Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/02/15/anti-vaxxers-use-facebook-to-t.html
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Hey, if some person on the internet says there’s a kid somewhere who died, I’m all in favor of mass panic and a return to 17th century medical standards.
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This is also yet another intersection of Russian propaganda efforts (they were behind some anti-vaccination groups) and Facebook ads coincide.
Not that, in this case, the Russians are directly doing the Facebook ads. Necessarily.
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I’d like to see the Venn diagram for anti-vaxxers, climate change deniers and transphobes. All three groups seem to rely on extremely dubious “scientific” papers written by a small pool of discredited people.
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So given the measles outbreaks in the news, I called to make sure the kiddo was up on her shots, as I know we had a delayed schedule in the past. I got an earful before I hit the stop button, said I don’t really have to listen to her nonsense any more, I just called to see where our kid was on her shots. The good news is she is current, though an MMR booster is due in about a year. I’ll also be encouraging her to get the HPV shot when she’s 18.
She isn’t dumb by any measure, she has a law degree and passed the bar. It’s more of a distrust of “big pharma” mixed with fear. Fear of the wrong thing, IMO, but it isn’t my problem/job to convince her otherwise. But it is still frustrating.
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Always worth a reminder…
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This, this I love! 
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More like Anti-faxxers, Amirite?
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I’m confused. I took my daughter to get the HPV shots (it’s a short series) when she was twelve. Why wait until 18?
Unless it’s a custodial parent thing, in which case, understood and that must be annoying for you.
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When they run targeted campaigns to women who are ‘interested in pregnancy’ and immigrant populations, I think it’s okay to drop “the moral equivalent of” from that.
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It is…
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I’m morbidly curious if the relative crudity of 17th century standards would really freak out the ant-vaxxers; or if they would see something ‘natural’ about rubbing human smallpox pustule material into cuts that scary, allopathic, antivitalist, autism-needle, vaccines lacks and actually prefer the idea.
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I’m sorry you have to fight to get your kid her vaccinations. That sucks.
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Yeah I’d be so enraged about that. At least the girl seems to be up to date to the point that she needs a booster next year!
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I thought Facebook was supposed to be cracking down on fake news? I’m pretty sure that it’s not a matter of opinion that vaccines are safe, so it really wouldn’t be restricting people’s free speech if anti-vax posts were prohibited. To be clear, I’m not angry at concerned parents, but rather those who are willfully disseminating false information (possibly for profit somehow? 
). This is going to be a weird period of history to study in the future. A time when the sudden widespread ability to access information (ANY information whether it is true or false) might aid in our possible destruction. (Climate Change denial comes to mind.) 
Still, I remain positive that as a whole we will make it through. Somehow. I just can’t accept the alternative. I guess I’m only human. 
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The hell of it is that, on a national level, we should be extremely distrustful of Big Pharma. There’s a false dichotomy here that needs to be addressed. It’s possible to simultaneously distrust pharmaceutical companies and recognize the safety and efficacy of vaccines.
Although the flu vaccine seems a little wonky. Maybe I’m misunderstanding the graph?
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I agree that Big Pharma isn’t with out faults, but the data on vaccines is pretty clear.
The flu is wonky because there are multiple viruses that cause it, it mutates, and the vaccine each year is for the strain they think will be the most prevalent. Some times they are wrong.
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Big Pharma is not really much into vaccines. They make little to no money off them and only administer them a few times in the life of a customer. The motivation for making them is live customers for drugs are better than dead ones.
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