Tag: anti-vaxxers

US (no) Vaccine News

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There’s plenty going on in the world of the anti-vaxxers over in that weird place, with Florida rolling back the years to the happier times of diphtheria, polio and chicken pox because of [checks notes] “slavery”.

Right.

And then a couple of days later, a voice of reason piped up with this line:

“I think those vaccines should be used. Otherwise, some people are going to catch it and they are going to endanger other people.”

And that voice of reason was [checks notes] [checks notes again] [and again]… er… it was Donald Trump.

What?

At a White House event, the president added: “You have vaccines that work. They just pure and simple work. They’re not controversial at all, and I think those vaccines should be used.”

He went on to say, “The polio vaccine I think is amazing. A lot of people think that Covid is amazing. When you don’t have controversy at all, I think people should take it.”

What?

I’m so confused right now.

Thankfully(?), he reverted to type a 4 days later, amplifying a post from anti-vaxxer and [wow, there’s a lot of note checking to be done today, sorry] vaccine advisor to the Department of Health, David Grier.

Trump posted an undated video clip on Truth Social of anti-vaccine activists Mark and David Geier discussing thimerosal in vaccines with the text on the clipped video reading: ‘They’re ALL poison. Every. Single. One.’ David Geier has been leading an inquiry within the Department of Health and Human Services, at the direction of Trump and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., into debunked assertions of a link between vaccines and autism.

Yes, David Grier that you read about here.

David Geier has written several papers on the alleged dangers of vaccines in causing developmental disorders in children, several of them funded by the non-profit Institute of Chronic Illnesses (ICI), Inc.

The CEO of the Institute of Chronic Illnesses (ICI), Inc. is one David Grier.

Everywhere else in America rolling back the years to happier time when kids died from measles. And the latest hotspot is Chicago. And the best bit about the latest patient in Chicago – an unvaccinated 4 year old – is that they had recently travelled through O’Hare Airport, which handles almost 300,000 passengers a day.

The public might have been exposed on Thursday, September 11 at O’Hare International Airport, at terminal 5 between the hours of about 7:30 a.m. and 11 a.m.

Fantastic news. It’s proper Outbreak stuff. But with less Ebola.

Elsewhere in the States, dyslexic anti-vaxxers are being blamed for a serious of attacks on beauty salons…

It’s a rubbish joke, but I still laughed, because otherwise, I’d still be crying.

It’s not just about measles

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More from YLE: Your Local Epidemiologist. And they are still banging on about measles.

I (last) “banged on about it” here.
Great post, that. Just enough rant, balanced nicely with facts and an appropriate amount of sarcasm.

Anyway…

The latest newsletter from YLE has the same title as this post. That’s not coincidence – I copied it.

Because it makes a very good point:

It’s not just about measles. It’s about what measles represents.

As scientists, having worked and studied hard for many years to become experts in our fields, we need to remember that not everyone is like us. Some people studied hard to become mechanics or accountants or teachers. And what seems obvious to us, perhaps only seems obvious to us because of our studying and our expertise. Much like the reasons behind a broken engine will be more obvious to a mechanic, or the meaning of a balance sheet will be more obvious to an accountant. And also teacher… stuff. Probably.

The measles outbreak in the US (and in Europe); the reappearance of a deadly disease that we had completely under control in the developed world is every bit as terrifying as it is completely avoidable.

Measles is a canary in the coal mine. When measles reappears in a country like the U.S., it signals that something has gone seriously wrong. This is a disease we had essentially eliminated—thanks to one of the safest and most effective vaccines in the history of medicine. But the way things are heading, the U.S. is at risk of losing its elimination status this year. This is not just a failure to move forward—it’s the unraveling of decades of progress, representing one of the greatest public health achievements of our era.

It’s a massive failure, and it’s a huge indicator of the high level of mistrust in what is – objectively – clear and obvious, successful science. But as we see regularly in politics, when there is a vacuum of power – or the perception of such – then nefarious parties will take advantage and move in.

It’s because trust has, both due to failures of public health to reach communities and due to well-organized efforts to spread inaccurate information about vaccination, leaving many Americans’ heads spinning as they sort through the noise and figure out who to trust.

We shouldn’t have to keep telling the public just how well vaccines work and just how essential they are: the proof is all there in the data. But maybe we should still have been explaining those data to the public, because in the absence of that sort of communication, others have taken the baton, contorted it, and presented their alternate version to the relay running public.
And as a scientist, it’s both absolutely infuriating that these snake oil salesmen and grifters have peddled their constant lies and unfounded theories around vaccination, and thoroughly depressing that (some) people have looked at the evidence set out before them, and then chosen to believe these venomous blatherskites.

For many in medicine, the resurgence of measles, along with declining rates of routine childhood vaccination, is a concerning sign of what’s to come. If we’re losing ground on measles, we may soon be vulnerable to other vaccine-preventable diseases. Whooping cough cases are already rising. Polio, Hib, or even diphtheria may soon appear in our emergency rooms.

It’s shocking and it’s embarrassing. And YLE’s attempt at a measured response to this upcoming crisis:

…the road back to a world where this isn’t a challenge will not be paved with more facts, fear, or finger-wagging. It will be built, as it always has, through stories and relationships—one respectful, genuine, evidence-based conversation at a time.

is absolutely admirable, but also smacks of someone living in a Walter Mitty world.

Sure, it would be perfect if we had the time, the resources and the ability to talk to concerned, confused parents and families out there and explain to them why they should listen to us and not the other “opinions” on this. But firstly, we don’t have the capacity to do that, and even if we did, in this divided, polarised world, there’s no reason why they would take our word over the nice “doctors” with their brain worms, and their books and supplements to sell. And I say that because if the public could see through the lies and the clever manipulation of the anti-vax lobby, then they would surely have done so already and we wouldn’t be facing this disastrous situation.

This won’t get any better anytime soon.
In fact, without wanting to be pessimistic, I don’t see how it will get any better anytime at all.

20 months later…

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Around 20 months on from mid September 2021 – whose events surely none of us could ever forget – how incredible is it that we are all still here?

Of course, we’ll likely never get over the memories of the cars parked sideways in the middle of the street, the screaming people in the grocery stores (oh God, the old guy wailing in the pickle aisle at Checkers) or the family members shooting each other.

Absolutely awful.

On the more positive side of things, it is always nice to have these sort of screenshots so that we can see who accurately predicted those horrendous times.

And who didn’t.

Still at it.

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As Elmo Rusk continues to break Twitter, into an entirely unusable platform, he’s invited back some of the crap that was previously removed from the site. We all know about Trump, but more locally, Piers Corbyn’s cringey singing partner and all around anti-vax wanker, Nick Hudson, has also been granted leave to return.

Twitter has been going downhill for a good long while, but it was still better without the Hudson family’s biggest embarrassment, beardy-weirdy Nick.

But – probably amazed by the success of the nonsense that they have made up and have peddled thus far – those pesky anti-vaxxers are still at it, and they’re getting bolder and more brazen with every given day. We’ve now returned to stuff like depopulation programmes, 5G nanochips (see below), “spike shedding”, graphene oxide and – a particular bugbear to someone that’s been working with [checks notes] viruses for 20+ years – the fact that [checks notes again] viruses don’t actually exist.

And indeed, why would you stop if you are a narcissist with a pathological need for acknowledgement for likes and retweets and all you have to do to get satisfaction is to fabricate some nonsense* and your disciples will feed your needs, lap it up and even demand more.

It’s a sad, sad situation. And it’s getting more and more absurd.

But much as the government really doesn’t want to track you via the “5G chips in your vaccine” or the Covid app on your phone, because you’re actually rather dull and insignificant, if you’re really gullible to believe stuff like this:

… then like Dr Janaway says, you’re probably not really “dangerous” enough to have to be controlled.

More seriously though, the polarisation of society via social media is now very clearly out of control. Maybe that was already the case on January 6th 2022, but I see it each and every day (that I bother to log on). People just don’t think for themselves anymore. And the unscrupulous, batty individuals on whom they are relying for news, information, leadership and opinion are fully taking advantage of that.

It’s not a good thing.

* earlier today it was about “masks being impregnated with bacteria and fungi to cause respiratory illness”, which is a right bummer for those of us who have to wear them each and every day in the lab to protect us from [checks note yet again] er… respiratory illness.

The Gravity Well of Social Media decline

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It’s amazing to watch how someone intelligent, well-qualified, erudite and seemingly sensible can be dragged from their lofty perch into the depths of conspiracy theories, wild accusations, dodgy political affiliations and suggestions, and general weirdness. And it’s interesting to see how this decline gathers pace and the theories get more bizarre as the downward spiral progresses.

Like coins whirling around a gravity well. (You’ll know it when you see it.)

Yes, like that. Starting quietly and smoothly, seemingly all under control, but gradually getting faster and faster and more and more frantic before plunging into the big black hole.

It could have started with a little thing: maybe annoyance at CNN for alleged misreporting of any given incident, or perhaps their city council for not fixing a thing that they were supposed to. Before you know it, the US election was stolen and the mayor is a corruption-ridden gangster. And once we’ve done Trump and local politics, there’s Covid lockdowns and mask mandates. And suddenly we’re deep into accusing Hilary Clinton of paedophilia and delving ever deeper into the anti-vaxxer rabbit hole.

In a way, I think I understand the causes. It’s easy to feel powerless and unheard in this modern world. Like you’re the only one telling the truth, but no-one is listening as you scream into the abyss. And then, you find someone who tells you that they agree with you and you discover kinship and you begin to support their ideas too. Then there’s a group and suddenly, there’s strength in numbers, even when all they’re shouting out is complete bullshit.

It’s interesting to note a couple of things about this decline into insanity, though. Firstly, the way the information is shared by these people can often be very subtle. A quiet retweet, the sharing of a post, the mention of a controversial theory: nothing direct, nothing explicit. Almost like they know that they would be ridiculed if they outwardly and openly expressed their feelings or beliefs on the subject. And secondly, the limit of just how far they will go: there’s almost always an invisible line they won’t cross at the far-out nonsense of chemtrails and a flat earth.

Professor Timothy Cookbook is a prime example of both these approaches. But then there is plenty that he’s said and done that is every bit as bad as telling us that 5G is a New World Order plan to depopulate the planet, so we really shouldn’t applaud him for tacitly agreeing that yes, we all live on a big ball.

It’s almost funny to see these individuals spouting statements each one more desperate, more nonsensical and more demonstrably incorrect than the last, but of course there’s a serious side to it as well. Because when less intelligent, well-qualified, erudite and sensible people see educated, popular individuals saying these things, they may well choose to believe them. Well, of course you would, because these people are intelligent, well-qualified, erudite and sensible, so they must know what they’re talking about, right?

“With great power comes great responsibility”, sure. But sadly, with great power also comes great power, and that does seem to be all they actually care about. Because you must also understand that when everything goes to shit with the able assistance of these “thoughtleaders”, they’re not the ones who will suffer. They all have their comfortable lives and their escape plans.

We’re living in an ever more divided world, with viewpoints and opinions instantaneously amplified by social media echo chambers that support our every utterance and immediately decry and attack any dissenting voice. There’s no hope of rational argument or anyone’s mind being changed. Everyone is entrenched and knows their “truth”.

The only difference being that some of it is backed up by facts, and the rest is just a single tweet away from agreeing that the Lizard People and the Rothschilds are running the (flat) planet.