Which gender is “shitstain”?
Need answer fast.
For what it’s worth, I once had a relative of mine contact me on this issue. She’s very a very organic kind of person living on the west coast, and she was…dare I say it…on the fence regarding vaccinating her first kid. We had a nice chat, I was clear in my opinion, and ultimately she made what I think was a good choice, and she has subsequently told me things that confirm that she feels she made a good choice.
The thing about fence-sitting is that one can’t sit long - the kid is born, begins to grow up, reaches vaccination stage, and then is either vaccinated or not. At that point, the parents opinion usually hardens to defend the choice they made.
I’ve got to say, this thread is really remarkably nasty, even for the pit.
Thanks for continuing to prove that you have absolutely nothing of value to contribute to this thread. And it’s not my fault that both you and Princhester responded like this.
Oh, come ON. This hasn’t even gotten to 6 pages yet.
Short but nasty, like a rabid dwarf.
What, no response on the fence-sitting issue? I figure, pretty soon the kid is either vaccinated or standard vaccination time has passed - which is why few people are on the fence at any given time. It’s like vaccinating Heisenberg’s cat.
Nice visual, although I prefer the Tasmania Devil, myself. I mean, if I’m going to be accused of sitting at my computer literally shrieking… 
Some so-called fence-sitters advocate for a different vaccine schedule than the one recommended by the CDC, the AMA, etc. They use the invalid “too many, too soon” argument. They believe that spacing out the vaccines creates less potential for “vaccine injury” (it’s a term they use), and wrongly believe that the spaced schedule is just as effective at protecting their children. So, it’s possible that the potential fence-sitting window is longer than you might think. I do think that PROBABLY you’re right, but I have run across people who have weirdly inconsistent ideas about vaccines. Also, some people who begin vaccinating their children fall into the hands of the woo-ers, and are convinced to stop the process of injecting Big Pharma poison into their children. That’s actually a big problem in pediatrics - there’s a percentage of children who are insufficiently vaccinated due to their parents stopping the vaccine schedule for various reasons.
In the years I’ve been having these conversations, I’ve run across exactly ONE person that I can remember that was truly on the fence about vaccines (and eventually vaccinated her child on schedule after several conversations with me, backed up with empirical data). All of the others who claim to be fence-sitting are actually anti-vax, but hiding it.
What some parents do is attempt to split the difference. They’ll follow “Dr.” Bob Sears’ delayed vaccine schedule or skip a vaccine like the hep b on the mistaken grounds that a baby can only get it from sharing drugs or having sex or try to find someplace where they can get separated out measles, mumps and rubella vaccines. They’ll do this to convince themselves they’re not sheeple or followers of the pHARM companies.
The problem with approach is that it does not work. Delaying does not reduce the risk of vaccine reactions. Skipping vaccines is not a good idea either because there are good reasons those vaccines are on the schedule and it isn’t to line Offit’s pockets. Separating out vaccines only makes the poor kid get more shots.
Then they get all sanctimonious when you point that out. So yeah there are a few people who are sort what many people would call fence sitters of a sort. Many people on this board have attempted to point out where Sears is wrong or why yeah the hep b is a good idea. But those people are not even remotely the majority of the fence sitters who really are anti-vax nuts pretending otherwise.
Of minor teleological interest are the usernames that antivax Internet posters utilize, in order to masquerade as benignly neutral sorts inquiring after the Truth.
Names like Interested Observer, Just Wondering, Concerned Parent etc. turn up frequently in forums. If truth in advertising was compulsory, they’d have to go by AdHominem Antivax, Rabid Needlephobic or Festering Shitstain*.
*If that’s an “attempted insult”, it’s a reasonably good attempt. 
In all the conversations or discussions I’ve had anywhere about vaccines, I’ve run across exactly one person who seems to have changed her mind about it. And I’ll admit she started out with a huge gish gallop of antivaccine links. But then she stuck around to see the responses. What happened when she admitted that she was changing her mind? She was immediately accused, by other antivaxxers, of never having been antivax in the first place, but just faking it to make her change of heart look good.
I keep hoping to meet an honest fence-sitter. There’s one I’m talking to right now that might be. We’ll see.
I love how the sites that encourage you to “make your own decisions”, want you to take advice from anyone except the CDC, AMA or any individual doctor. So make your own decisions, as long as they don’t conform to the mainstream, or use mainstream scientific data.
Doctors can’t be trusted, they don’t know anything, and they’re in the pockets of Big Pharma.
Big Pharma can’t be trusted, they don’t ever develop anything helpful, all they want to do is make us and our children sicker so that they can sell us more medications over the course of our lifetimes, and they are hiding or suppressing all sorts of cures for diseases.
The CDC can’t be trusted because the government is in the pockets of Big Pharma.
A “degree” from Google University earned by someone famous for taking off her clothes is more valid than any person who went to school for 27 years and whose made it his or her life work to scientifically investigate treating and preventing childhood infectious diseases.
Parents are the experts on their children, not people who’ve been working with children for decades.
Did I miss anything?
And when we come to vent in a forum designed for venting, we get a chorus from the Church Ladies.
I have been personally accused of being in the pockets of the pHARM companies at least five times over the last few years. I told one of the idiot accusers that it was actually ZOG money.
At this point I’m playing along because I’ve had a few days home sick (wish they had a vaccine for the common cold.) Not that I don’t actually hold these views-- I do. But I hate to lose board cred over a such a silly fight.
I would like to say the accusations of being an anti-vaxer were completely inappropriate and uncalled for. Call me a shitstain, bring up stuff from snark boards, flail around for whatever bad things you can think to call a lady…whatever. Seems a bit overboard to a minor difference of opinion, but it is the pit and all and I’ve come to peace with the fact that I rub some people the wrong way. But it’s really not okay to to attribute an attitude I find abhorrent to me simply because it’s the worst thing you can think of at the moment. I take this fairly seriously, and the veiled insinuations are fucked up and make it hard for me to let this go.
Don’t worry, you never had any board cred (whatever the fuck that it) with me. My opinion about you can be summed up with a quote from Jackmanii
The clueless part is, once again for the cheap seats and for people with apparently congenital inability to read for comprehension, is that a bunch of us came in here to bitch about the ongoing nutbaggery of anti-vax, anti-science, and anti-reason assholes who are putting themselves, their children, and others at risk by engaging in what could reasonably be called domestic bioterrorism. Then you, and the other clueless douchebag, started chastising us for venting, for our “tone,” and encouraging us to be compassionate and understanding to “fence-sitters,” which in our considered experience do not actually exist. You continued to press that issue in stupid ways, in spite of what we were telling you were 1) our experiences with so-called fence-sitters, 2) our personal experiences of more than five threads on mothering dot com, and 3) our purposes for participating in a Pit thread.
Don’t want to get accused of being anti-vax (oh, the horror! The horror!)? Don’t fucking act like one.
And if you find being called that abhorrent, and that’s the worst you’ve ever been called in your life, and you can’t handle that? Grow up, hothouse flower.
I think part of the problem with the “fence sitter” issue is that, to someone who’s read the research, knows what the risks are, and knows how these diseases ravaged society before the vaccines existed… well, to someone like that, not vaccinating looks like deciding to drive drunk because you’re afraid you’ll catch a cold if you stand outside long enough to hail a cab. It’s irresponsible, dangerous to others, and you’re incurring a larger risk to both yourself and others because of what you perceive to be a personal gain.
Even sitting on the fence about it is just being on the fence of making an immoral, indefensible decision, so one may not feel obligated to calmly and rationally discuss the pros and cons of their position.
Especially not in a forum that is designed as an outlet to express frustration and rage. The Pit is not a place for calm and rational discussion, it’s a place to vent. And getting chastised by a holier-than-thou pursed-lip fussbudget for not being nicer in the Pit is evidence that someone is missing the point.
Oooh, I’d add that that decision—like the decision not to vaccinate— is based on a complete lack of knowledge of science, seeing as you don’t get colds from being cold. 
It’s not so much that you aren’t being nice in the pit, as much as with the defensiveness, the low-blow insults, the “you’re either with us or against us” mentality and the knee-jerk, you come off as a blind zealot. And blind zealotry is ugly wherever it is found, even if it happens to have fallen on the right side of things. There is a lot of hate in this thread, and that’s kind of sad. It’s a good cause, so why all the hate for someone who is on your side?
Can you do us all a favor and put me on ignore? I’m not in here to wander around pissing people off, and if you really find nothing I post has redeeming value, there is really no reason to continue to engage me. I don’t really have anything against you beyond not seeing eye-to-eye with you on this particular issue, but obviously you have some really strong opinons on me as a poster and so…why bother?
So, your response to having it pointed out to you that you’re acting like a prissy condescending bitch is to continue to act like a prissy condescending bitch, and continue to chastise people in the fucking Pit for their tone. And to say “ignore me if you don’t like the fact that I’m acting like a prissy condescending bitch.”
“Not seeing eye-to-eye” on the issue of using the Pit for venting? You’ve been around long enough to know that people vent in the Pit. What’s your fucking problem with that now? Since I don’t recall you stomping into other Pit threads and throwing around the tsk-tsk with such alacrity as you’ve shown in this thread, I can only assume that there’s something about this thread topic that makes you act that way.
I’m not going to apologize for being, as you ridiculously call it, a “blind zealot” FOR the use of science, and AGAINST bioterrorism. Sue me if I think that anti-vax morons put us all at risk, and that sending infectious diseases is a bad thing. I certainly expected someone to defend such ridiculous beliefs and behavior, given that there’s a 17-page thread in which people are defending child rape, and when (as expected) someone defended anti-vaxxers, I responded with the vitriol that stance deserved. Why don’t you head over to the Pitting of Joe Paterno and start tsk-tsking over there about how we need to be nicer to people who defend anally raping 10-year-olds? After all, the people arguing against rape are blind zealots, too.
You really are incapable of not coming across as a pious, priggish little snot.
FWIW, and it ain’t worth much, I never considered you to be anti-vaxx. And I apologize if I gave that impression. I think you are wrong about what the Pit is for, and also about how persuasive mothering dot com is vs. the SDMB as a whole is.
They do. It’s been suppressed by Big Pharma so they can make money off cold remedies.
Regards,
Shodan
Oh get over yourself.
YOU came into this thread to tsk tsk me. Your friend then proceeded to call me all sorts of incredibly nasty names because I vented in a pit thread. In the immortal words of my eight year old YOU started it. You might want to stop whining that you got back what you gave out.
Many people including me and Kolga have literally spent hours and hours of our lives doing exactly as you santimoniously told us to do: politely explaining to people who have doubts why the antis are wrong. We’ve been accused of everything from being pHARMashills to baby eaters.
If you really want to be called names you should do as I asked and go argue the pro-vaccine position at Mothering. Because that’s where the blind rage you claim to find so distasteful really is. The blind rage is directed at Dr. Offit who literally gets death threats. And Orac, the nom d’internet of a well respected surgeon and pro-vaccine blogger who gets called the most vile names. Or Amy Wallace who wrote an article for Wired magazine on this subject and was the subject of an Age of Autism vendetta.
I have personally written numerous polite and well reasoned articles on the subject for various professional publications over the years. The result? The need to block three separate people from my email address because of all sorts disgusting accusations including threats to infect my eldest with vaccine preventable diseases.
So if I want to vent in a fucking pit thread I’m going to vent in a fucking thread. If you want to really be on our side start by understanding our point of view instead of ludicrously going out of your way to defend disease defenders and chide the people who hate them.