The only reason anti-vax attitudes were able to take root in the modern era is because vaccines are so fucking good at their job people forgot why we need them
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It didn't help that when Wakefield's "study" was exposed as a fraud there was virtually no publicity to that effect, nor the info that he was trying to bring his own vaccine to the market but stupidly sowed distrust in ALL vaccines, making his ambition to get rich off vaccines a moot point.
Exactly right. I find it astonishing that people are fine with letting their kids get sick with a completely preventable disease. I remember having measles and mumps - it was not fun.
My Meemaw (grandma) turns 93 in Feb. She is mystified by the anti-vax movement because she was around when a lot of vaccines were first developed. She said that people were so excited for them, they’d line up to get them and when diseases started to become less frequent, it was so joyful.
And because people will NEVER admit this, but they would rather have no kids/dead kids than autistic kids. That junk science article linking vaccines to autism was criminal, imo. #actuallyautistic #isaidwhatisaid
Bingo. You have to talk to people in their 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s to hear about polio in the United States. Young people have no idea what it used to be like.
Yes. It helps to be in the generation whose peer group sometimes ended up in iron lungs or wheelchairs until the polio vax was introduced. You have a before-and-after perspective that is unmatched in clarity.
What cracks me up is that a lot of these folks had already had many of the vaccines they are against, when they were kids and don't seem to understand how it saved them from some of the worst diseases to ever hit America.
If conservatives, Republicans really manage to do their thing of burning it all down so we all end up in pre-modern times, medieval Europe or whatever, I suppose there will be a lot of reinventing the wheel going on, but one must spend one's time and money on one thing or another.
Also right wing politicians pushing conspiracy theories to whip up their hillbilly base. Places like AlberDUH that refuse to even distribute vaccines. Horse laxatives are great though.
What irks me is these anti vax folks were vaccinated as kids. They had those early shots and now deny it to their kids who have suffered. Smallpox is back. Polio is back. We shouldn’t have kids with these preventable diseases anymore. And these same folks push that Covid vaccines & boosters are
causing other issues. They claim there wasn’t enough time to make it. Clearly they don’t understand how science works. The Flu & Pneumonia are also corona viruses. And having researchers working globally produces results.
Smallpox is not back, thank god. It's been eradicated and won't be coming back unless RFK Jr. breaks into one of the two BSL-4 labs in the world that have samples.
I was about to ask whether you were thinking of mpox, although I hadn't heard of an outbreak in South America. Yes, smallpox vaccines are effective against it. Fortunately even the more dangerous strain that there's currently an outbreak of has a lower death rate than smallpox.
The mind-boggling thing, to me, is that there were people in my life who were permanently disabled by polio. They’re gone now, but it’s not like those diseases are gone from living memory. I guess that makes me old, but still. Do not want polio to be around.
Vaccines shifted the Darwin Awards from a niche to Academy Award status. And MAGA was born. We’re clearly past the peak of the human survivability bell curve. Self imposed population control. No wonder they want every uterus to be forcefully put to use.
My mom kept vaccine cards for each of us and we understood how important they were and we made sure our kids got those vaccines and now their kids are getting.
Hopefully antimicrobial resistance works the same way. After a few generations, diseases will be like "I don't even remember why we're doing this" and drop the resistance. Once we re-invent medicine, our descendants will be fine for a few generations!
I think this is true for a lot of things. We don't think about back alley abortions because they were before most of our times. If Gerri Santoro's photo made the rounds again, there'd be more outrage.
If they’d seen their friends and family in leg braces and knew other children in iron lungs, they might not be so, casual about vaccines and so argumentative. So arrogant with their minuscule understanding of science. Grrrrree 😡
my parents had a lovely neighbour in the 90's. He loved gardening and birding and got along great with all as a newby in our old hood.
He was also a polio survivor and walked most days with a cane, sometimes with a walker.
They forgot that pandemics were quite common for most of human history and a lot of the time people self isolated. All the crap science they were quoting, all the stats they thought they knew, all the guys they blamed. They could have just looked at history for 10 seconds lol
Disgraced ex-doctor Andrew Wakefield & his lawyer pal exploited credulous journalists to create a public heath scare so they could profiteer off health policy
I agree w/ you that this is an RBG "umbrella in a rainstorm" moment, but let's remember the villains who deliberately exploited that moment
#Genealogists and #historians know. It's pretty sobering when you look at a county death liber and see three of your ancestors' children die within a week from diphtheria, or typhoid fever, or measles.
Anti-vaccination and mask movements are not new. There was a movement against both that grew up up in America during the Spanish Flu epidemic, for example ....
People are two generations removed from the time that so many children died from vaccine preventable diseases. My mom remembers getting the news that another schoolmate had polio. She remembers being quarantined for scarlet fever. It’s madness!
my mother remembers being a flower girl but wasn’t allowed inside the church or to participate in the reception for fear of contracting polio. was in the outside photos only! she recalls sitting alone in the car during the service.
I remember hearing the stories about diphtheria outbreaks as well. How the mortuary had come to pick up the "two dead girls" but came to my family's house by mistake. It was the neighbor girls who had died.
One of my great-great-grans and her daughter both died during the 1918 pandemic.
It was a terrible time! My grandmother had some disease; a black wagon picked her up from her home and brought her to what they called “ the pest house”. Why would people want to go back?
I cannot imagine why they think none of this will affect them adversely. We are considering looking into reupping older vaccinations now. Like MMR. May not be necessary, but don't want to be caught unaware. Measles has become more common lately.
The only reason [gov is shitty / ignorance is good / health insurance is bad / etc.] attitudes were able to take root in the modern era is b/c [previous selection] was so fucking good at their job people forgot why we need them.
I was buying a measles quarantine sign for an epidemiologist friend to decorate his office, and isn't it interesting that they don't sell them in bulk at Home Depot and Walmart.
In 2011 Seth Mnookin wrote "The Panic Virus" about Andrew Wakefield. I read the book and felt the first wave of "oh oh", seeing how the conspiracy theories were taking root on vaccines. And here we are in 2024 with RFK Jr.
Yes, there is one at a local surplus store here in the Twin Cities. It's frightening to think of spending one's life inside of one.
I remember a fellow at a store who had had polio. He had a limp and one arm that was useless...and that was considered a "good" outcome.
My mom mentioned to me when I was an adult that she named me after someone she knew in grade school who got polio. My parents are in their 80s and can remember friends dying from the diseases that 30 something crunchy moms dismiss.
My vote was on spineless politicians who didn't want to upset 200 screaming Karens who believed that while browsing FB as they had their 4th glass of wine they uncovered the huge conspiracy targeting their kids.
Exactly, I remember people crippled by polio. Pregnant women afraid of rubella. Smh. People forgot why we were thrilled to get vaccines, just like they forgot how women were tied financially to men, smh.
My husband worked at cdc for over 10 years and people were so angry at them stating they ‘over-reacted about Ebola’ entering the U.S. and it’s because THEY TOOK CARE OF BUSINESS. 🤔😃
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So you got them regardless of if you were ready to love them
Bleak, bleak past
On a related note, I'm renewing my MMR and Hepatitis vaccines in December.
He was also a polio survivor and walked most days with a cane, sometimes with a walker.
I agree w/ you that this is an RBG "umbrella in a rainstorm" moment, but let's remember the villains who deliberately exploited that moment
One of my great-great-grans and her daughter both died during the 1918 pandemic.
The only reason [gov is shitty / ignorance is good / health insurance is bad / etc.] attitudes were able to take root in the modern era is b/c [previous selection] was so fucking good at their job people forgot why we need them.
I hope he only endangers himself.
I remember a fellow at a store who had had polio. He had a limp and one arm that was useless...and that was considered a "good" outcome.
“Why am I putting a vaccine in my child for a disease that hardly exists in the world?”
🙄
Anti-vaxxers need to know that paralysis is permanent and irreversible.