• GrymEdm@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Kids can’t protect themselves. They don’t have the ability to make their own informed choices. Please don’t destroy the evidence-based protections we have that keep them from dying, being crippled, having to get a machine to breathe for them permanently, etc. We have decades of data and it’s overwhelmingly clear: vaccines save lives and do so incredibly safely.

    Every time a child is seriously harmed because a parent ignored vaccine guidelines the parents should be charged with criminal neglect. It’s no different not different enough than if you fed your children say, mercury, and then claimed you believed it was helpful because of Facebook gurus or similarly unaccredited sources. In both situations a child is being permanently harmed due to choices they have no ability to understand, resist or protest and thus we need laws to protect them.

    Also, not only are the anti-vaxxer parents endangering their own children, but also everyone else’s by increasing risk of their kids becoming vectors/reservoirs for infection and potential mutation into new strains that could evade current vaccines. “High mutation rate is an important characteristic of viruses that can enable them to evade immune responses and propagate infection.” So not only are anti-vaxxers making choices for their own kids, but potentially also others’ kids. It’s not guaranteed but it’s rolling some high-stakes dice.

    • Norgur@fedia.io
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      8 months ago

      Not to forget, making choices for the very weakest we have: Children that are too sick to be vaccinated. Your “uneasiness” towards a little jab millions of people have survived absolutely fine might take someone else’s little wonder away. Because you circle jerked a bit on facefuck or shitter.

        • Norgur@fedia.io
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          8 months ago

          Absolutely. Yet, neglecting the sick in a Facebook-fueled self-righteous frenzy of flawed “uhm akchually” is even more disgusting in my eyes than endangering the other healthy children is.

          • GladiusB@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            They are a afraid. And rather than facing the fear in a responsible and healthy way they hide behind conspiracy. It’s oddly paralleled to political conspiracies. The mental health crisis has a far bigger reach than just horrible gun problems. People refuse to accept their failed attempts to rationalize their own feelings of fear. It’s scary thing to have the world dying. I wish they would just own it.

    • cbarrick@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      It’s no different than if you fed your children say, mercury, and then claimed you believed it was helpful because of Facebook gurus or similarly unaccredited sources.

      I totally agree that children should be vaccinated.

      But I just want to point out that there is a difference between actively doing something to harm your kid, and passively not doing something to protect your kid.

      Lack of protection is not equivalent to active harm.

      Parents should still be required to vaccinate their kids.

      • snooggums@midwest.social
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        8 months ago

        Letting your kids play in traffic isn’t acceptable even though it is passively not doing something to protect them. That’s because being different doesn’t mean that one is always fine.

        Not vaccinating kids* is like letting your kids play in traffic and letting them drag other kids into traffic too.

        *the exception are kids who can’t be vaccinated for medical reasons

      • GrymEdm@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        I’ll upvote, agree they aren’t exactly the same, and edit but I’ll also argue they should both be illegal. That is admittedly opinion but let me explain. My reasoning is there are other examples of passively, but still criminally, failing to protect a child: improper storage of firearms, explosives, or chemicals. Not using seatbelts or safety seats. Failing to secure medical aid for a desperately ill child. I am not a lawyer, but those seem to set precedents where the adult wasn’t actively putting a gun in the kid’s hand or causing a fatal illness but they were still prosecuted.

        Given the prevalence of anti-vaxxer parents, it seems current law doesn’t make failure to vaccinate your young child a criminal charge. My argument, and I know there are other views, is it should be (although defining criminal limits would require work). We protect kids in other situations where there’s no ill intent and IMO that’s a good thing. I know my position errs towards caution and is somewhat extreme, but polio is pretty extreme. The arguments that anti-vaxxers bring eerily mirror those brought by people who resisted seat belts (and I know you clearly aren’t one, just continuing the reasoning). 40 years later I think most agree mandatory seat belts proved to be a good and reasonable requirement that saves thousands every year.

    • crusa187@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      warehouse full of old iron lungs

      Oh my…it is with great sadness that I must admit you might be onto something here.

  • comador @lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Let’s not forget that it was President Eisenhower, a Republican, who directed a Republican House and Senate to pass Dr. Salk’s Polio Vaccine into immediate use in 1955.

    You’d think these anti-vax nutjobs would let that one side on that fact alone. People are stupid to even consider letting that crap come back and potentially paralyze children.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Announcement_of_polio_vaccine_success

    • Stovetop@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      The modern Republican party is a different beast entirely, ever since the Southern Strategy in the late 60’s-early 70’s that saw the party become the new home of the former Dixiecrats.

      A lot of modern Republicans will also proudly wave confederate flags, even though it was the Republican push towards emancipation by Lincoln that caused the south to turn traitor in the first place. There is definitely no “party of Lincoln” anymore.

    • njm1314@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Brother the conserves these days the ones that love John Birch who thought that Eisenhower was a communist.

  • qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website
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    8 months ago

    Before criticizing the GOP for this, let’s not forget the kind of degenerate that Salk was: not only did he not seek profit for the polio vaccine, but he also worked on AIDS vaccine research.

    So I think the GOP should be lauded for their consistency here! Surely the work of someone who wanted healthcare for all (regardless of means) and who supported efforts towards a disease which was at the time synonymous with certain “lifestyle choices” cannot be trusted.

    (Big fat /s, but I really hope that’s obvious.)

    • fluxion@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Ah, so they are battling the evil forces of wokeness? I guess that’s acceptable then.

    • nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de
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      8 months ago

      I actually live there (but not born there). We used to say it should be “dying, to live free”.

      There still isn’t a seatbelt law for adults (there wasn’t one for kids when I moved there), you don’t need car insurance, no helmet law for motorcycles, and no income or sales taxes, so schools in poor towns are criminally underfunded (like they cancel everything but the “3 Rs” if the budget is short).

      I’m only there to care for elderly parents. Off to one of the nicer NE states after that.

      • nonfuinoncuro@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        it’s pretty funny how many mass plates have don’t tred on meh flags

        guess when it comes to voting with their wallets taxachusetts isn’t so bad. you can always drive back to get cheap cigarettes

  • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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    8 months ago

    My father’s parents were told he would die when he had polio and was hospitalized. I wouldn’t be here if the doctors were right. My mother was a little girl when the vaccine was new. Antivaxxers piss me off.

    • shalafi@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      My mom knew jack about science, nor cared. But she went off about how thankful they were for the polio vaccine. As a child, they were all scared shitless of it.

      Said much the same for smallpox. She had one of those ring scars from back in the day.

  • Chemical@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    They will always persist with anti-logic. The “grand ol’ party” is a continuation of the confederacy. They’re here to act as persistent trolls.

    • Stovetop@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Oh I believe it. It is up there with the pro-life abortion logic of “the only ethical abortion is mine”.

  • Wytch
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    8 months ago

    Like a spoiled child who won’t go to bed, conservatives continue to throw a tantrum against the inevitability of progress.

    They won’t rest until they’ve reset us to 1945.

      • Wytch
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        8 months ago

        Next conspiracy theory: Liberals are using AI to send the woke mind virus back in time to make our great-grandmothers surrender their freedoms to the deep-state

    • TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      Ummm…drop the one.

      They want to go back to 945 AD complete with feudal-lords and dark ages bullshit where the life expectancy was 35 and that was a hard 35.