re: #176 lawhawk

So, media outlets are trying to frame the vaccination need as a “debate”. Wrong.

It’s not a debate. It’s not a question. Anti-vaxxers who are unsupported by facts, logic, or science, are doing real damage to public health.

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The only debate should be how quick states should adopt the WV and MS position on mandatory vaccinations except for those with an established medical need (eg immune compromised, allergic). If MS can get to 99% vaccination, so too can every other state.

This is out of hand, and with reports that someone who may have had measles self-reported that they went through New York Penn Station (which sees 100,000+ people a day, on Amtrak up to Albany and then to Western NY), the fact is that we might see a cluster of cases here soon too.

Even Larry Wilmore fell back on this “both sides need representation” bullshit to a degree on the Nightly Show. His monologue specifically called out the idea that non-experts are given equal footing as trained immunologists (Jenny McCarthy, in particular) as idiotic.

So naturally, for the roundtable discussion, he included a woman who runs a “freedom to choose to get a shot” network as part of the discussion. The best argument the woman could get forward was “Big Pharma make a bijillion bucks off of vaccines”. Pretty sure her intent was to imply it was a conspiracy without being full-on Alex Jones.

It didn’t help that another panelist cited his distrust of vaccines was due to a fear of becoming part of another Tuskegee experiment. Which is not to downplay the Tuskegee incident; but at this point, if something like that was going on with flu and measles vax, we’d probably know about it by now.

I guess Wilmore’s rationalization was that if we’re going to criticize people for not getting vaccinated, they need to be able to stand up for themselves.

If it were me? Fuck them, they don’t get a voice.

Being anti-vaccine (or pro-choice vaccine, or less vaccines, or whatever bullshit title you want to dress it up in) is the same as declaring water is not wet. You’re ignorant of science and a menace to public health.