There is quite a parallel between the ignorance of west African people who refuse. To believe the Ebola virus is real, and people like Jenny McCarthy who don’t believe vaccinations do more good than harm and refuse to get their kids protected.i
It sickens me when people refuse to listen to science. While West Africans have an excuse due to lack of education, there is no excuse here in the United States.
Sure, they’re just like a rich, entitled, educated westerner who has full access to all the scientific evidence and should know better. /sarcasm
He does kind of point that out with
While West Africans have an excuse due to lack of education
I’m not sure what your point is. I was not chiding the West African people. They know no better because they don’t have access to anything, let alone having an education. Their information comes from the people who live next door. My anger is with Americans who act the same way but have no excuse, the massive amount of hypocrisy that rises from anti-vaxxers, their selfishness, and the extreme situation with the Ebola Virus highlights how horrible anti-vaxxers are here in the U.S. and in Britain.
Conspiracy theorists and personal agendas are behind anti-vaccination in the U.S. and Great Britain. In Africa it’s also conspiracy theorists who tore apart the Ebola clinic and broke the quarantine with “government lying to us” being #1. Anti-vaxxers in the U.S. are the same with “government lying to us, conspiracy baloney”. But the lack of education in Africa is the real cause of the problem there. If they’d had an education, understood what a virus was, had any kind of proper government this would not have happened. People took Ebola encrusted bloody sheets out of the clinic and you can bet an educated person in the U.S. would NOT do the same thing of someone who had raging cases of Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Whooping Cough, etc. But the result is the same in the end - the continued spread of disease. In America there’s no excuse for it.
So my point is, look at an anti-vaxxer in the U.S. and I feel they are worse than someone who raided an Ebola virus clinic because ignorance here in the United States is a choice. In West Africa, especially in the post I linked to above, there is no foundation for them to understand otherwise in a region with no education, no structure, and a history of atrocious murder at the hands of government or those that would lay claim to the country.
Point conceded. I misread the subject line in your post and saw red. My apologies.
I agree there’s no excuse for it. But you might be surprised at the level of ignorance and stupidity in the west, too.
It’s funny – back when I was growing up, intentionally getting your kid sick with chicken pox or measles was the accepted norm. When a neighborhood kid got sick all the other mothers would arrange for “play date” at that kid’s house, and all the mothers would sit around drinking wine and chatting while they encouraged the kids to “comfort” the sick kid with lots of kissing on the cheek, etc. Exposing a kid to the disease when it would be (largely, see below) harmless was far preferable to allowing them to grow up with no immunity.
It’s interesting how quickly a new technology can change social attitudes. Don’t get me wrong, I have a number of small facial scars from my early encounter with the Poultry Pox, and I am very glad that my daughters were spared that through modern vaccinations… not to mention the fact that even if most kids only had to suffer through the itching and runny nose of the sickness for a few days, there was always that tiny percentage that would simply die from the disease.
I was among the first wave of vaccinations, got it in grade school, but still caught chicken pox a few years later. It happens.
But these anti-vaxxers really offend me. They offended me before I had a son, but now that I do it’s personal. The chicken pox sucked, and if I can keep him from getting it, why wouldn’t I. Chicken pox is really mild though, compared to things like polio. See this particular brand of stupid can only come from the comfortable distance of a generation that has never meaningfully seen these diseases. If it was only their spawn that had to face the consequences of their choice, I wouldn’t be so up in arms. But this is MY child in the crosshairs. So to everyone who spreads anti vaccination info: fuck you. Doubly so you Jenny McCarthy. I firmly believe she should face a class action lawsuit by the parents of kids who get measles, polio, mumps, etc. I hate class action lawsuits.
Anyone who believes, and acts on, the anti vaccination lies will be cut out of my child’s life. Your kid not vaccinated? Your kid not allowed by mine.
I feel the exact same way and also feel anyone who refuses vaccination and then gets someone else sick because of it should be liable. When my niece was born extremely premature you know what the #1 concern for her was over the next year? Whooping Cough - because so many people are not getting that vaccine it’s the infants who suffer most.
You’re a really good guy and very educated so I was confused when your response didn’t quite match what I expected from someone who had a beef with what I wrote. I’m glad it misinterpretation of the title as opposed to you being in the anti-vaccination crowd! I would have been heart-broken if that was the case!
These were a thing when I was a kid, at least. College-educated parents still got stupid.
Its hyper-skepticism.
Stuff like …“People go to hospitals and die. Lots of people go to hospitals and get worse, and die. Clearly theres something wrong with hospitals”. Or “the climate change is a hoax, because this winter has ben cold”.
These people do huge logic jumps of faith, and they don’t think straight, but follow fallacies.
They are also (funny enough) gullible, if they meet some snake-oil vendor, the vendor know what buttons to press to manipulate them.
Except that in many cases there are things wrong with hospitals. People do go in for simple procedures and get sicker or die. Doctors make mistakes. There is malpractice. Yet, IMO none of this is a reason to avoid hospitals. The risk doesn’t outweigh the benefit. The same for any treatment. Vaccines are actually safer than a lot of other kinds of treatment. Anti-vaxers are just another symptom of the woo woo crowd. “I’m smarter than you sheep.” Until your kid dies.
There’s a vaccination for chicken pox now? Wow, when did this happen?
I could be wrong but I believe that getting the pox as an adult had more serious consequences than getting it as children so I don’t know that our mothers were completely wrong.
Yes, for over a decade. A stronger version of the vaccine is used in adults to prevent shingles.
That brings up another issue – the time it takes for information like this to propagate, even among educated, internet-connected people.
This is partly true - having it as a non-immuno-deficient child will normally give you a gentler case than as an adult. However, it then leaves you exposed to shigles, which can be significantly worse.
To be fair, I’m guessing Canuck doesn’t have little kids. As someone with two kids under 10, our pediatrician let us know about the vaccine even before our first was born (when we sat down and went through all the recommended vaccinations up to age 14). If you don’t have a need to know – i.e. you don’t have kids – I can imagine it might be surprising, but I think anyone in the developed world with kids should be in the know.
To be fair, I’m guessing Canuck doesn’t have little kids. As someone with two kids under 10, our pediatrician let us know about the vaccine even before our first was born (when we sat down and went through all the recommended vaccinations up to age 14). If you don’t have a need to know – i.e. you don’t have kids – I can imagine it might be surprising, but I think anyone in the developed world with kids should be in the know.