Orac is feeling a little under the weather. I appear to have caught some respiratory crud that’s going around, which, fortunately, isn’t so bad that I can’t go to work, particularly given that today is a lab/office day, but unfortunately made me feel too tired last night to create one of my usual peerless examples of insolent blogging. So this post will be a followup to yesterday’s post and a lead-in to a question I want to pose to you, my readers. Let’s make things a bit interactive.
First the followup. As you might recall, yesterday, I found an example that helps to illustrate why most antivaccine activists, their protestations of not being antivaccine but rather pro-safe vaccine notwithstanding, are really antivaccine. It came in the form of a woman named Marcella Piper-Terry likening vaccination to rape. It was a truly despicable metaphor, but it shows just how much antivaccine activists are, well, antivaccine. As I mentioned yesterday, they have to liken vaccination to the Holocaust. To them, vaccination is the Oklahoma City bombing. It’s Auschwitz (complete with Dr. Josef Mengele's horrific medical experiments), before which antivaccinationists view themselves as much victims as Jews in Germany during the Nazi regime. It's Stalin. It's the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. It’s a tsunami washing away everything before it.
Despite the criticism, our “friend” Piper-Terry is holding fast to her analogy:
Yes, her critics are all “trolls,” and the purpose of her original post was to make people “uncomfortable,” while retreating to the claim that, if you haven’t suffered sexual assault yourself, your comment on the analogy has no validity in the comments of her post:
Marcella September 29, 2014 at 10:07 pm
I compared a situation of what many would call “date rape” with coerced vaccination.
Many parents of vaccine-injured children have reported feeling this kind of reaction.
If you haven’t lived it, you cannot say how it feels.
And, later on:
This post is not denigrating the pain of anyone who has been raped, it is bringing attention to the pain of parents whose children have been seriously harmed or killed by vaccination.
Thanks to the laws protecting doctors, nurses and vaccine-manufacturers from ANY liability or responsibility when their products and actions kill and maim, the denial of vaccine-injury and vaccine-related death is government-sanctioned.
Parents who have lost children to vaccination against childhood illnesses that were not big killers in this country are marginalized and abused by their doctors and by people like you, who continue to ridicule and promote the 100% coverage, even though it is clear that children die every day from forced vaccination and a one-size-fits-all vaccine program.
It is YOU who should be deeply ashamed for promoting the mantra that our children, those who are part of the susceptible group more vulnerable to vaccine-injury, are somehow less important, and are “acceptable collateral damage” in the war on things like chickenpox and measles.
Of course, this rant is as disconnected from reality as Piper-Terry’s analogy. It is not “clear” that children die every day from forced vaccination. Rather, it is clear that children rarely, if ever, die from “forced vaccination.” In contrast, children around the world children die every day of vaccine-preventable diseases. If we were to adopt Piper-Terry’s hatred of vaccines, we would risk becoming more like Third World country.
Piper-Terry’s delusions aside, this whole incident got me to thinking (and here’s where the question I mentioned comes in). Given the horrific analogies antivaccinationists make about vaccination and autism, I was curious: What’s the worst one you’ve ever heard? What’s the most over-the-top, inappropriate, vile, despicable, or just out of touch with reality analogy about vaccines?
I want links, too!
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I hope this announcement will lift our benighted ( or is it 'be-crudded'?) peerless, fearless host's spirits a bit:
It's Vaccine Injury Awareness Month!!!!!!!!!!!!
and the twits are embarking upon a twitter storm today at
#VaxTruth, #hearthiswell and #CDCwhistleblower. ( AoA)
And KS commits premeditated murder on the English language will a mind-numbingly awful simile-
(paraphrase- I don't want to go back and quote it verbatim)
like leaves from trees, vaccine victims will FALL
( caps hers)
Shorter Piper-Terry: YHBT. YHL. HAND.
I'm afraid I can't top Piper-Terry. Though KS (as paraphrased by Denice, above) is up there in terms of inappropriate metaphors.
Sorry Orac, I cannot find anything worse than the rape analogy. It plugs into many current fears. It "rings bells" for a whole bunch of people looking for a cause, outside the intolerably obvious, to lay blame. People, not silly enough to do Auschwitz and so on, will use the rape metaphor to justify anti vaccine attitudes.
Anyway.
I live in a woo friendly community, and I quite like a bit of essential oil, especially in the bathroom. When woo subjects get heated here I defer to Orac. Then you get the ire and I get the discussion. Thanks.
@ Eric Lund:
I also heard or read that taking children to doctors/ nurses for vaccines was like taking ' lambs to the slaughter' ( probably from NN or PRN)
Well, these are more silly and ridiculous, than offensive and vile. And I know you have blogged about at least 1 of them before.
"Vaccination Agenda: An Implicit Transhumanism / Dehumanism" by Sayer Ji
http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/vaccination-agenda-implicit-transhuman…
AND
"Why Vaccines Aren't Paleo" by Sayer Ji and Dr. Kelly Brogan
http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/why-vaccines-arent-paleo
I find it amazingly funny that they communicate their objection to vaccines being non-paleo using the internet, rather than smoke signals.
Yvette,
Binary Talk
http://vimeo.com/100988314
^^ Only a proof of concept. Nanosmoke yeilds fantastic baudrates.
What about examples (other than Meryl Dorey, of course, given that she's already been discussed) of antivaccinationists making rape analogies?
Rape & Holocaust analogies are the worst.....
From this blogger Zorro's post at the TMR:
http://thinkingmomsrevolution.com/stop-calling-us-crazy-autism-mmr-inst…
"Marcella" (again), weighs in:
Marcella says:
August 25, 2014 at 2:26 pm
Excellent analysis of the truth.
“Nobody believes a crazy person so all we have to do to negate parents’ reports is make them appear crazy.”
Combine the gas-lighting with the constant stress and exhaustion that goes along with parenting a child or multiple children with Vaccine-Induced Neuro-Immune Train-Wreck Syndrome (aka “autism”) and it’s a wonder any of us can formulate a sentence… Or so they think!
This blog and this post are stellar examples that those who worship at the alter of the Almighty Vaccine have underestimated the parents of the children they have harmed.
No. We’re not crazy.
Yes. We’re angry. We’re also energized, intelligent, motivated and connected.
And one more thing…
We are NOT GOING AWAY."
Marcella certainly has a way with words to describe autism.
For my money it's the all but ubiquitous depiction of vaccination "taking my beautiful and perfect child away from me" such that they have to be somehow recovered.
The child hasn't gone anywhere. He/she is still right there in front of them, needing unreserved patience, love, support, and acceptance. Not attempts at "recovery" that all too frequently take the form of woo treatments like chemical castration, chelation and bleach enemas.
I know it is bad form to ask a blogger to consider a future subject for a post, but this article from the Washington Post shows how poorly some reporters understand science. In response to a survey, this author makes so many statements that show exactly how woo and quackery can be accepted.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/10/01/92-of-patien…
"In considering the efficacy of any kind of medical treatment, we should listen first and foremost to the patients. The debate over medical marijuana has largely been dominated by vested interests and advocacy groups on either side - patients' voices have been either silent or ignored completely."
and
"This study provides a helpful corrective, and in this case the patients are speaking loud and clear in near-unanimity: medical marijuana works."
I really like the whole: "laws protecting doctors, nurses and vaccine-manufacturers from ANY liability or responsibility when their products and actions kill and maim, the denial of vaccine-injury and vaccine-related death is government-sanctioned"
Uh yeah, that's because there's been NO PROOF ever that vaccines cause any of these things. The fact that every single "expert" that has been trotted out by the vaccine injury loons has failed the Daubert test speaks volumes.
I wish I had it on tape, but one of my Ma's crunchy friends equivocated vaccination to child molestation. Not smart, considering that there were at least 4 MDs in the room, and one was a Pediatrician.
I really detest the comment that crops up occasionally on quack websites: "they use babies as lab rats".
Manufacturers are not protected against all liability, either. They can be sued for manufacturing defects, which is a big deal, given that the last major vaccine tragedy - The Cutter Incident - was a manufacturing defect.
I thought Alex Jones' comparison of vaccinating to lining children up and shooting them with bullets was out there.
Vaccines are "weapons of mass destruction", causing an "epidemic of genocide", you know.
http://www.rense.com/general62/inno.htm
An all-time favorite is that support of vaccination is analogous to eating babies:
http://www.examiner.com/article/did-age-of-autism-jump-the-shark
I have really detested that anti-vax folks blame shaken baby syndrome on vaccines, going so far as to defend killers like Alan Yurko.
Shaken Baby Syndrome often caused by vaccines, not parents
http://www.naturalnews.com/041719_shaken_baby_syndrome_vaccines_side_ef…
Link for original "lab rat" use:
vactruth.com/2012/01/23/babies-used-as-lab-rats/
For worst analogy from an anti-vaccine person? My money is on the canary comparison. They equate their beautiful, wonderful, living children with dead birds.
How could we forget?
Vaccines turn people into....ZOMBIES ( Mike Adams' song- see NaturalNews-Music- Vaccine Zombie)
News item here about Germany offering beer and UPDATED IMMUNIZATIONS to homeless men after they clean the streets.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/german-alcoholics-offered-free-beer-cigarettes…
In 1938, the Nazis offered swill and the Holocaust to Jews after they cleaned the streets.
http://www.theholocaustexplained.org/ks3/life-in-nazi-occupied-europe/i…
Therefore Vaccination is the same as the Holocaust!
QED
Classics - murderers, sheep, sacrificial lambs, etc...
"With the recent vaccine events in Maryland, one can conclude that since a certain percentage of children will die, and a higher percentage will become permanently disabled, that Maryland's state vaccine policy is a policy of state sponsored child debilitation."
"Do not volunteer your child anymore and allow them to be the next lamb of our hideous public policy, do not vaccinate your child!
The truth is, every child's and every infant's life is valuable. Each being is precious, full of life and warmth, each infant is god-like. Every person on this planet counts and deserves the chance to live a healthy life. Since we have a public policy that allows for innocent children to be harmed, and at times murdered, then this policy must stop immediately.
We know for sure that at least 70 or more children are murdered yearly, and more likely several thousand children are murdered every year. When any individual or government sponsors vaccines; this is the equivalent to sponsoring the crime of murder. This is an outrage!"
http://www.naturalnews.com/022400.html#
http://worldtruth.tv/vaccines-exposed/
No, Eric: we cannot conclude that a certain percentage of children will die as the result of routine immunization, much less that "70 or more children are murdered yearly".
Did you bother to look at the article on Natural News from which you pulled this quote? Clearly not--or if you did you didn't examine it's claims critically. If you had you would have seen that this conclusion was based on reports of deaths following vaccination recorded in VAERS:
But what does VAERS explicitly warn researchers about trying to draw these kinds of conclusions from its dataset?
while retreating to the claim that, if you haven’t suffered sexual assault yourself, your comment on the analogy has no validity
Ooh, so does that mean, since I have, that she'll pay attention when I tell her that she's full of shit and the comparison is mind-bogglingly offensive?
...didn't think so.
I think rape is the worst because it has the most potential to resonate with people who haven't given much thought to the issue and therefore gives the anti-vaxxers the most traction to sway opinion. The Holocaust ones are too disrespectful to Holocaust victims, survivors, their families, history. Rape is similarly disrespectful but in not as public a way. And the sacrificial lamb/child sacrifice ones are just too stupid for anyone to take seriously.
I think rape is the worst because it has the most potential to resonate with people who haven't given much thought to the issue and therefore gives the anti-vaxxers the most traction to sway opinion. The Holocaust ones are too disrespectful to Holocaust victims, survivors, their families, history. Rape is similarly disrespectful but in not as public a way. And the sacrificial lamb/child sacrifice ones are just too stupid for anyone to take seriously.
Um, JGC, Eric was mentioning an example of antivaxx analogy. I don't think he was supporting it.
Sorry, Eric. I'd like to blame the cold I have right now for missing that, but the sad fact is it that it flew right over my head un-assisted. Guess I'm not Drax...
Boyd Haley once commented at AoA that vaccines cause foreign students.
Here's the whole quote:
“What you see in not only at the University of Kentucky, but at every university in the United States probably, is a huge preponderance of foreign students coming into graduate school because we can’t find enough qualified American students in chemistry and math and other science areas to help us with those laboratories. So the occupations requiring a math/science education is going to be taken by people who come from countries where they didn’t damage their children. This is not a wild speculation. I think out of 78 nations, if we look at our longevity and our health, the Untied States ranks 72. We’re not ranking in the top ten. “
vaccination “taking my beautiful and perfect child away from me”
A lot of the time, the stolen baby -- replaced by a changeling -- is described as "blond and blue-eyed". Aryan purity seems to matter to anti-vaxxers.
This isn't an analogy, but on "Shot of Prevention", one anti-vaccine commenter said this about his/her own son:
Source: http://shotofprevention.com/2014/09/11/nova-film-vaccines-calling-the-s…
"My autistic child cannot communicate, is not interested in anything, does not appear to care about any other person. No affection, no interest, no concern. About anything except his food and his belongings."
I foresee a bright future in politics for this child.
@Gray - I remember that particular commentator.....if you parse through his comment, it is all about him & nothing about the actual feelings of the child.
What a horrid person.
Ken: "Boyd Haley once commented at AoA that vaccines cause foreign students."
He also called autism "mad child disease":
http://neurodiversity.com/mothers_for_dignity.html
If it ain't broke, don't fix it -- Tim, et al.
Ken @29: Wow, there is a lot of fail in that paragraph. The US has about 300 million out of a total world population of about 7 billion, so if we assume that US students are average (he explicitly says we are below average) and we tell our graduate schools to admit the world's best students, we'd expect only ~5% of them to be Americans. I've never been at an institute where the proportion is anywhere near that low--it's typically closer to 50%, and often higher. Not to mention the economic incentives: many Americans have noticed that certain non-science jobs, e.g., the financial industry, offer more pay for less work than science jobs typically do, while foreign students are frequently better off financially if they come to the US. Often, there are also career advantages to studying in the US (a German colleague has referred to it as getting the B. A.--"Been in America"), whether the student stays in the US or returns to his home country (many of those students stay, to the net benefit of the US). Okay, we do have some health issues in this country (such as obesity), but I'd like to see his citation for the rank of 72 of 78--I smell some freshly picked cherries in that factoid.
Ken @29: Wow, there is a lot of fail in that paragraph.
Boyd Haley could have checked whether the countries of origin of non-US students are indeed so backward or poor that they use no vaccines, as he asserts ("people who come from countries where they didn’t damage their children"). But then he wouldn't be Boyd Haley.
Eric Lund: Not to mention the economic incentives: many Americans have noticed that certain non-science jobs, e.g., the financial industry, offer more pay for less work than science jobs typically do, while foreign students are frequently better off financially if they come to the US.
Also, most US students simply don't have the background to work in a science field. If you grew up in Utah, Ohio, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi or any other red state, you don't learn about evolution, much math, or much of anything outside the Bible. There aren't any other first world countries who let that happen.
Frankly, given the poor specimens that most anti-vaxxers are, I'd be a strong advocate of creche raising autistic children. There's no other population that is as despised by their own parents and as vulnerable. There are a few people who still remain sensible while raising autistic children, but they are such a tiny minority it seems pointless to allow the kids to stay with their families.
PGP: Can I have some of what you're smoking?
Ebohlmann: I think you confused me with Tim.
" If you grew up in Utah, Ohio, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi or any other red state, you don’t learn about evolution, much math, or much of anything outside the Bible."
And if you are PGP you don't learn much about avoiding stereotypes despite being called on your close-mindedness many, many times.
"If you grew up in Utah, Ohio, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi or any other red state, you don’t learn about evolution, much math, or much of anything outside the Bible."
I grew up in a red state. I learned a lot about evolution, almost nothing about the Bible, and lots of math (my major in college). I also learned that I live in a great big world with lots of varied people who do not fit neatly into tiny cramped pigeon-holes. Politicalguineapig seems to have missed out on those lessons.
Shay: Not a stereotype. Take a look at what's happening in Texas, Colorado and a few other states.
LW: That was then. Things have changed a lot.
Government plot
http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Health_Concerns/Vaccines/vaccinations_ca…
@PGP
Damnit, will you please stop failing the Turing test...
I admit you come close on rare occasions, but then you go and say something stupid that shows you know nothing about people and how they react to life, the universe, and everything.
Here's a hint - most people are purple. 10% are red, 10% are blue, and 80% are purple. Your beliefs might be within the 99%, but your prejudice put you with the TMR.
I would say you are an outlier, but they wouldn't claim you. You are a caricature, not much different than (formally) boy Jake, and only in science do you get it right.
Quiet, you're going to attract A/AT/ATD.
One thing that occurs to me, and i would appreciate someone medical confirming or debunking this as its only a thought that occured to me. If these children are truly Vaccine Damaged, and i assume that rarely this will happen... what would happen to said child if he or she caught the actual illness? i assume its a temperature related problem from an over active immune system so would they not still be damaged from the illness in a similar fashion? would they not be the children for whom complications in measles etc would occur?
@Bags - when confronted with this information, the typical anti-vaxxer will fall back to its secondary position & claim it was the "toxins" in the vaccine that caused the damage - and that the disease itself is "natural" and would never do harm to a "healthy" child.
@Lawrence.. yeah but am i right in thinking that the disease would have the same effect the vaccines have on this extreme minority,,, is it the antibodies production that causes the overheat or is it an allergic reaction to something in the vaccine that the disease would not expose them to? (This is a question by the way.... i am absolutely pro vaccine and SBM)
@Bags
Thats a good question - I would also like to know what is known on it
@Bags - I could be presumed that the disease would be significantly worse, since it involves a systemic infection (i.e. an antigen load many times that found in the vaccine) that could potentially cause the reaction that you are talking about.
There is no evidence that a vaccine could cause an "allergic" reaction outside of anaphylactic shock, which is an immediate & potentially life-threatening reaction that can occur in a very, very small number of people.
If a very small minority who may be vulnerable actually exists - researchers have never found it (meaning that it is so small as to be dwarfed by background exposure).
Again, any effect that a vaccine would have in antibody production is minuscule compared to actual exposure to the diseases - and no "allergy" to other vaccine components - except for Egg - and even now, research has shown that the exposure is so small that even those with Egg allergies can take the vaccines safely (as long as they are monitored) - but again, this is a potential "immediate" reaction, no the kind of thing that the anti-vaxers claim.
It is a good question, however, and I hope my answers help.
So what is it that causes the Anaphylactic Shock? is there some ingredient in there causing it? Sorry if i sound a bit ignorant but I'm trying to learn as much as i can since the Vax rates at my sons school are dropping horribly. they just gave them all a flu shot and the uptake was around 50%.. it beggars belief! some of the Locals facebook comments are just scary!
Oh and sorry Lawrence, i should have thanked you for that response :)
@Politicalguineapig,
I've had the good fortune to go through life without encountering a lot of thorough-going bigots. Sering how PGP twists and turns to defend her bigotry has been educational.
@LW
Studies have shown that people of all ideologies will deliberately alter reality in order to force facts into their preconceived notions. I make no claim about which ideology does it more or less, but it is a apparently universal human trait. If I recall in the study, liberals who could correctly solve a non partisan math problem were less likely to be able to solve a similar math problem if the result was negative towards gun control. Conservatives showed the same dysfunction when the politics were switched.
JGC - No problem. I've done it at times too. Blame your cold if you'd like - but I usually blame the fact that because I hate pseudoscience so much, I sometimes react too quickly at even the hint of it. No hard feelings here - it is a mistake I've made myself!
@Mike, I don't recall mentioning PGP's politics in my comment. She ignorantly condemned the tens of millions of people living in "red states" as being uneducated Bible-thumpers. That is simply not true and only a bigot would think it is. It would be equally bigoted for me to say that everyone in a blue state is an ignorant bigot just like PGP, but I don't say that because they aren't.
People are individuals with their own individual strengths and weaknesses, wherever they live, and broad-brush claims like PGP's are just stupid.
To your point, "Studies have shown that people of all ideologies will deliberately alter reality in order to force facts into their preconceived notions", I don't doubt it. But I think bigotry should be called out for what it is, regardless of the ideology of the bigot or the person doing the calling out.
In fact, my view is that people in my group (whatever my group is in the context) should behave *better* than others. It seems not everyone agree with that view. That's the reason I abandoned my original career: my colleagues, by and large, didn't feel they should have to live up to the standards demanded of others, and I did.
Rape comparisons, shaken baby denials, genocide, murder, dead canaries...
Hmm their use of language certainly presents a common theme of hyperbole and brutality. And a common way of thinking about their own children that I hope doesn't affect said children's sense of value or esteem. I really hate to think how one of their children would feel growing up knowing their parents see them as an unperson, never accepted for who they are or supported for who they can be.
@Ken #29
That is stoopid.
@Chris #34
Aaand that just proves my point. Despicable. Even *if* they had a point about vaccines, they certainly don't seem to think that they should be supportive from a psychiatric point of view either. Apparently any sort of medical issue means the child doesn't need accepting as is.
@PGP #38
Are you a false flag operator? I mean, "why don't we take their kids and stick 'em in camps" is about as close to what authoritarians do as possible. It's what the Australian government did to 'civilise' Indigenous children and what Irish orphanages did to unwed mothers and their kids. Even supposing your generalisation is right, your thinking on what the solution is, is way way way off base. (Yes I am aware I am conflating creche with adoption - the point still stands though)
Here's why I have hope for PGP's development:
- she's still young
- she believes in the scientific method and data.
- she's intelligent
- she hangs around with Orac's minions
Understanding prejudices and stereotyping is part of what social and cognitive psychology studies as well as attitude change
AND there other data in social sciences like politiics and sociology just sitting there, WAITING for her- pleading,"READ me, please!"
Research in the social sciences is more difficult because we examine and measure 'things' like attitudes, ideas and emotional reactions but even those can be quantiified and explored
( although I must confess that it may be done poorly and often is). Cognitive psychologists may view stereotypes as a means of simplifying information, similar to how we remember less details and more general outlines.
BUT perhaps even more convincing evidence can be illustrated by maps ( wikip- and searches for "red and blue states") as you uncover finer levels of descrimination- state, county, city- the maps turn progressively purple. Needless to say, if a blue candidate wins, his or her margin can be by a single vote or overwhelmingly large,
revealing two very different spectra of political beliefs.
Similarly, she can observe how diverse people can be when you read their thoughts in more detail, as we do here.
Re: Bags@47
Anti-vaxers often pull out the case of Hanah Poling, who wa compensated by the NVICP for the table injury vaccine-induced encephalopathy. This caused the autism like behaviors associated with a pre-exisiting mitochondrial disorder to become worse.
What they don't bother to address when they do, however, is that while vaccines are known to cause encephalopathy they do so very rarely (the MMR vaccine causes about 1 case of encephalopathy for every million doses delivered)while the infectious diseases they protect against cause it orders of magnitude more often (about 1 case in every one thousand measles infections).
You're at far greater risk of 'damage' as a consequence of encephalopathy if you chose to remain vulnerable to infection than you are if you instead elect to be vaccinated.
So if you were a parent of a child like Hanah, genuinely concerned about encephalopathy exacerbating the symptoms of their mtiochondrial disorder, the best thing you can do for your child would be keep them up to date with their vaccinations and dramatically lowering their risk of getting encephalopathy.
Thought this comparison I read today was pretty ridiculous:
"Someone just posted a thread saying that Washington State law now allows schools to remove unvaccinated children from schools for 21 days every time someone ELSE in the school comes down with chicken pox, effectively denying the child educational, social, musical, arts, and sports opportunities, and potentially causing ruinous financial and job-related difficulties to the working parent who must then stay home with the child, not just for one three-week period, but for three weeks EVERY time someone in the school gets chicken pox.
This is a perfect example of why we need to fight this monstrous idea that a state can remove a perfectly healthy, innocent individual from school or from work, just because they did not allow an invasive medical procedure.
Denying access to educational, social, or job opportunities based on vaccination is nothing more than industry-driven implementation of a caste system.
There is no telling where this could end. State-required tattoos? State-required birth control? State-required antidepressants? State-required circumcision, male or female? State-required pregnancy or abortion?"
http://www.mothering.com/forum/47-vaccinations/1453897-vaccine-mandates…
Flip: I mean, “why don’t we take their kids and stick ‘em in camps” is about as close to what authoritarians do as possible. It’s what the Australian government did to ‘civilise’ Indigenous children and what Irish orphanages did to unwed mothers and their kids.
I am aware of all those situations, but there's got to be a better option then forcing autistic children to stay with people who don't think of them as people. An autistic child who lived in the worst neighborhood of the worst city in the worst state..would still be in less danger from strangers than they would be from their own family.
Most anti-vaxxers have less empathy than people who run daycares- at least daycare workers are aware that they are dealing with humans.
LW: It's not bigotry; I'm the same race as most people in power in the red states.
Annie: I think someone got their undies in a twist over an Onion headline. No way would Washington State pass a law like that. The towns are full of hippies and hipsters, and you can't throw a stone in the country without hitting a libertarian.
Annie, when the parents signed the exemption to they also agreed to quarantine their child if there is an outbreak. If they accept the much higher risk of leaving their child vulnerable to the disease instead of protecting them with a safe vaccine, then they need to abide by other public safety rules.
The "state" also does not let you dump your raw sewage on public roads.
If you don't like it, then homeschool. The "state" is not obligated to give you free daycare. I had to deal with a month of three kids who actually did get chicken pox the year before the vaccine, including one that was only six months only. I have absolutely no sympathy for your whiny rant.
Sorry, Annie, I need coffee. I should have directed that to the sMothering forum. I'll get coffee now.
@Chris, no problem :)
Agree with you 100%.
On another thread she called it unconstitutional.
"I don't know anything about Washington State policy, but I think your friend should contact the ACLU as soon as possible. Her daughter is being discriminated against for refusing an invasive medical procedure. For chicken pox, which is not a national health emergency, so it is unconstitutional."
Not enough eye rolls for this.
@Annie - she should know that the Supreme Court already declared this type of policy to be Constitutional, way back in 1903, I believe.
PGP
Bigotry isn’t just about race: it’s about intolerance, and your words read as intolerant of anyone different than you as is possible.
Frankly, any insight that could be hiding in many of your comments here is drowned out by the constant stream of ignorantly overgeneralized and offensive statements.
My local school district sent home a letter last year advising us that they have a similar policy (if your child is unvaccinated against a particular disease and there is an outbreak at the school, the child will be asked to stay home). I'm sure an antivaxxer could take exception to that, but they make it clear this policy applies to those with medical exemptions too, and it's for the child's own safety as well as that of the other students. The child will receive schooling during this period, in the form of books and lessons sent home -- nobody is getting deprived of an education over this. I would bet that the arrangement in Portland is similar.
Annie, the poster on that MDC site is well known to us all. She's a crank who has posted on the Clown blog and she hates Respectful Insolence.
During October, 2013 that policy was implemented for several schools in the State of Washington, during varicella outbreaks:
https://srhd.org/news.asp?id=14
"Chickenpox Affecting Spokane Schools
Two Spokane area elementary schools have been experiencing outbreaks of chickenpox. This has prompted the Spokane Regional Health District to take action to stop the spread of the disease, based on recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and made in consultation with the Washington State Department of Health, and Spokane Public Schools officials.
Students from Madison Elementary School and Holmes Elementary School who are at risk for acquiring the disease are being kept home from school until an outbreak of chickenpox has ended, or until their parents can provide proof of vaccination or immunity. Parents of students have been sent a letter alerting them that chickenpox is occurring and urging them to vaccinate their children and to provide updated shot records in case the disease spreads....."
You mean like this?
^ (The actual decision is here. Short story: You're not constitutionally entitled to an exemption in the first place, and the exclusion is of general applicability, so you're not being persecuted. Go away.)
PGP I have worked with far too many Southerners, both on active duty and now in Public Health, to accept for one second your stereotypes. When you can prove to the rest of us here that you actually have spoken with, worked with, relaxed over a beer with, the people you are falsely characterizing, rather than keeping them at arm's distance and interacting with them as little as possible, then get back to the rest of us, ok? Because your blurred, over-the-horizon viewpoint does not reflect the reality that the rest of us know from first-hand experience.
While this is not as disgusting as the rape/holocaust analogies mentioned above, Erwin *cough Ervile cough* Alber also manages to link vaccinations and homosexuality. Truly reprehensible. http://encyclopediaantivaccinemovement.blogspot.com.au/2014/01/erwin-al…
Shay: Why would I want to? I'm not in the armed forces, I don't go to church and I'm not pregnant, so I wouldn't register as a person on their radar. And I'm fine with that. Really, all I want is for them to stop voting clowns into office and reign in the police.
If they did that, I'd have a better opinion of them, Admittedly, it does happen up here (both neighboring states and a few districts) but the dolts don't have as many loudspeakers.
@PGP #62
Woosh, right over your head.
What you just wrote is basically exactly the excuses used for taking children in both my examples: that the authorities were putting the child's wellbeing first; that the parents didn't have the intelligence or morality to do what was best for their child; that the children were in danger because their parents weren't 'good' enough; that the authorities knew what was best and were acting as arbiters of morality. Lastly, in a vast number of cases, the children taken were actually abused by those who adopted them because the authorities assumed out of hand the 'goodness' of those who took the children. The reason it was and is a scandal also includes the fact that it did irreparable damage to a group of people (both parent and child) in terms of self worth, family bonds, and a state-approved bigotry that carries through to the wider society.
In other words, you'd end up encouraging the very discrimination you'd like to see stopped.
I am all for child services when they are in danger or when it is clear that they are truly not being looked after, but it's a fine line between that and paternalistically deciding who should be a parent to their own child and who shouldn't be. Your views swing too closely to that authoritarian take to be considered seriously. I'm really hoping your trolling for lulz right now.
pgp would you be willing to let us know roughly how old you are? Like DW I keep trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, but jeezum crow, you are about as tedious as tim.
Flip: The reason it was and is a scandal also includes the fact that it did irreparable damage to a group of people (both parent and child) in terms of self worth, family bonds, and a state-approved bigotry that carries through to the wider society.
Yeah, but anti-vax parents don't have any bonds to the kid in the first place. There's no love, so what difference does it make?
Brook: Not that it's any of your business, but I'm probably one of the youngest people here. Still in my twenties.
^^ So. Red Six, there is no sancuary.
"Shay: Why would I want to? I’m not in the armed forces, I don’t go to church and I’m not pregnant, so I wouldn’t register as a person on their radar."
As Flips said -- whoosh.
@PGP #77
Compare this (please forgive the length):
wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generations
Sometimes the state gets it wrong you know. And some of the above expresses a similar sentiment as stated by you PGP. The "they don't love them" attitude, the paternalism, the blanket stereotyping, is all remarkably similar to the idea that certain unwed mothers/ethnicities were unfit parents. (Follow wiki's references for more. I could not find a more reasonable link on Irish adoption other than this, for the moment: wikipedia.org/wiki/User:FiachraByrne/History_of_adoption_in_Ireland.The bit about unwed mothers having to prove themselves before being allowed to care for their child is .... Familiar.)
Now you are either being deliberately obtuse or trolling. Which is it?
Orac, Here's a whopper from worthless "pediatrician" Jay Gordon--ignorantly and selfishly said last night in the middle of California's worst modern-day pertussis epidemic (http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/us/2014/10/03/ctn-pkg-lah-calif…, go to 2:10 in).
Reporter: "Isn't it [not vaccinating] inherently selfish?
Gordon: "Yes,. I'm encouraging parents to make a decision that they feel is best for their children while considering public health".
Interviewer: "Do you feel you're endangering the public health?"
Gordon: "No. If vaccines work and everyone else is vaccinated, then there's no risk to them."
Thanks a whole lot, Jay Gordon, MD, FAAP--you worthless excuse for a pediatrician.
And thanks, again, to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and their AAPathy (tm), for not having a nanogram of courage to openly call out Sears and Gordon for their direct contributions to non-vaccination and the pertussis epidemic in California this year, in which 3 infants have died and the case count is well on it's way to surpass the 2010 California pertussis epidemic. The AAP will be having their annual convention next week in San Diego, but appears completely oblivious to rising anti-vaccinationism or the fact that they are meeting right in the middle of pertussisville.
@Chris
None of us are surprised at Jay's machinations. He doesn't understand the very basics of cause/effect. He doesn't care about the public health - only about lining his pockets from affluent parents who want to feel special about their children.
If he had a modicum of decency, he'd have kept his mouth shut. If he had an iota of understanding, he'd know that he's harming public health with his statements.
But he has neither, and he doesn't give a shit about those kids who can't be vaccinated, who are too young to be vaccinated, etc.
That's the same excuse antivaxxers always use: if a child who was vaccinated against measles gets it from a deliberately unvaccinated child and dies or suffers permanent disability as a result, that's the fault of Big Pharma for not making absolutely perfect 100% effective vaccines. If an infant gets pertussis from an unvaccinated visitor and dies, that's the parents' fault because the infant wasn't vaccinated -- of course the infant wasn't able to be vaccinated, but what does an antivaxxer like Jay Gordon care about that? If a child who is undergoing chemo or has had an organ transplant catches measles from one of Jay Gordon's deliberately unvaccinated victims -- I mean patients -- and dies, well, that's their own fault because if they'd been vaccinated with an absolutely perfect vaccine that wouldn't have happened.
I think I rival Dr. Hickie in the degree to which I despise Jay Gordon.
My issue with "Dr." Gordon is that he actively encourages bad public health behaviors, based on no evidence whatsoever....he certainly isn't a good doctor & definitely doesn't deserve to be called a public health professional.....
Surely Gordon knows that some children are too young to be vaccinated, some have impaired immune function and that no vaccine (or natural immunity) is 100% effective. I can only assume he has some ulterior motive for making such a stupid statement. Oh wait, of course he does, he profits from pandering to people who believe this nonsense.
I believe Gordon runs a "cash-only" practice, right?
Must be extremely lucrative for him to cater to the whims of the upper-middle class anti-vax heads.
Gordon profits both in dollar$$$ and he gets to be the glory whore he's always wanted (I think he crawled out of his hole out of jealousy of Sears' ego).
C'mon Jay--join our discussion, you jerk.
One word: Falsification. If you cannot give an intelligible answer to the question "How would I know it, if my beliefs were false?" then you have NO moral superiority to the autism quack who says "Buy my remedy! I know it works, even though I've never tested it!"
Flip: Now you are either being deliberately obtuse or trolling. Which is it?
Neither. The difference between the Australian and Irish governments and the case now is that we have these people on record, who have actually admitted homocidal tendencies toward their children. They had their chances. If they weren't rich, the kids would already be gone.
PGP:
There are bigots everywhere, and there are non-bigots everywhere. Rosa Parks lived in Birmingham, Alabama, Molly Ivins was from Texas, and if you think there are no racists in Massachusetts or New York, you're not looking at reality (and are almost certainly white).
I thought she was going to reflect on her extreme tendencies towards bias/stereotype after the fact that she automatically considered the biomolecules: Glutathione and oxytocin as not real because the first/only? place she saw them was at AoA.
sameoldsheet.
Sure--just as soon as the state manages to demonstrate that mandatory tattooing not only addresses a compelling state interest but is also the least intrusive legislative means to do so.
If I were mothering.com I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for this to happen.
The Book of Revelation predicts we will all have a bar-code containing our social security/national insurance number tattooed across our foreheads, doesn't it? Depending on the translation of course.
Well Krebiozen,
It appears to depend on the translation as to 'on' vs 'in' {the following are King James version}:
Rev 13:16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
Barter seems fine though they'll probably be looking to drone over it --
"I've got $2000 dollars in gold here, how many chickens can I obtain?"
"I've got a 2000 dollar chicken."
Seeds are still nice, though.
But also:
Rev 7:3 Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.
Rev 22:4 And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads.
---------------------------------------------
So. It would appear that some people say that no matter what flavor taudry jail-grade biosynth tat the State slaps upon a person... what is more important is what one believes -- What's in the forehead.
Just positing...
I did consult the Alex Jones translation of the Bible but it appears to lack a New Testament.
That's because he's really a Jesuit Vatican Assasin and Controlled opposition who licks 'tiger blood' off his disavowed friends who invoke Kabbalahic spells like "Chaim Levine." Try PropagandaMatrix...
You *may* find a condensed version there. Maybe. Planet Infowars is right out; Just a bunch of like-minded disinfo agents looking to get laid and a couple feds and stuff.
PGP - I assume you are referring to the system of Ireland's industrial schools. Those weren't for "orphans" and most of the children had living parents who were simply too poor to take care of them.
Politicalguineapig #37
On being compared to ruthless government thugs who ripped children from their mothers' arms for being Aboriginal, Politicalguineapig #89
Some very repulsive parents of autistic children have expressed a desire to kill their children. Therefore all parents of autistic children have publicly expressed a desire to kill them, and all autistic children should be ripped away from their parents.
Some Aboriginal parents were abusive and neglectful*. Therefore, all Aboriginal parents were abusive and neglectful, and all of their children should have been ripped away from them. Good policy according to Politicalguineapig, who seems incapable of grasping that people are individual human beings.
Politicalguineapig, people are not Platonic ideals of Person Type. A given parent of an autistic child is not The Parent Of The Autistic Child, Who Is Rich And Privileged And Hates Children Who Are Not Perfect. Some parents of autistic children are like that, but they don't speak for every single parent of autistic children, or even most of them.
I really wish you would get it through your head that people are different even if they all look alike to you with your ideological blinders tightly affixed.
*That would be true of any large group, of course.
LW: A given parent of an autistic child is not The Parent Of The Autistic Child, Who Is Rich And Privileged And Hates Children Who Are Not Perfect. Some parents of autistic children are like that, but they don’t speak for every single parent of autistic children, or even most of them.
True, but parents of autistic children have a distressing tendency to turn into the second category of parent, and get sucked down into the morass. It's like vampirism or a cult. The problem is that being anti-vaxx usually goes along with becoming a curebie and withholding love until the child is perfect. Maybe anti-vaccine parents should just be fast-tracked into the system- have a social worker come in every month and keep an eye on them. I dunno- a lot of people here have rosy colored glass syndrome.
Or you're grossly astigmatic, whatever.
"True, but parents of autistic children have a distressing tendency to turn into the second category of parent, and get sucked down into the morass"
And you, of course, have proof of this? How many parents of autistic children are there in America (as you live here I will not ask about other countries)? What percentage of those parents are antivaxxers? What percentage withhold love from their children because they are not perfect? Please provide sources for these numbers,
@PGP #89
Obtuse. Your sidestep of what I posted is noted. Your comment only further strengthens the comparison between the wiki quotes and your generalisations. Try rereading the quotes and exchanging anti-vax for every 'unwed' or 'Aboriginal', you'd see how you sound. Indigenous Australians were 'barbarians', drunkards, layabouts... Anti-vaxxers are homicidal, unfeeling, careless. You really can't see a comparison? (I see LW has provided same) Of course you can, but the only thing I can see as a defense from you is special pleading.
And at #99
There's that paternalism and generalisations again. Let's see where we've heard that kind of thinking before:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Territory_National_Emergency_Response#Reaction_and_debate
And
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stronger_Futures_policy#Reaction
And as I pointed out before, you are assuming those in charge will also do no wrong, or that by forcing children away from their parents it does NO damage of its own to the CHILD itself. You really are being obtuse.
Also noted is that you have stated no position on those examples, whether you think them right or just. I wonder what your position is on those: or did you leave that unstated on purpose? I personally find it atrocious, and am now respectfully considering my privilege as a white middle class person in a state where I won't be arrested if I have one beer.
Sad thing is, last night after posting I thought of a possible and reasoned rebuttal to what I had posted. I thought perhaps that if you were thoughtful enough on the topic you might come back with it yourself and challenge me on it. Indeed there are numerous questions I could put to you: do anti-vax parents need to do anything before their child is taken to creche, ie abuse or neglect or do they just have to be anti-vax and that's enough? Do they have a legal recourse to appeal such decisions? What if they lie to the authorities? Are taxes used for your system? What happens when parents get physical with children's services? Can a parent just turn up at the creche and log their kid out? How is the creche protected from angry parents? etc etc.
But I see now that you won't and aren't really interested in a discussion of where to draw the line on the rights/responsibilities of the patent. You will continue on, as usual, in blind denial of your biases.
@dedicated lurker #97
You might be referring to me and not PGP, as I was the one to bring it up in the first place. And am I confused, I was under the impression that children were taken from mothers and put into adoption?
Sorry, that first link is
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Northern_Territory_National_
Emergency_Response#
Reaction_and_debate
Autism gets portrayed so much as if it were a sort of personality black hole, but here's a case where it's definitely not!
http://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/daily-roundup/autistic-5-year-old-gi…
Thank goodness - Hooker's study is now officially "retracted."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4128611/
Too bad the notice wasn't more informative.
"The Editor and Publisher regretfully retract the article [1] as there were undeclared competing interests on the part of the author which compromised the peer review process. Furthermore, post-publication peer review raised concerns about the validity of the methods and statistical analysis, therefore the Editors no longer have confidence in the soundness of the findings. We apologise to all affected parties for the inconvenience caused."
(with a hat-tip to Liz Ditz)
In some cases, yeah. But the system of the industrial schools was mostly children taken away from parents for one reason or another. Mary Rafterty's book Suffer the Little Children is a good read on the subject.
"Disease is earned, not acquired.... '
at
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message2653980/pg1?regp=bm9fMT…
via
http://www.fstdt.com/QuoteComment.aspx?QID=103895
basic denial of Germ Theory.
Ref 105, 106, & 107 the retraction of Hooker's paper -
Gossip columnist Jake Crosby weighs in
http://www.autisminvestigated.com/biomed-central-breaks-policy/
It's more 'the wording of their statements doesn't follow in lockstep with the wording of their policy guidelines'.
In keeping with tradition, Jake presents no science to defend Hooker's paper.
@dedicated lurker
Thanks. I apologise then if I have made any mistakes in my comments about it then. I'm probably confused and I don't know much about it, so I really shouldn't have used it in an example.
... I know people have moved on to other threads now, but I am unsurprised that there are crickets from PGP's corner.
"#13
lsm
October 1, 2014
I really detest the comment that crops up occasionally on quack websites: “they use babies as lab rats”."
- it's great isn't it; I recall how people (usually vegans and the like) who are for a total ban on animal testing often use the argument that we could just use people instead....