I’m not going to be conciliatory here, sorry. Fuck you, anti-vaxxers.
The recent measles outbreak confirmed by government is largely due to teenagers whose parents refused them the MMR vaccine when they were babies.
The UK recently achieved the World Health Organisation measles elimination status. We had eliminated a disease that can cause death, vision loss, stillbirth or miscarriage in pregnant women, pneumonia and fits… and if you miss all these complications it is just a thoroughly unpleasant illness for anyone to have, let alone a baby.
Making the decision not to vaccinate is not a personal decision. You are affecting other people. You are telling the immuno-compromised (who can’t get vaccinations) and the vulnerable that you don’t give a flying monkey if you infect them with your petri dish kid.
So let’s talk about discredited physician-researcher Andrew Wakefield, and his frankly disgusting, false and fraudulent MMR research. The small study, published in 1998 caused a huge amount of trouble because it made a link between the MMR vaccine and autism, which is absurd.
The study was thoroughly debunked. The Lancet retracted the paper and Wakefield was stripped of his medical license. Autism researchers have shown decisively again and again that the developmental disorder is not caused by vaccines.
IT WASN’T EVEN GOOD GUYS, so stop already.
And honestly, I have a massive issue with people who see autism as something they would rather their kid die of measles than get. What?!
Having autism can be incredibly difficult for you and for those around you – but that’s more down to the way society treats neurodivergence (think: ew you are different what the hell do we do), rather than there being anything wrong with being autistic.
Vaccinations are a damn scientific miracle. In the past 50 years, it’s saved more lives worldwide than any other medical product or procedure.
I reckon anti-vaxxers would be a lot more pro if everyone around them was dying of highly contagious, voracious, painful diseases.
Must I remind everyone that the infant mortality rate used to be disgustingly low? If your kid got to 5 it was time to throw an amazing party because that little squishy was so vulnerable to everything around it.
History lesson for everyone. In 1956 the World Health Organisation decided it was gonna eradicate smallpox FROM THE WORLD. And you thought you had dreams. What a goal. And do you know what? They bloody did it. It was declared as eradicated in 1980. I am actually tearing up writing this because how amazing is that? Using vaccinations, a horrible disease that caused suffering and pain disappeared.
We can eliminate cervical cancer in women – did you know that? Through vaccination.
Professor Harald zur Hausen discovered that cervical cancer was caused by a virus, making it possible to develop a vaccine for the disease. He won a Nobel Prize for that in 2008. And now girls in school can get vaccinated against a type of cancer. My mind is blown by how awesome science is.
I have even less time for anti-vaxx conspiracy theorists. Minus amounts of time. RECLAIMING MY TIME from you, go think about something less dangerous.
The government is drugging us to make us more compliant, apparently. I am a pretty non-compliant person and I am up to date, so I tend to disagree. And you can’t fight the man if you are dead from a medieval disease, just saying.
Stretchmark Sista 