So, my an online american friend said"My mom didn’t want to vaccine vax cuzs autism". Is he joking? I know many people say thing like that but i thought they all were joking?
In my country which is a third world country no one believe shit like that even my Grand mother who is illiterate and religious don’t believe thing like that and knows the benefit of vaccine.
In another post, the user who didn’t want vaccines said it’s that they did not want to put the comfort of others above their own.
I guess that’s a valid stance but it’s definitely not a view I share.
That stance is stupid as fuck. Getting a vaccine isn’t putting others first. It protects you and happens to have an extra benefit of protecting others as a treat.
It’s not a valid stance. It actively undermines the effectiveness of vaccines when people choose not to get them. It’s a feedback loop that actively makes the world a worse place to be and increases the chance of premature death for thousands if not millions. It is selfish and they’re lying to themselves to feel better about it by saying such nonsense.
People are stupid and subscribe to tribalism. It’s very real.
At a job in Silicon Valley I had a boss who had an autistic child and my boss told me directly that when they vaccinated their child, the child’s behavior changed, and caused autism.
I have other friends in SV who are huge vaccine skeptics.
So, yes, even in deep blue areas there are anti-vax people. There are also Trump flag flying people in SV too.
Let me guess, the child was at the age where observable signs and behaviors start to appear and it lined up with their vaccine schedule?
That’s the correlation.
For the parents, their world turned upside down, and Andrew Wakefield gave them someone/thing to (incorrectly) blame.
A thousand deaths aren’t enough for Andrew Wakefield. (Paraphrase quote from Frank Herbert’a Dune.)
Disclaimer: l’ll never illegally harm Andrew Wakefield. But if some authorized entity convicted him to execution and raffled off the right to throw the switch, I would buy one ticket for each person I’ve lost.
You’re so right. My wife cried for a week when she found out our child was autistic. It’s a desperate situation. You want to blame anything in order to find a reason other than “sometimes this happens.” Vaccines are the scapegoat.
One of my family, and former nurse, is against at least mRNA vaccines, but she also fell down the far right conspiracy theory rabbithole so…
The belief is real (but the claim is not).
A doctor claimed a certain ingredient in vaccines was causing autism, while also trying to sell his own version without that ingredient. A massive conflict of interest and he lost his medical licence over it.
But damage was done and people freaked out over it. In fact, the ingredient was removed in order to alleviate peoples concerns but by that point the idea vaccines=autism had taken off and it was hard to stop that spread of misinformation. Especially since the dude doubled down on the stance.
Andrew Wakefield, Jenny McCarthy, and RFK Jr. have so caused so much needless death and suffering. Fucking monsters.
And Oprah for platforming these grifters (among many others).
Andrew Wakefield knowingly and intentionally misrepresented his scientific findings to further his own career ahead of the interests of humanity as a whole. Thomas Midgley Jr is the only person I’d put ahead of him in terms of the damage he’s done to the world.
Just to add onto this, because Wakefield’s conflict of interest is one facet of the stupidity of the entire thing. Check out H.Bomberguy’s video about the whole thing, the poorly done experiment, the inconclusive research, the bone marrow autism cure guy, and how we went from “there is maybe possibly some interaction between some chemical in the vsccine and some as of yet unknown and undescribed connection between the brain and gut this chemical that may or may not have some impact on autism more research is needed,” to “vaccines are 100% the cause of autism”
Yup. Plenty of us sure do! It stems from bogus autism research by Andrew Wakefield like 20 years ago. There are a myriad of reasons for people to buy into it. We’ve even enabled them with religious exemptions at the state level (i.e. it’s against your religion to vaccinate).
Louisiana has even stopped promoting them, https://abcnews.go.com/Health/louisiana-health-department-stop-promoting-mass-vaccination/story?id=118819674
And we have a particularly nasty outbreak right now in one of our states because of vaccine avoidance, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq8yvg5359po
Our “leader” is an anti-democratic felon rapist who incited an insurrection and illegally attempted to overturn an election.
It’s not a joke.
Americans are stupid as fuck.
You answered your question with the 4th word!
The rumor started with a few celebrities with their new age theories (from the same era that brought you “rock and roll comes from the devil”, “Anne Frank didn’t write her diaries”, and “Elvis is alive but Paul McCartney is dead”) and then it just kind of picked up because America isn’t very pro-disability and gets alienated easily. Fortunately it has finally just about died down, but once in a while someone will bring it up.
Someone like the secretary of health or the president, as it currently stands
The American president?
When did this happen?
It’s a loud minority. Also not just in America there are anti-vax people all over the world. Mostly in developed countries where they have eliminated diseases like polio. And where outbreaks of measles are really rare. Anti-vax don’t believe vaccines are necessary since they personally never seen diseases like polio. While everyone in the developing world knows that vaccines are necessary since they’ve seen what those diseases can do to people.
You know the meme Hard Times Create Strong Men, Strong Men Create Good Times, Good Times Create Weak Men, Weak Men Create Hard Times Well antivax are the weak men.
It is a predominant US minority who tries to spread their nonsense worldwide.
It was started by Andrew Wakefield who was a UK doctor. He has lost his license for doing unapproved lumbar punctures on autistic kids.
Yes, he started it from the UK, but it really got traction in the US so far. And the Americans blew it out of the water by expanding criticism to a specific vaccine to criticism of all vaccines in general.
He pushed that all vaccines were a problem by the time he got here.
The modern anti-vax movement started in the UK with Andrew Wakefield, I wouldn’t be quick to square the bulk of the blame with the US.
It’s a global phenomenon of the gullable, the willfully ignorany, and the vulnerable (usually through personal loss or trauma) - and the fraudsters who wish to take advantage of them.
Wakefield wasn’t anti Vax. He was against the MMR jab specifically. He was also invested in one of the alternative vaccines, and faked data to make money.
His (false) message got garbled crossing the pond, and gained traction in America as a general anti Vax movement.
Wakefield wasn’t antivax? He’s made two anti-vax movies now, the most recent anti-mumphs vaccine one ‘Prorocol-7’ in 2024. He’s now lived in Texas for over a decade and is paid by various antivax groups as a speaker and advisor, reportedly as his primary income. He’s been involved in multiple attempts to kerb mandatory vaccinations for school enrollment.
His message didn’t get garbled - he’s the one right there telling it!
No, he was anti-vax once he realized the value of his scam
We very, very much wish it were just a joke. Diseases that were basically eliminated in the US are making a comeback. And we just appointed an antivaxxer as our health secretary, who also has proposed sending people on antidepressants and ADHD drugs to work camps for years to “re-parent” them.
It’s fucking terrifying here right now, at least for anyone paying attention.
antidepressants and ADHD drugs to work camps for years to “re-parent” them.
… WTF. I hope that mfr get squashed to death.
only the ones that are anti-vax believe that, in the us theres this lady , jenny mccarthny who jumpstarted the movement.
Not just America, up here in Canada too. It’s real.
You have to explain to them how vaccines work. I’m waiting for them to turn on antibiotics next. Soon we’ll be shaking rattles and swallowing toads to cure diseases.
Actually, this tincture of viscous fluid from a legless reptile can cure many diseases!
I oiled it directly from the snake!
