A friend recently had a baby, she's going to get him vaccinated, however, he's still too young. The measles outbreak has spread recently to a state near her. She's worried. Someone linked to a podcast about Anti-vaxxers. I generally don't listen to podcasts, but now I'm sucked into this one and want to listen to other ones, however, I'll just be discussing vaccinations in this post. So the podcast is Science Vs (by Gimlet media) and is free on iTunes. You'll want #46 Vaccines - Are They Safe? from 14. September 2017 and #45 The Rise of Anti-vaxxers from 21. September 2017. I ended up listening to them out of order, which you can do, but it's probably best if you just go in order.
My mother, thankfully, was big on immunizations. I had all of mine, whenever my childhood doctor said I needed them. She was a strange lady, but I liked her. She was really large, tall with a big bone structure and wore straight skirts to the knees, hosiery, and those old fashioned sensible shoes in black, with the thick soles, and a doctors coat over a short sleeved dress shirt. She was a little intimidating, but was nice. My mother said that she basically said fuck you to the patriarch and became a doctor against all the odds of her day. That's pretty bad ass. Though she was probably only in her fifties (or perhaps her sixties in the early 1980s) she seemed much older, like she'd come of age in the 1920s or something. I, too, am a believer in childhood immunizations (vaccines) because the thought of epidemics scares the hell out of me. That scares me more than one of the things that I might think could happen to my child (if I had a child) if they had the said vaccines. While I never lived in a time of great epidemics and plagues of these diseases (or perhaps I did? Past lives?), I have read a lot of historic accounts. The sick oozing puss or covered in scabs or getting the dreaded cough or having non stop and violent diarrhea. Hundreds of people dying in their houses and in the streets, thousands of bodies having to be left until they could be buried, rotting, or the mass burial graves that had to be dug and filled because there were just too many people. That alone right there will always tell me that vaccinations are good. However, all those fears against immunizations are not founded. Anything that might could happen is extremely, extremely rare and does not outweigh the good (read: no epidemics/not personally having to suffer the hell of these diseases) that vaccines bring to the general population. Having good hygiene really accounts for the violent deaths from diarrhea as per the diseases of typhoid and cholera, so obviously I'm really big on washing up and not putting my refuse into the waters, nor drinking fecal contaminated water. And while it's mentioned in the second epi, The Rise of Anti-vaxxers, about the origins of vaccines, I already knew this and still like vaccines. It was partly because of Napoleon that vaccines started, which they didn't mention. It was the Englishman Edward Jenner who came up with the vaccination for Smallpox during the Napoleonic Wars, but it was Napoleon who stepped up and got immunized and required all of his soldiers to as well. And while I'm glad vaccines are given differently (though the basic procedure is the same), I realize that it had to start somewhere and think it's really interesting, even if it is also disgusting. Though smallpox is not the same as measles, I am reminded of it all the same. The current outbreak of measles only reminds me of the documentary I once watched which stated that vaccines and original samples of smallpox were in this freezer somewhere, but since it had been eradicated in the 1960s, they were wondering if they should just destroy it all. It was a horrible concept because smallpox is such a terrifying and horrible disease. I have no idea if they destroyed those samples or not, which I hope they did not. Though measles and smallpox might seem similar (and in fact were seen as similar in the sixteenth century, what with the fever and bumps), and measles can be deadly, smallpox is like the evil cousin to measles on steroids. And though this article is eleven years old, melting permafrost is still uncovering ancient corpses who died of horrible diseases, and those diseases don't care if it's been one year or one thousand nor what the temperature was. They're still active. We have enough right there to be worrying about without having to worry that current peoples aren't vaccinating their children against this and other diseases. Just because you or I are vaccinated does not mean we can not still get the disease (any diseases where there is a vaccination). It's not extremely likely, but we can. It depends on how many people around us have the disease; how many people we're coming into contact with. It's just means our body has built up a sort of barrier and immunity to it, so even if we do get the disease, we'll more than likely live. Basically in every day life we're fine. If there's an epidemic or pandemic, then that raises the factors of us getting the diseases, suffering some of it, and more than likely living. It's still not a pretty thought. That is also if it doesn't mutate as viruses are want to do. Reminds me somewhat of the people who have an immunity to the Bubonic Plague; The Black Death. And I don't mean that the people that lived through and survived having the disease had themselves, and to their offspring, a higher percentage of immunity, though that is true, but also shouldn't be a basis for non-vaccination because suffering through the Bubonic Plague would have been a living hell. No, I mean a very specific people, the people of the village of Eyam in England. During the second bout of the plague in the mid seventeenth century, it came to Eyam and they built a wall around the village and barricaded themselves in. Self quarantine. No one here, who contracted the disease, survived and over two hundred people perished. However, others only never caught the disease and it's thought to be due to a chromosome, perhaps even like the one that's mentioned for the small portion of Europeans who hold an immunity against it today, but nobody really knows for certain. I suppose it really just makes me think that some of us will be like the people of Eyam who never contract the disease, while most people will die of it. Though it's a interesting historical anecdote, it's still rather scary. Imagine yourself shut up with your entire town and not knowing who will die next, thinking for certain that you will all die a slow, horrible, and painful death. It's not comforting. It's plain as plain from the interview of the lady anti-vaxxer that she has absolutely no idea what any of the diseases are or what they look like, or how devastating that they are. The interviewer only showed her the effects of whooping cough, but it didn't seem to sway her; probably because it's not one of the top horrid diseases a human can get. She's still flying high on her presumptive and erroneous misinformation about vaccines being somehow worse than the actual diseases. Mercury is rarely used in vaccines now (as a preservative), and even if they do still contain it, you can opt for one without. Even though large doses of mercury are bad, it's of a certain type like what is found in tuna, and is not the same as what was or might still be in a vaccine. Even getting lots of vaccines all at once, the total amount of mercury was not even close to the numbers one would need to become toxic. It's not the mercury. There is absolutely no correlation between autism and vaccines. Barring that, though still little is known about autism relatively speaking, it is most likely caused by genetics, by a mutation not inherited by either parent (springs up in all of your cells at conception), or because one or both of the parents are past the prime age for reproduction. The top leading environmentally suggested cause is Congenital Rubella Syndrome. The mother, not having been vaccinated against rubella, contracts the disease, and thus her fetus also gets the disease. (Even if CRS doesn't cause autism, why would you want to suffer through rubella and give it to your fetus (because they'll get it) and it causes all sorts of irreversible effects in the baby.) Scientists still do not have a clear handle on it. Some things can be ruled out, which is good in helping to find the true reasons, but they still don't know for certain. However, instead of still claiming it is vaccinations or the other things that scientists, with scientific testing have ruled out, anti-vaxxers should be trying to help in finding out how autism happens, since they're so worried their children might get it. But, it's like taking the easy way out of some situation instead of doing the work for it. It's easier to shun vaccinations and along with it logic and information, than to really find the real solutions or knowledge to real problems. While in rare cases, vaccines can cause seizures, they really cause A seizure, just the one, in those rare cases. It is alarming, but it is not life threatening. Most anyone with a high enough fever will have A seizure, and if the fever is not attended to, could have more before dying. The vaccine is actually working with your body. The body is learning about that disease, learning to identify it so it doesn't ravage your system. Your body, when fighting an infection, will raise your temperature, giving you a fever, in order to kill the infection. It's only if a fever gets too high or rages too long will there be complications on any fever, at any age, for any person. This is a spike of fever in a baby who hasn't experienced this yet. It's not a big deal really. The evidence has found, however, that children who continue to have seizures are children who were going to have some form of epilepsy or another (as there are various forms). Anything can trigger the first seizure and from then on out, the epilepsy never goes away. It was always there (they were born with it), it just needed that first trigger. In the case of children being born with a form of epilepsy, the high fever accompanied with the vaccine is that first trigger. It is not the vaccine, but the trigger. Your child getting a high fever from a disease, and not a vaccine, will be the trigger, or flashing lights or a myriad of other things that trigger seizures in epileptic patients. So even if you don't vaccinate your child, if they are born with epilepsy, something in their early years will be the first trigger. You'll have a kid with epilepsy, regardless of vaccines or not. Getting a whole row of vaccines at the same time does no harm either. Not if it's several vaccines rolled into one, or several singles, or several rolled into one AND a single or two. Even if it had mercury, that is a different kind and none if it is the same dosage (by a long shot) of what is considered toxic. It doesn't cause autism no matter which way or in which amounts the vaccines are doled out, and your child won't have more seizures based on any number of vaccines they receive, because having one seizure, which can happen, is exceedingly rare, multiple seizures and your kid was just born with epilepsy, and the fever happened to be the trigger (it's not your fault, you're not a bad parent for getting your kid vaccinated. Something else, far beyond your control, would have been the trigger. It's just life.) Even if your kid could get autism or epilepsy or anything else permanent or damaging from vaccines (if, because they can't, but we'll play your game that it's possible), any of that does not outweigh even the personal damage, much less the global damage of these diseases. Your kid falling somewhere on the autistic spectrum is not really a care for them. It's only a care and worry for you. They'll go on about life thinking everything about them is grand and right and correct. Most won't even care (or care too much) about what someone else may think of them. Not because they are not humans that don't feel, but simply because in their world, no matter where it falls on the spectrum, they're just themselves and people can suck it basically. They can get their feelings hurt, but generally this is a problem only for parents getting their feelings hurt for their child. You might find it a burden or a bother or you think a child with autism is stupid and you "don't want no retard" as your kid. They're not stupid simply because their brains work differently from yours. It's true that they'll probably be extra work because they simply can't wrap their thoughts around "proper behavior" for society, but who cares?! So you have a kid who is a little different. Fuck the work you'll have to do in finding a special school, or in the extra time you might need to teach them to "fit" into society. They're intelligent, they're interesting, there's nothing really wrong with them. So take a seemingly odd but perfectly OK kid and weigh that against them suffering through hell in a disease they wouldn't have to suffer through. Your kid will get that disease because they've not been vaccinated and that disease will spread. You want to kill your kid and wipe out half the planet because you think them having autism is worse? I don't think so. Go actually educate yourselves on these diseases. Go look at pictures and read historic accounts if you don't want to believe modern doctors. Go on. After you've vomited and become really scared, you should probably vaccinate your child. If you don't, you're a terrible parent for allowing them the opportunity to suffer through that hell when you might never have to because you HAVE been vaccinated. You think it'll cause them epilepsy? So they have to take some medication to prevent seizures and perhaps they still might have a seizure, then the proper procedure is to not move them, keep them calm, let them ride out the seizure, and make sure they don't eat their own tongue. It's a bit more work and headache than a "normal" kid, but then go ahead if you haven't already and go do some real research on all those diseases. Your kid "getting epilepsy" from vaccines isn't anything compared to the hell that awaits them should they contract any (or a few, because if the first one doesn't kill them, they will die of one) of these horrendous diseases. Nothing in your arsenal of what if's outweighs the extreme horror, suffering, and terror that these diseases bring. Nothing. You should do some real research and stop convincing yourself that you are correct when you're going to end up killing your child out of ignorance through one of the most horrible ways there is. You might as devise some sort of slow and painful torture and then kill your child. It would still be better to go through that than suffer some of these diseases. Seriously, E-D-U-C-A-T-I-O-N people. Take a day and thoroughly study these diseases. Don't go to anti-vaxxer websites, don't even go to doctor websites if you wish to avoid that. Find historical documents describing the agony of these diseases. See photographic evidence of outbreaks from these diseases before vaccines stamped them out (trust me, the photos haven't been doctored, stop making excuses and just fucking learn something that's real). Just do it. It'll be good for you and for your child and the rest of the world.
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AuthorA girl from South Mississippi who finds herself in exploration. Archives
November 2019
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