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this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2024
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It is amazing to me how short our memories are as a species. There are people who are still in congress who had polio. There are an estimated 300,000 people still alive in the US who survived polio. Even with that, the nominated head of Health and Human Services wants to do away with the polio vaccine.
I don't know what the problem is. Is it a lack of empathy? Is it willingness to swallow the bait surrounding conspiracy theories? Is it just a lack of education? How did we get to the point where it is even remotely okay for the future head of Heath and Human Services to be against the polio vaccine?
If being pro-polio isn't disqualifying for being the head of HHS, and if he gets confirmed, the U.S. will have very clearly shown that it is in rapid decline. It will have shown that the government is corrupt to its core and is irredeemable.
https://historyofvaccines.org/vaccines-101/misconceptions-about-vaccines/history-anti-vaccination-movements
The above link will give you the overview of the historical background on antivax movement since vaccine invention.
It basically boils down to two arguments, which feed each other.
Risk => Vaccine are/can be/will be/may be/ought to be dangerous to someone somewhere, somehow. I don't understand and I'm scared.
FrEeDoM => I do not contract and I am free to decide what treatment I get, I am not a sheep and I participate in no herd and the only immunity I accept is from overbearing big government.
In spite of my sarcasm, I do think the second argument has merit, a government should of course be extremely careful with mandatory medical treatment of any kind and bear the burden of proving regularly that the benefits continues to far outweigh any and all alternative.
That reminds me, I have a 10am appointment for my flu shot. Almost forgot.
Yeah, I see the antivax movement as largely a failure of politics and a symptom of the corrosive effects of social media.
People have lost faith in politicians after lies and corruption on mnah topics, and that is undermining all elements of democracy and trust in state intervention..
At the same time, Social Media allows idiots to connect with one another and organise there stupidity into movements. Social Media is largely driven by a desire to keep people on their apps to make money so the whole thing is designed to only show people the content they want and makes them happy, not anything that challenges their world view. They are largely not forums for free speech, instead they are commercial tools to manipulate people in to wasting time by feeding them what they want (including playing to their biases) to maximise advertising revenues.
Social media is the horrific consequence of unfetted capitalism - where all that matters is maximum profits, and the harm done to people and society as a whole is irrelevant.
Yes, except the antivax movement predate the internet by a hundred year.
But social media does work as an accelerator. Unfortunately it seems to be very good at accelerating stupidity.