Thanks anti-vaxxers.
Good Lord, we’ve had the MMR vaccine since what, the 60s? What’s wrong with people?
I guess the problem is there aren’t so many people today who still remember a pre-vaccine world. I asked my dad about it. He got the mumps when he was a kid. Missed a year of school and had to retake the 3rd grade. He also sustained permanent hearing damage.
There are plenty of them still around—much of the Boomer generation was in elementary school before widespread administration of MMR and polio vaccines, or at least knew people a few years older who were. Thing is, they’re not the ones making the decisions about whether to vaccinate youngsters these days. Their own kids—GenX like me (and I suspect you as well), and some early Millenials—all got the vaccines.
People have been growing up with a government that lies ever more to them. People have grown up with a government that has purposefully done things that end up being harmful, lied about it, and then the truth comes out - only those same people have been austrasized by being labelled conspiracy nuts - and no one stopped to apologize.
And then the entire situation with Covid and the Covid Vaccine, where yes - depending on health conditions, that damn thing had a serious risk to some people’s health and we were lied to. Some of the issues are related to accidental poor injection which we have had techniques that would have wasted like a tiny % of vaccine doses but avoid all kinds of complications. Then we had people stuck on ventilators for far too long which leads to long term health complication concerns but we were all being told no it’s fine - but then the information comes out.
Flat Earthers, Anti-Vaccers, and so on don’t come out of no where - it comes from a place of strong distrust in authorities that are pushing such information. And especially the Trudeau Government over the last decade has smashed trust in the federal government. And some actions taken by provincial governments have strained trust - with very few Politicians Publicly apologizing for missteps taken during the Pandemic.
TL;DR: Our current Federal Government smashed trust with a lot of people, and that is going to bring into question anything and everything they push - no matter how good or bad. And with the Lack of family doctors in many area’s, few people have trusted sources of good information to turn to, leading to a rise in Anti-vaccination, and other movements.
We’ve known since at least 2019 that the measles virus can effectively erase immunity to diseases contracted earlier. So we might survive measles only to contract opportunistic infections we’ve had before and thought we’d beaten… including COVID-19.
And we now know that repeated COVID-19 infections, however “mild,” can increase the likelihood of long COVID — which can do serious damage to the brain, heart, gut and kidneys. Statistics Canada estimates that 3.5 million Canadians have had long COVID symptoms, and in June 2023 half of those still reported no improvement. More than two in five were still experiencing long COVID symptoms a year after infection.
But a whole bunch of us just don’t give a shit about anyone except ourselves.
So go ahead deniers … lose all your immunity to the flu, colds, chicken pox, polio, etc etc etc and see how you like it.
One thing I would really like to remind everyone is there are many people out there immune to some vaccines. My son could not get into the range of efficacy, and every year we were terrified some antivaxxer would get him sick. This poor kid couldn’t go to pools, amusement parks, etc, until finally at 16 it worked.
I didn’t understand how moronic the public was until I had a doctor say to us “I wish there was another way, but you basically have to keep him out of crowds.”
There is another way - get fucking vaccinated. So these people don’t just kill themselves, they bring people like my son with them.
How did you know the vaccines weren’t taking?
I don’t remember ever being checked with a follow up blood test?
Is that something that just happens when your really young and I’d never remember?
In our case the doctors came and did a test. I am not sure of the kind, and found the levels were low. Then they repeated this each time. Sorry I can’t be more specific, it was… 17 years ago when he had the first one. Wow, time flies.
Ah okay, so it is probably just a standard thing for kids that kids never remember.
Yes, you get measels (MMR and MMRV) at about a year old, then a booster around 1.5 years old, but is required to attend school.
“BuT I dOn’t WanT to pUt uNknOwN CheMiCaLs iNtO my boDy.” they say as they smoke two packs a day and are on several prescriptions.
Or they eat processed foods, most of which have additives.
Or take random supplements online “recommended” by their favourite podcasters/youtubers.
Even if they or their children get sick it is unlikely to change their minds. So many on the old HCA sub never saw the error of their ways.
Can we get the HCA here?
I guess we could if it isn’t already.
But a whole bunch of us just don’t give a shit about anyone except ourselves.
I think it’s the opposite.
People who “don’t believe in vaccines” don’t care about themselves, they actually hate themselves, and quite possibly their family.
For them, not getting a vaccine is like chain-smoking around people. They don’t care about anyone by that point.
The real tragedy is that their actions have consequences for people who love their lives and want to be safe and healthy.
I don’t think that’s true. I work closely with a lot of different families in my job, and due to the demographics of my job, we get a reasonable section of anti-vaxxers. Most of them you wouldn’t be able to pull out of a lineup. They care about their kids, they contribute to their communities, and they’re just trying to get through whatever challenges they have to get through each day.
I would put the root causes as distrust and fear. Distrust of government, systems, the media, etc. and fear of what they don’t understand, so they look for some explanations that align with their emotions.
So, for instance, vaccines hurt, don’t make sense (they don’t understand the science), and make their kids cry, so they’re very emotionally invested in not liking them. Then anyone confirming their distrust and supporting their emotions will easily sway them, so they swallow anti-vaxx messages whole.
Same thing for anti 2SLGBTQ+ sentiment; they think trans people are “icky”, have an emotional response to it, and are then primed for any conspiracy theory that confirms their distrust of the system (education system, in this case) and gives them an excuse to justify their emotional response. It resolves their cognitive dissonance.
