“Vaccine” has become a dirty word, something we should be scared of by default and need reassurance about. They’ve made plenty of money, and probably recruited lots of people who’ll forget the whole reason they initially shunned conventional meds turned out to be complete BS.
They will slowly disperse from this topic though. And not because of any data, just because no-one’s thought of any juicy developments to keep this in the public consciousness (alas, “MMR is safe” is not a juicy development)
Just realised something too…the OP is about a conspiracy. We’re fighting antivac with a conspiracy theory
Newsweek recently had an article proclaiming how ironic it was that some of the same people who choose not to vaccinate their children are also the kind of people who put Darwin fishes on the backs of their cars.
So they mock and protest folks who trust emotions over facts…and then trust emotions over facts.
If time travel ever becomes a reality, one of the very first things that should be done is to send some anti-vaxers over to the nineteenth century and have them watch a small child die of diptheria. And then they should be forced to watch the family grieve. Even if vaccines were somehow connected to autism (or any other bullshit “side effects” these people claim to have experienced), I’d choose that over my kid dying of a terrible, wasting disease any day of the week.
I tell you, these people are a wonder. I think Jenny McCarthy even said something along the lines of “well, maybe some of these diseases SHOULD come back, so that the doctors can see that they need to improve their vaccines!”
If anything, these diseases should come back so that people know that vaccines are a good thing.
I have actually seen some of these people say things like, “Well, people die. That’s life.” And, “If he died of the disease it was probably because he was weak anyway.” Many of them truly do seem to see illness as some kind of moral situation, where if you just do all the right things you won’t get sick. Feeding your children all the proper foods (organic, natural), drinking only pure water (no fluoride) and doing whatever you need to do to ‘strengthen’ the immune system (supplements, to the point of near overdose), will guarantee them protection from the evil diseases. Of course, many of them, either openly or by action, deny germ theory, too, so it’s no good to tell them that any of the people around them could be contagious. Nope, they know exactly what they need to do to protect their children, and that doesn’t include shooting them full of toxins, thankyouverymuch.
Ah, so now I have something to add to my time-travel scenario: have the anti-vaxers tell this to the dead child’s family. Then make bets to see if said anti-vaxers will escape with their lives.
<off topic>
That reminds me about how whenever they talk about someone getting cancer in the news, they talk about winning or losing the fight / battle with cancer.
While a fight mentality might help the sufferers (whatever the outcome), I think it paints the wrong picture among the general public. The battle is basically taking place at the cellular level.
Then you mention how this disease is part of an ongoing pandemic that they might otherwise have been vaccinated against, give them a firm handshake and a “Good luck” and get back in the time machine without them.
OK, I wouldn’t really do that, but it’s something that came to mind.
Vaccine uptake remains high, even if it has decreased in scattered areas where credulousness and “philosophical exemptions” rule. Thankfully :dubious: there have been outbreaks of disease sufficient to keep the hazards of vaccine refusal in the news. Plus, recent events show that the antivaxers were right in warning about a profit motive behind the release of false and deceptive information about vaccines - only it’s their own heroes like Wakefield who’ve been implicated. Their cause has taken a hit; how severe remains to be seen.
If there’s evidence of correlation between the tendency to mock religion (or supporting the teaching of evolution) and being antivax, I’d like to see it.
My first MMR shot is what led to my seizure at 16 months, and is why I died. So, when I had to get the second one, I got myself tested to show it was unnecessary (as I was still immune), and thus avoided it.
That still doesn’t mean I won’t vaccinate any of my kids (assuming I have them). I’ll just want to be extra vigilant for a few weeks after they get the shot.
My own experience is that it goes the other way. Every antivaxer I have ever met has been very religious. There also seems to be correlation with belief in [other] woo.
Regarding the current state of ignorance due to vaccination success, I did a whole bunch of research on the common childhood diseases a couple of years ago, and made up short descriptions for them, including the severity and mortality rates. Feel free to send this link to anyone you think needs to know what they’re talking about when they talk about childhood diseases.
My grandmother had a brother that died of tetanus when he was seven – from stepping on a rusty nail in their grandparents’ barn. Another brother died at age three from whooping cough. (This would have been in the 1920s)
I’m guessing that my great-grandparents would have been willing to accept the risks, if their sons could have lived.
Mothering is one of the single worst places on the net. The anti-vax forum is full of lunatics reading nonsense and congratulating each other for giving their children chicken pox and measles. The only worse board over there is the unassisted homebirthing board. The crazies believe that even a women overdue with triplets and leaking amniotic fluid should attempt to give birth at home by herself.
Then again what can you expect from a magazine that put AIDS denialist Christine Maggiore on their cover?
Ironically even though I was banned from their forums I got an email today asking how to make the forums better. I had a lot fun calling them fear mongering assholes who should be run off the net.
Heh - I posted in a thread about wondering if she should expose her two young kids to chickenpox. I kindly informed her that up to 100 kids die of chickenpox in the US every year, but zero kids have died of the vaccination (complete with cites).
