I second this. I live in the Bible Belt, grew up during the Satanic Panic, loathe religious fundamentalism in my very bones, and I’m telling you guys, you are mixing up your crazies. People who follow the religious directive not to go to the doctor are quite rare. Anti-vax is not a religious woo. It belongs in the same category as flat earth conspiracies and the belief that common vegetables cure cancer.
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Had it on my side/back up near the shoulder. Worst pain of my life. Felt like someone sawing through my shoulder from the underarm with a jagged wire. All day and all night for a week.
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If it really needs to be bipartisan I guess we could support shooting them.
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Like shoot them with tranquilizer darts full of vaccines?
BRILLIANT! Call up the cable TV networks!
“VAX HUNTERS”
or
“VAX SQUAD”
or
“MEDICAL SNIPER TEAM 7”
A crack team of medical professionals who find families with unvaccinated kids and “vax” them on the streets.
ETA - I got the catch phrase they can utter at the end of each show:
“Vaccinate ya damn kids!”
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I haven’t read Dawkins. I’ve seen a wide variety of religious nutjobs, from anti-vaxxers in the conservative Christian community to ones who swear by essential oils and homeopathy as cures for everything.
My point wasn’t specifically assigning anti-vaxxing to religious nutjobs however. I was pointing to the greater fact that parental discretion can be used to ruin children’s lives when retrospectively they would otherwise protest the treatment upon reaching the age of majority, regardless of whether parents are religious nutjobs and/or anti-vaxxers and/or something else. Type A parents who tell their 4 year olds that they’re going to Harvard Medical School can be just as destructive in their parenting.
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I don’t know that either approach will make much difference. At this point you’re running up against confirmation bias, negative bias, anchoring bias, and any number of cognitive afflictions that are notable in that they are not susceptible to logical discrimination. Social ostracism actually does work in these cases. Not so much the “fuck” as the “you.” People are very much swayed by the fact that they are in a minority. Antivaxxers routinely overestimate how much of the population is on their side, and studies around global warming denial have shown that people who believe they’re part of a substantial population of believers are more likely to continue believing what they believe. It really does need to be pointed out to antivaxxers at every turn that most people are not antivaxxers and they are a dangerous fringe group.
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I 100% mean it. You have the responsibility to ensure your son is educated and that he eats a nutritious diet, and that he receives the best health care. Whilst what is “nutritious” and “best” is open to debate and revision, society has established mechanisms and norms to assist in determining these things. Educational standards are legislated, food quality overseen by the FDA, medical training controlled by legislation and professional associations etc. It’s not down to an internet search. You have no right to place your son’s well-being at risk by embarking on some bat-shit crazy anti-vax crusade, or by feeding him a fad diet or by denying him appropriate education or professional health care.
Your son has rights. You have responsibilities. It’s about him. It’s not about you. Yes, I 100% mean it.
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maybe more like a Wild Kingdom type of show there - “here we see the anti-vaxer in it’s natural habitat, the suburban garden party.”
“Carl has a couple of anti-vaxers in his sights, and is just waiting for the signal to vaccinate. They blend in with the normal herd very well, but notice the paranoid expression in their eyes and the inability to breath through their noses.”
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Bring it back old school!
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Born on a mountaintop in Tennessee,
Greenest state in the land of the free,
Raised in the woods so’s he knew every tree
but shoulda got the MMR before the age of three!
Davy, Davy Crockett…
(ok, you finish)
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What also erodes herd immunity: driving immigrants underground in fear of deportation, and rejecting a nationalized health program for fear of “socialism.”
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I totally read that in Steve Irwin’s voice. 
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I was under the impression that vaccination rates are higher in Central and South American countries.Anyone from, say, Guatemala planning to enter the US in search of work will be checking beforehand that their shots are up-to-date.
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You don’t have to dig very deep at tall. The whole Scammosphere has been abuzz for the last six months about “nagalase”, an essential enzyme of human metabolism, which they have decided is the secret ingredient mixed in with vaccines to ensure that children get cancer or autism or both.
Then there was the “Vaccine Safety Conference” in Jamaica 2011, attended by all the big names in Htrae anti-vax science, including a Holistic Paediatrician with a presentation on “Rethinking the Germ Theory”:
http://www.vaccinesafetyconference.com/speakers.html
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I think you are mostly correct. It is my understanding that there are some exceptions, like Brazil and Columbia. I also believe that places like the Philippines and Pakistan are more likely sources. I was not trying to blame any particular population, but was trying to make the point that we are not isolated any more.
Not long ago, I was sitting in a room in Asheville, and overheard a couple of women in a conversation about how dangerous vaccines are, and how they would never allow anyone to poison their kids with them. I really wanted to tell them that three days before, I had been in a hospital in the Republic of Congo, and aren’t we all happy that I have had all of my shots? I did not say anything, of course.
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With all due respect,
It’s people like you who are the reason why it’s so important that everyone who can be vaccinated is vaccinated.
Herd immunity protects those for whom the vaccine wasn’t completely effective, and it’s the anti-vaxxers who are ruining herd immunity for the sensible, the immune compromised, the very young, and the very old.
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Face, meet palm.
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They didn’t excuse kids in iron lungs from gym class‽ That’s pretty harsh.
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I work at a college just outside Boston and we have a mumps outbreak right now. We got a message on March 4 that 6 kids on campus were afflicted, and they were all quarantined. Yesterday the student paper reported that it was now up to 40 students (based on speaking to the head of health services) and the administration has done nothing to inform the staff. My department only found out because one of our students had it, and they quarantined the computer lab he’d been working on his final project in. I called my doctor about if I should worry, they said I could come in and get a test for immunity or just get the vaccination again, but either way, I had to wear a mask in the office, as I was considered exposed. My dept. admin said after talking to health services, no one had anything to worry about, it’s hard to spread it, etc. It makes me think this difference in opinions might be why the numbers keep growing. Still pissed they’re keeping us in the dark and we have to get updates from the student paper.
None of this addresses how so many kids got it when they’re not allowed on campus without documentation of immunization.
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