about-just-as-if-its-a-political-belief/711830/39 "2015-02-04T21:55:32Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Yes, there is; many anti-vaxxers appear to have them. For instance: [Glenn Beck compares anti-vaxxers with Galileo.](http://www.salon.com/2015/02/04/glen_beck_compares_anti_vaxxers_with_galileo_nobody_that_hasnt_done_their_homework_says_no_to_vaccines/) ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-public-health-and-safety-is-being-debated-about-just-as-if-its-a-political-belief/711830/40 "2015-02-04T21:59:12Z")
I have heard of many cases of posters saying to themselves, “Wow, what a completely dishonest and moronic partisan fuckwit” after reading **Terr’s** posts. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-public-health-and-safety-is-being-debated-about-just-as-if-its-a-political-belief/711830.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-public-health-and-safety-is-being-debated-about-just-as-if-its-a-political-belief/711830.md?page=3)