Remember when we used to implore President Obama to use reverse-psychology and warn people that drinking Drano is bad so that the dumb fucks among us would off themselves in a fit of “NO [CLANG] IS GONNA TELL ME WUT TA DRANK”? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Senator Rand Paul, Son of Dr. Crazy Uncle Liberty, MD:
“As we contemplate forcing parents to choose this or that vaccine, I think it’s important to remember that force is not consistent with the American story, nor is force consistent with the liberty our forefathers sought when they came to America…”
Yes, fellow citizens, you heard that right — this varicose dick vein, who once responded to a mass shooting by tweeting that the Second Amendment guarantees our right to “shoot at the government when it becomes tyrannical,” is saying “force” has no place in the “American story.”
After noting that he himself was vaccinated and chose to vaccinate his kids, Baby Doc went on to lend credence to the dangerous nonsense that anti-science morons are pushing about vaccines:
“It is wrong to say that there are no risks to vaccines. Even the government admits that children are sometimes injured by vaccines.”
Yeah, and regulatory agencies require manufacturers to warn parents not to collapse portable baby strollers with the child still strapped into the seat. It’s not that the nanny state is the boss of us, Senator Paul; it’s that virtually every medical treatment involves some risk, tens of millions of Americans (including every single Rand Paul voter) are morons, and this is an excessively litigious country.
He goes on:
“Now proponents of mandatory government vaccination argue that parents who refuse to vaccinate their children risk spreading these diseases to immunocompromised community. There doesn’t seem to be enough evidence of this happening to be recorded as a statistic.”
Does anyone know what in the wide world of fuck the smarmy, tribble-topped sack of buzzard shit is babbling about there? I mean, I was an English major, but it seems pretty obvious that hordes of stupid people causing mass outbreaks of preventable, contagious diseases would be a threat to the immunocompromised community. If I ever get cataracts, I’d sooner apply fire ants to my eyeballs than visit an ophthalmology clinic run by such a preening ignoramus.
Anyhoo, I don’t wish any innocent person harm, including the blameless children of belligerent fools. But if Republicans want to start eschewing post-18th century medicine as a tribal marker, who are we to stop them? We’ll just have to develop a vaccine against contagious stupidity.
Open thread.
raven
Damn girl. tell us how you really feel!
Roger Moore
What this says to me is that the Russian anti-vax propaganda efforts have been bearing fruit on the right.
(((CassandraLeo)))
The biggest problem with hare-brained nonsense like Rand Paul’s is that it weakens herd immunity, which literally makes all of us less safe. It’s not an exaggeration to say that this is a public health crisis.
Also, even if it only affected their kids, it’s not as if the kids are old enough to understand what’s at stake, so they’re placing innocents at risk because of their precious fee-fees. And many are essentially saying they’d prefer their kids die than be autistic, which I find existentially repulsive as an autistic person.
Anti-vaxxers are only a tiny step removed from Nazis, as far as I’m concerned.
A Ghost To Most
Obama could make a PSA warning people not to take the brown
acidcarfentanil.Mart
Nephew is an anti vaxer and have avoided telling him and his wife they are fucking idiots endangering their child for no good reason as not close. Daughter is pregnant and I had a wave of fear as husband is an Ayn Rand libertarian idiot. Thankfully they are on board with getting vaccines. What a weird world we have to deal with.
Felanius Kootea
His medical license should be revoked if it hasn’t been already. In the last bit, he’s saying that enough people are currently protected by herd immunity that the anti-vaxxers are not a problem but he’ll help them take care of that and ensure that the immunocompromised have no refuge. Asshole. Thank you for highlighting this – there are enough anti-vaxxers on the left that this is a looming national problem.
I’m heartened by the fact that some of their kids are seeking out vaccines on their own and noting that their rabid, anti-vaccination parents were themselves vaccinated.
PPCLI
He also said:
Um, Doctor? I think you mean “for a true sense of security”.
glory b
Even crazy Jill Stein had to eventually back off her anti-vaxx flirtation.
Sorry to go off topic so soon, but has anyone seen some bad press coming out about the Justice Dems and their handling of cash? It supposedly involves folks close to AOC. Corporations set up for the purpose of sending money to one guy.
A Ghost To Most
@glory b:
Cenk Uygur. Enough said.
Betty Cracker
@Mart:
Congrats on the impending grandparenthood, but sorry about the moron son-in-law. That’s gotta be hard to deal with.
Miss Bianca
Have recommended this book before in this forum, and will recommend it again, and I would particularly recommend it to “Dr.” Tribble-Top, except that I think he’s too stupid to understand it: “Pox: An American History”, by Michael Willrich. It details the legal and philosophical battles inherent in the public health campaigns at the turn of the 20th century against smallpox. Spoiler alert: The “American way”, according to elected officials at the time, was to promote vaccination, if not actually at the point of a gun, then pretty damn close, the public good being seen as a greater moral imperative than individual bodily “liberty.”
It’s also fascinating as a portrait of how dangerous vaccines could actually be back in the day without strict federal regulation – the FDA was spawned in part to crack down on unsafe vaccinations. Part of what makes me crazy when people talk about “big government” and “big Pharma!” when they spout anti-vax gibberish – they literally have no idea what they’re talking about.
J R in WV
No one has ever claimed that vaccine, or any medical treatment (including even OTC aspirin) is risk free.
The actual statement of truth is that the risk of vaccines is vastly lower than the risks of the diseases against which we vaccinate. Plus there is no scientific evidence that any vaccine causes autism.
And people do die from the side-effects of OTC medications from time to time. I’m not gonna look up the numbers, but I would bet more die of OTC meds than from side-effects of vaccines.
Morons.
ETA: I too am pleased to see kids getting their own vaccinations, in spite of their fearful parents, who were in their own youth vaccinated, and managed to live through that hellscape.
I had fellow students who were recovering from polio in grade school in the 1950s, fuck these monsters who don’t believe in science and health care. Diseases are horrible, and we can prevent them!
Boris, Rasputin's Evil Twin
I think one of the jackals put it this way: “They aren’t anti-vaxxers, they’re just plague-curious and welcoming.”
NotMax
One short step shy of shouting, “The word vaccination does not appear in the Constitution!”
Native Americans might have a slightly different view about that.
Just sayin’.
Felanius Kootea
@(((CassandraLeo))): Should have read the thread before posting. What you said.
Ohio Mom
This stuff goes back a long time. When Hillary was First Lady, her cause was Vaccinate by Two (a little more specific than the current First Lady’s Be Best). The right-wingers were all over it then.
It was smart in a diabolical way for the Russians to latch on to the anti-vaxx movement. This target audience had already identified themselves as both gullible and against anything embraced by liberals (maybe those are the same things).
Another Scott
“As we contemplate forcing parents to choose this or that vaccine …” Who is we there?
“Now proponents of mandatory government vaccination argue …” What government vaccination is he talking about there?
A quick skim of the DB story didn’t enlighten me.
The CDC says vaccinations are a State responsibility:
CSPAN – this seems to be the hearing. AFAICS, they’re getting information and talking about how important vaccination is. I don’t see (in a quick scan) any proposed federal legislation to take responsibility for vaccinations away from the states.
WTF is he talking about??
Grrr…
Cheers,
Scott.
Brachiator
He is just making shit up.
Meanwhile in the real world.
The stupidity is spreading around the world.
Immanentize
@Felanius Kootea:
I have an idea! In most states there is some age at which a child can have full input into a decision like, which parent do I want to live with in a divorce. That age is often 14.
We should be looking for amendments to bad vaccination laws that require a juvenile to come before a judge and discuss whether they actually agree to not be vaccinated.
matt
He’s pandering to assholes. It’s his job.
Cheap Jim
I believe what Dr P is saying is he wants to see more deaths before he’ll admit that the germ theory of disease might just have something to it.
Immanentize
@Brachiator:
Has no one read Agatha Christie’s The Mirror Cracked?!”
A Ghost To Most
@Immanentize:
Stop making sense. That infringes on my right to brainwash my child.
Aleta
The records are from a FEMA database of “‘buyouts’ funded by the agency from 1989 through 2017.” Not public information until NPR sued to get them.
tobie
This feels personal. I just spent the weekend with a friend undergoing aggressive chemo for an aggressive cancer in Oregon, where you now have cases German measles, whupping cough, and other diseases we thought we eradicated with vaccines. This is a nightmare for someone with a completely compromised immune system. To make matters worse, he has a young daughter in public school, and who knows what diseases they bring with them into the classroom.
jacy
Per MSNBC, NY state regulators investigating Trump Org insurance fraud.
Thanks to AOC opening that specific door the other day, apparently.
NotMax
“Our forefathers had smallpox, why can’t we?”
//
The Midnight Lurker
Hey Senator Rand! How’s the ribs?
Gravenstone
I’m sure the ghosts of all those killed by, or under the color of the US government throughout our history will be greatly placated knowing they did not die do to “force”. Fucking imbecile. That tribble atop his melon has rendered him even more incoherent than usual.
The Dangerman
Sounds too passive; I suggest an active approach like advocating they always go Super Size with extra salt. Having these fuckers stroke out unintentionally or intentionally (President Pelosi) may be our only hope.
Brachiator
@glory b:
I saw a headline a Washington Examiner story. Didn’t see it anywhere else, so skipped the story.
@A Ghost To Most:
I thought that the Young Turks loved AOC until Bernie tells them otherwise.
satby
@Roger Moore: the anti-vax and other snake oil medicine has made huge inroads in the right as well as the left. I get to hear from both every day at the farmers market because they all assume anyone making soap is a kindred spirit. The essential oil fanatics, the herbalists, the purveyors of woo: all show up. And are shocked when they hear that I just make soap, I don’t impute healing properties to it or any essential oils. And what a tear I can go off on if they admit they’re antivaxxers. Loses me a few customers, but I don’t want to deal with stone idiots anyway.
Hungry Joe
Goddam gov’t also mandates — mandates! — that my car— MY car! — have working tail lights. If it doesn’t, they’ll pull my oppressed butt off the road. What happened to freedom?
trollhattan
@(((CassandraLeo))):
Yeah, capitulating on vaccines with these morans is like handing drills to fellow ship passengers and encouraging them to start workin’ on puncturing the hull. We’re on the same damn ship.
Cheap Jim
@Immanentize: That was rubella, or German measles.
Gravenstone
@glory b: Since the JD are a grifting operation who expect candidates to pay them for the “honor” of a JD endorsement (said endorsements summarily disappearing if payments are stopped), of course there was going to be someone at the tip of that particular pyramid scheme.
Miss Bianca
@Ohio Mom: This stuff goes back, way back, further than HRC’s public health efforts. Anti-vaxxer sentiment and fears have been around as long as vaccination itself. The inconvenient (kernel) of (historical) truth is that vaccines used to have a much, much higher rate of failure, side effects, and deaths involved than they do now – and I think this historical fear informs a lot of current anti-vaxxer sentiment.
ETA: In other words: “Different century, same bullshit”. : /
bemused
I remember getting the small pox vaccination and have the slight scar to this day plus the sugar cube polio vaccine given by county nurses to all the students in our small country school, all the kids lined up. I don’t remember any parental objections at all. They were happy we were being vaccinated.
I checked Rand Paul’s age and he’s only about 10 years younger than I am. He has to know the history of the era when polio was a huge scare for Americans. What a sellout, craven ass.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
He must have been drunk the day they taught the history of the Draft and Slavery
satby
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: force for land owning white men is what he meant.
JanieM
@bemused:
Damned straight. They/we all knew someone who had had one of those diseases and not come through it, or ended up in a wheelchair or an iron lung.
Mart
@Betty Cracker:
Yes it is painful, and worse he is a Trumper. He won’t speak to me about it, but he tells my wife about the great accomplishments of the great man. His family and friends gang up on me. There is a big class divide. Well off white collar college liberal in white suburb versus lower middle class high school blue collar in a town encircled by some of the worst poverty in the nation. So I mostly take the punches. Seems like you deal with similar in your family.
NotMax
@satby
“Yes, this soap costs a little more. That’s because it can be made only during the night of a new moon and must be cured for seven days and seven nights, sitting atop a crystal while inside a pyramid.”
:)
Aleta
AMA website
Brachiator
This is the same administration which has Trump bloviating about his upcoming executive order to “guarantee” free speech at college campuses.
Ignorance is Strength
EthylEster
@tobie wrote:
I’m old but…when I was a kid, my mom had to show my immunization records to every new school before I could attend. (I was an Air Force brat so there were lots of new schools.) It appears they don’t do that anymore. Why not?
Gbbalto
The only states that do not allow ANY vaccination exemptions (except for medical reasons) are CA, WV, and MS. Sorry to see MD not in that list.
JaySinWA
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
He probably misread the Whiskey Rebellion.
satby
@NotMax: you nailed it.
schrodingers_cat
@EthylEster: You have to submit a vaccination record when you enter a University or apply for a green card too. And you have to take booster doses of the vaccines that you took a long time ago.
Kelly
Ah the anti-vaxxers waxing nostalgic for harmless childhood diseases. I remember chicken pox as a few days unpleasantness followed by a fun break from school. My wife has similar memories. However varicella returned as shingles when she was 54. Recurrent shingles is rare. She’s had flare ups for four years. She’s having a flare up today. The new Shingrix shots haven’t helped much. Antiviral pills only reduce the intensity. If the vaccine had existed when we were children this would not have happened. I have an old friend that is sterile from childhood mumps. Problems like these are far more prevalent than bad vaccine reactions.
Superstitious idiots.
Major Major Major Major
Yesterday we were trying to get somebody to join a video conference. He was acting pretty weird on Slack (chat software), and then he went away. I’d never met him before but I hoped he was okay. It sort of sounded like he was having a manic break.
Today we learned that immediately after this, he jumped off his fifth-story balcony. He’s in a medically-induced coma. I’m having a hard time focusing. Blah.
Periodic reminder to check in on people when they’re acting off, I guess.
how42itous
His new nickname should be Typhoid Rand
jimmiraybob
Tell that to President George Washington regarding the Whiskey Rebellion and Shays Rebellion. Both involve dissatisfied citizens based on economic and tax iniquities and both were responded to by the Father of the Country (all praise be to the Teaparty) calling up the troops.
Another Scott
@Aleta: Possibly related? Reuters:
The Twitter machine tells me that there have been rumors of him leaving for months, though he has denied them.
Hmmm…
Cheers,
Scott.
Yutsano
@Aleta: You know, every time I see one of these 1970s liberal laws I get the occasional painful reminder that the Republican party did at one point agree with compromise and respected the process. But after losing Nixon it was the start of the all or nothing existential battle. Sigh.
bemused
@JanieM:
One girl in the area I grew up in, a few years older than me, had polio which left her with an affected leg, a very bad limp. A small community where everyone knew or knew of each other so no adult there and then would have objected to their kids getting vaccinations even if was mandated by the county.
schrodingers_cat
@satby: Some people think because I am from India I would be sympathetic to their new agey unscientific BS. Its usually older white women. I try not to be rude and let them down gently but it is hard.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I don’t know any billionaires. I know a few millionaires. They would never describe themselves that way, especially not the way most people would a profession, or a vocation, or their identity in any way.
Also, he’s probably not a billionaire
clay
@NotMax:
Also, there’s a significant percentage of the population whose ‘forefathers’ didn’t come to America seeking liberty, but rather came to America to have their liberty stripped from them. Force played a role in that as well, if I recall.
As for the rest of his bullshit, it was only a few years ago that a measles outbreak happened at Disneyland. It was in all the news. So There doesn’t seem to be enough evidence of this happening to be recorded as a statistic, my ass.
eclare
@Major Major Major Major: Holy shit, how awful!
satby
I have to get off the internet now. I just told my Wimer -bro stalker on FB to quit fighting with me on my wall and go s#ck Wilmers dick on his own wall.
I cannot longer rationally discuss things anymore today.
Ruckus
@tobie:
It should feel personal. And you don’t have to be health compromised for it to affect you. Be older and the risk goes up. Be young and the risk goes up. These diseases killed a lot, including otherwise healthy, because they are stong and horrible diseases.
satby
@schrodingers_cat: see my comment at #62.
Yeah, bet you get the ayurvedic and yoga monomaniacs a lot.
randy khan
Unlike most of us jackals, Rand Paul can call the CDC (or NIH, or the Surgeon General) and have someone come to his office to explain to him why vaccinations are a good idea. Bozo.
Another Scott
@Kelly: I hated, hated, hated chicken pox. Such painful itching!! :-( I’ve got plenty of scars from it.
My brother had the mumps (I was able to get vaccinated after he got it), and he had Rubella, a disease that is fatal to foetuses.
A great uncle had polio and was confined to a wheelchair.
J’s grandfather was a physician and died in the 1918 flu pandemic.
Etc., etc.
We can’t let these know-nothings destroy all the progress we have made.
Grrr….
Cheers,
Scott.
bemused
@satby:
An old high school friend stills sends newsletter with Christmas card. She sells essential oils and you probably know which multilevel marketing company that is. Her letter was all about those essential oils and how they have helped her with health issues along and religious comments. Not in the same paragraphs but I have to think for her God and essential oils are intertwined.
Lapassionara
@Major Major Major Major: OMG.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
an outlier poll showing trump at 46% was giving people in the tubes some fantods of at least moderate heat
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major: My goodness, that story took an unexpected turn.
I can understand that you might be rattled.
Even though the various Skype participants may have been located all over the place, it might be good for everyone to wind down. I don’t know. Maybe HR should get involved.
We had an unexpected off site tragedy a while back, involving a co-worker, and the company was quick to make some counselling available. Everyone was allowed to go home for the day.
Take care.
satby
@bemused: Young Living or Doterra:
I can count on them to be contemptuous of each other and quiz me closely on exactly how pure any essential oils I might use are.
Usually to try to sell me their overpriced crap.
There is a huge element of superstitious ignorance tied to these beliefs.
Another Scott
@Major Major Major Major: :-(
Hang in there. Get help if you need it, and be helpful to your colleagues if you’re able.
Best wishes,
Scott.
satby
@Major Major Major Major: that’s awful.
rk
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’d say that this so called billionaire is the one who is assaulting us every single day. I don’t ever remember a time when the president was in the news every single day and it was about all the awful things he was doing. So Eric needs to STFU.
chopper
that has to be one of the single most clueless things anybody has ever said about american history.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Major Major Major Major: That has to be a shock. Wow.
tobie
@EthylEster: Good question. Antivaxxers are putting everyone else’s children at risk when they send their own children to school. Maybe someone will sue them one day for reckless endangerment of the public. Would that wake them up? Probably not. Antivaxxers have their gospel.
SiubhanDuinne
@Immanentize:
Christie based it on an actual case. The movie star in question was Gene Tierney. (Had not realized until just now — when I checked her Wikipedia page to make sure I was correctly remembering the spelling of her first name — that her first husband was Oleg Cassini.)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Brachiator
@bemused:
Are there unessential oils? Optional oils? Entirely superfluous oils?
Essential Oyl was Olive Oyl’s hipster cousin.
Gin & Tonic
@tobie: Two weeks ago an unvaccinated boy from France brought measles to Costa Rica, which had been free of the disease for a decade. I haven’t followed it, but I sincerely hope they’ve arrested the kid’s parents. They are biological terrorists, IMO.
trollhattan
@Another Scott:
I don’t even remember if I had chicken pox and mom is no longer around to remember on my behalf, but I did have boff kinds of measles and they were very bad, not fun experiences.
Just In Case, I had the shingles shot because my granny suffered from them intermittently for many years. Had the original one-shot vaccine, which hurt like battery acid, and am not seriously pondering the newer two-shot option on account of OUCH!
tobie
@Major Major Major Major: Oh my goodness. That’s a really disturbing story. Be kind to yourself and give yourself the time to digest everything.
bemused
@satby:
It’s YL. She is all in. It’s her “passion”. A long paragraph about YL, started using it and recovered her health in 3 years. It’s her business now, teaches classes, has a team of almost 4,000 and achieved Gold Leadership Level. Barf. I use some essential oils for scents but sure don’t think they are miraculous cure alls.
Then a last, long paragraph on God. Preaching to me is a big no-no.
Kelly
@trollhattan: I had the old shingles single shot and am definitely gonna get the new two shot when the shortage eases. Four years of watching my beloved and her shingles has my attention.
Brachiator
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Sympathy for the Devil?
bemused
@Brachiator:
Ha, ha. Good one.
Barry
@Betty Cracker: Lazarus Long once said ‘Sometimes it’s better to have a b@stard in the family than an unemployed son-in-law’.
Something to consider…
tobie
@Gin & Tonic: I hadn’t even considered the implications of international travel in an anti-vaccination age. Doesn’t this feel like history redux. Residents of a former colonial power go to a once colonized nation and bring disease. Antivaxxers are the most smug, self-entitled, self-important people I’ve met.
brantl
Why the dumb SOB’s won’t take it?
satby
@Brachiator: I would snark because that comment is genuinely funny, but the effects aren’t always harmless:
https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/herbalist-who-told-diabetic-boy-to-use-lavender-oil-instead-of-insulin-is-jailed-for-his-death/
schrodingers_cat
@satby: And when they find out about my physics background, they start murdering quantum mechanics.
ETA: You are from India, you must be spiritual.
Uncle Cosmo
@bemused:
We forget how utterly terrified nearly all parents were of polio – for good reason.When the Salk vaccine was announced as safe & effective, tens of millions of them across the country fell to their knees & wept tears of joy as they offered up prayers of thanks.
bemused
@Uncle Cosmo:
Absolutely!
Roger Moore
@J R in WV:
That’s very likely true. A quick trip to Google says there were about 360 deaths and 60,000 hospitalizations from overdosing on acetaminophen (Tylenol) in 2016. Not all of those are necessarily from OTC use- it’s included in plenty of prescription pain medicines- but it’s way more than vaccines. Admittedly, I don’t think acetaminophen would be approved as a drug if it were submitted today. It’s not very effective, and it’s much more toxic than other common pain killers.
Betty Cracker
@Mart: Yeah, about half of my family are Trump-voting idiots, including my father, and it’s a constant strain. But I think it would be especially disheartening to know a child/grandchildren were subjected to that idiocy on the daily.
Hopefully your son in law has good qualities too. Some of my Trumper relatives are belligerent morons. But others are kind, generous, funny and talented people, which makes their support for a racist, sexist, xenophobic demagogue all the more bewildering.
I still haven’t shaken that feeling from two-plus years ago, which was like finding out people I’ve loved all my life were secretly involved in a pedophile ring or something equally atrocious. It continues to be awful. May we endure it as best we can.
bemused
@Betty Cracker:
I hear you Betty. The shock of trump was bad enough. It was discovering that I really didn’t know some people were so….trumpish.
leeleeFL
@J R in WV: As someone who almost bit it from internal bleeding caused by aspirin, let me just say risks are inherent in all treatments. I still miss aspirin, it was great for pain, but it is off limits. I might also add, I got so many polio vaccinations when I was a kid, other ppl were protected. TruIy a guinea pig. I was. I survived it. These anti-vaxxers are welcome to go live in the woods until they are no longer a threat to the herd.
Also too, Rand Paul is a quack and a dipstick.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator:
Ha, yeah.
It’s a pretty chill company so I don’t think I’d need to get HR involved if I just wanted to go home* for the day, but thanks for the reminder about my rights, should I need them.
*I’m in San Francisco, but the hotel is nice.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
This was a local story. Very sad.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Betty Cracker: I was pleasantly surprised to find out that my most right-wing relations– devout Catholics– were anti-trump in 2016, but I do wonder if they’ve been won over by Kavanagh and Gorsuch
Bobby Thomson
If it were limited to their kids, no prob. But even 98% effective vaccines rely on herd immunity. Not to mention kids who can’t get immunizations. People like Paul are killers.
Roger Moore
What’s this about “post-18th century”? Immunization has a long history. In fact, one of George Washington’s bold moves as a general was to inoculate the whole Continental Army against smallpox. If it was good enough for the Father of Our Country, it should be good enough for us today!
Gin & Tonic
@Kelly: I got the Shingrix in the fall, and both times was so sick the next day I couldn’t go to work. I’d still do it again, but this is just a heads-up that it’s no walk in the park.
leeleeFL
@Brachiator: One can only hope people wake up and start protecting their kids, and the kids of the rest of us Measles can lead to measles encephelitis. It is horrible, and the damage is usually irreversible.
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Did Gums say where we can sign up to get in on that action? There are 686 days left in the motherfucker’s term (barring removal). If the White House held a daily raffle for a chance to punch Trump in the wattles, they could retire the debt from that plutocratic grab-bag they call a tax cut. Hell, I’m in for a C-note right now!
The Moar You Know
@bemused: My guitar player’s wife sells that shit. I get why. They have minimal health insurance, and she is an idiot. Deadly combo.
They wanted me to play a “benefit” (that means I don’t get paid) for one of that multilevel marketing company’s events. I refused, told them I wasn’t putting any money into the Republican party’s pockets. They were shocked, and I explained, and they don’t believe me.
Can’t force people to be smart.
jl
“Now proponents of mandatory government vaccination argue that parents who refuse to vaccinate their children risk spreading these diseases to immunocompromised community. There doesn’t seem to be enough evidence of this happening to be recorded as a statistic.”
That is just plain wrong, and the danger is not just to the immunocompromised community, but everyone. There is plenty of evidence of just that, and the process has been consistently recorded as statistics for decades. And, the response of shocked parents rushing to get their kids immunized after outbreaks has also happened regularly, and that process has also been recorded as statistics. You can actually measure the rush, how it continues until the outbreaks stop (aka, herd immunity is restored), and how long it takes to subside and people get complacent again.
People get complacent and think they can free ride. Then an outbreak occurs, parents hear scary stories about 2 year olds admitted to the hospital, a few kids die or are maimed (e.g., hearing or vision loss), and suddenly a lot of people suddenly realize that, hey, maybe their kid should get immunized. These common very very contagious childhood diseases obey laws of transmission, which inevitably drive the epidemic process to its inevitable conclusion. When immunization rates fall below a certain threshold, no you don’t get sporadic cases among 8 and 9 year olds who can handle it better (as dishonest propaganda suggests). Almost overnight you get a bunch of very sick 1, 2 and 3 year olds.
Amid kernels of obvious truth (e.g., no medical procedure no matter how minor is completely safe; yes, research should continue on making immunizations safer, less burdensome to kids and parents) they sow mountains of BS.
Brachiator
@satby:
Ah, I forgot to add this teen’s brave resistance:
I would support a law that let anyone age 13 or older get vaccinated over their parents’ objections.
Kelly
@Gin & Tonic: My wife had a terrible reaction to the first Shingrix shot. Almost nothing on the second. In any case a few days bad reaction is way better than shingles.
Kathleen
@NotMax: African American slaves also too.
karensky
You are on fire, Miz Cracker.
FlyingToaster
The problem is twofold:
there is only one genuine religious ban that I’m aware of (Dutch Reformed, a la Botsy DeVos). Most adherents send their kids to DR private schools.
most states, in addition to the religious ban, allow for “sincerely held beliefs”.
Medical contraindications are a separate issue; no state is going to override that. I have one vaccine that I should not get unless there’s an epidemic, due to a hereditary medical contraindication. Just like the kid in WarriorGirl’s class who has to take off school every fall for the one day her allergist gets the no-egg flu vaccine, you do your best and hope for herd immunity.
The second issue is the root of this mess. Rather than tell the parents, “Okay, you don’t want to vaccinate, then you HAVE to send your kids to one of the no-vaccine private schools”, these states allow parents to try to game the system. Groups of parents share doctors who will back them up; others ban together in philosophical groups. It’s a fucking nightmare.
jl
@Brachiator: Also, the myth of a soulless brutal medical establishment forcing arbitrary immunization schedules and doses on people is a myth. The disease dynamics, the cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness of alternative protocols are studied to death before anything is put into place.
For some diseases, like Rubella, there are alternative, and very different schedules and immunization protocols that work. Which is why you see very different approaches in different countries. Others, like measles, are unbelievably contagious. Someone coming down with measles can wander through a room a few hours before you do, and all you have to do is breath a few minutes, and you have an infectious dose. Really nothing to be done (with our current state of knowledge) other than get close to herd immunity for everyone over a certain age, which because of the viciously contagious nature of the disease, has to be young.
Maybe we’ll find better approaches someday, but that is where we are now.
Gin & Tonic
@FlyingToaster: My son had to provide a full immunization record back to childhood when he was admitted to grad school at age 31. But that’s in the non-freedom-loving People’s Democratic Republic of Massachusetts.
Betty Cracker
@FlyingToaster: So that’s how they get around it. I wondered. My kid had to show vaccination records several times while getting her public school K-12 education — all within the same district — and again for college.
bemused
@The Moar You Know:
Nope. Can’t force people to wise up. I felt like sending her an article about YL con man founder who practiced unlicensed “medicine” and all sorts of shady practices but I didn’t although I may if she preaches YL or God to me again.
Funny you said “feeding Republicans pockets”. One woman has an essential oil shop in nearby town. I liked one product she had not realizing she was a YL person. I haven’t gone to her shop ever since the day when out of nowhere she asked me if I watched Alex Jones! Holy shit.
zhena gogolia
@Major Major Major Major:
That’s awful. It doesn’t sound as if there is anything you could have done.
Samwise is my calendar boy this month.
Kathleen
@Major Major Major Major: What a horrible tragedy. Reminder that we don’t always know the depths of depression some of our co-workers might be dealing with.
Kathleen
@tobie: L&O SVU had an episode about that. The anti vaxxer mother was put on trial but jury found her not guilty.
zhena gogolia
@Kelly:
I think people really vary. My husband was hit hard, but the doctor said that was great because it meant it was working!
Only one day, anyway, in our experience and that of our friends.
Major Major Major Major
@zhena gogolia:
Woohoo!
The Moar You Know
@schrodingers_cat: Let’s talk about murder and quantum mechanics.
I have a dilettantes interest in physics and know enough to have an understanding of what quantum mechanics is. Imagine my shock 10 years ago (actually, three people with all about the same education background were equally shocked) when a woo-heavy dinner guest started raving, after a chance comment about quantum mechanics “oh, you mean like HIGHER HEALING ENERGY?” and then went off into a spiel which I’d never heard before and hope to never hear again, standing proud and tall as a repudiation of all science and particularly physics. Because whatever she was talking about, and it wasn’t very clear, had nothing to do with what any of the rest of us at the table knew about physics. Or science. Or reality. Maybe religion, but not one I know anything about.
She died a year and a half later from completely untreated breast cancer. She thought the oils and “quantum energy” would cure her, I found out later.
I’d like to charge the people who advised her on that course of action with murder.
khead
@bemused:
Holy shit. 4000? She’s banking coin. It would be my “passion” too. My wife sells, but pretty much has your attitude with respect to scents vs.cures, etc.
Darkrose
@NotMax: Yeah, pretty sure my forefathers and -mothers had a very different opinion on liberty and America than either asshole Senator from Kentucky.
arielibra
Sorry but according to Dr. J. Buffett, MD, there is no dumbass vaccine.
Another Scott
@jl: Yeah but…
2007 – Woman dies from drinking too much water.
Nothing is risk free. That’s not how we evaluate whether something is worth doing or not.
We know from statistics and science and so forth that vaccines work. Yes, some small number of people (like a colleague’s wife) have bad reactions to vaccines. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t necessary for the vast, vast majority of cases. We don’t decide baseline policy based on the people ~15-sigma away from the median…
nCheers,
Scott.
khead
Also, I don’t wish any innocent person harm either. But my doctor when I was a kid – and a friend who lived on my street when I was a kid (~60 now) – actually suffered from polio. I am sure there are older Juicers who also know someone who suffered from that horrendous shit. Anti vaxxers should have to spend time with these folks.
Ohio Mom
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: As my Catholic neighbor points out, the Pope made it pretty clear he didn’t like candidate Trmp. Maybe your relations were paying attention.
Boomzilla
Damn. I thought this was Cheryl posting for some reason. Truly don’t know why, I just thought that’s who I saw as the OP. And I thought, Holy Mother of God, she’s been taking lessons from Betty Cracker, and has done very well. With phrases like, “this varicose dick vein” and “Baby Doc”, I especially loved that last one, I was blown away.
Turns out, it was the inimitable Betty her own self. Betty, I love the way you turn a phrase. I wish you’d write long-form political books. They’d be up there with Al Franken’s writing, I think. ( Sorry if anyone one is offended by Franken or the comparison. I thought he was funny. I thought he was a great Senator. I thought he was one of the honest men in a body of dishonesty, that was there to help, not just his constituents, but everyone. I also think that he may have used poor judgement, at times. Those times do not include that picture of him pretending to grope the woman. I believe that’s what started it all. I’ve read there was a certain interaction among them while on that USO tour where this was just part of it. If I recall correctly, she grabbed his butt while on stage. I don’t know if he was guilty of sexual harassment. If he was, then shame on him. I mean that. I don’t want to, and will not, get into a back and forth about Al Franken, unless it is with Betty and she wants to set me straight, in her opinion. I’ve got a great regard for you, Betty. And if you disagree with me about Al Franken I would take the time to read and consider what you have to say.)
Sorry, that took an unexpected turn. It’s just when I thought who crafts words as well as Betty, he came to mind. Again, I’m truly not looking to get into an argument about him I think we lost a great Senator there.
Back to you, Betty. You and Cole are the main reasons I read this blog. Well, and Lily. And Cole’s huge heart regarding many things. I want to say, shut up, Cole. It’s true whether you know it or not. But, I’m not comfortable with telling you to shut up. Regardless, it’s true,whether you know, admit, or will deign to acknowledge it. Grump on, John Cole. Your love for both Lily and Steve (I can’t bring myself to mention… I can’t go there)), plus the unruly members of your house, is obvious evidence of a huge-hearted man. BTW: i”m glad your father is doing well.
Dammiit, back to Betty. I was posting on the huge site about Balloon Juice. It was in a political thread. If I recall it had something to do with Conservatives not having the ability to think their way out of their own beliefs/convictions. I pointed to John as proof that wasn’t true. Then I went on about how outstanding Adam was in writing about things from his perspective. I mention Individual 1, Mister Mix… I used to remember his original handle, but that’s gone from my memory. He changes so often, I can’t keep up, but I do know when it is him writing (I’ve changed my hairstyle, so many times now, I don’t even know what I look like). Great points he makes, in a great style. And then I enthused about Betty. Her true, often brutal calll-outs, but especially how she made me laugh with the phrasing and wording of particular things. I ended by saying that I had to connection, beyond being a fan, of the site. I had a few people tell me I was lying, I went that hard of fan-boi on you all.
Okay, time to end this too long ramble and get back to work. Betty, I do love the way you word things, not to mention the way you write overall. You now live in the remote wildness of my home state. I’m not there any longer, having moved all over the place, including,now, San Francisco for the last 15 years. You’re got time, I would think, to sit down and write a book. I’m close to certain it would be a big hit. Please? Mr. Cole, you just keep on being you. And give Lily a bit of a gentle rub, maybe even a little hug from me. I can’t believe it’s been a year, if I read that post correctly, since I was so….. So terrified of you losing that sweet girl. Go Lily! We all need you around, not just John, but especially John. You’re the best girl.
Boomzillla
MomSense
Vaccines cause adulthood!!!!!1!!
Another Scott
All these mentions of YL got me curious (I’d never heard of it). It’s good to see that the FDA went after them in the Obama years.
Cheers,
Scott.
A Ghost To Most
We just received a wedding invitation to a nephew’s wedding in Hershey in June. I’d rather eat okra than go, but I said I’d go if we drive, or she can take our son and fly.
It promises to be a MAGAt promenade, so I’m hoping she chooses to fly.
bemused
@khead:
It’s a pyramid type MLM business like Amway. Years ago we vacationed in BVI and saw the Amway yacht in an island harbor, huge, that only the top, top level get be on. You have to work your butt off to make a lot of money in MLMs.
MomSense
@Major Major Major Major:
I’m so sorry, M4. Has your employer arranged for counseling to be available?
satby
@Another Scott: the FDA went after YL and their spawn doTerra, both, for making health claims that included curing Ebola, MS, and other diseases. They don’t directly claim that anymore, their distributors get around it by offering their personal testimony of the miraculous cures essential oils they have witnessed.
When I am in an especially pissy mood, I wander over to the occasional ones that show up, listen to their spiel, and then tell them how much of it they can’t legally say; especially when the health department people show up at the market. They seldom come back.
satby
@bemused: work your butt off and ruin a number of other people along the way.
bemused
@satby:
It feels like a cult to me, all those people who follow YL and credit the oils for their health improvements.
jl
@MomSense: “Vaccines cause adulthood!!!!!1!!”
Damn, that’s a real insight. I never thought of it that way before. That is one huge risk of immunizations! Everyone on this blog has seen the horrible consequences. I’ll need to rethink…. (/snark)
bemused
@satby:
Exactly what I thought. A true believer like my high school classmate reels in a ton more people who think they will be healed using the oils, and throw in God as well.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
I took my car to the quantum mechanics, but I couldn’t tell whether it had been repaired or not repaired.
satby
@bemused: Not all of them, but some do real damage to people who hope for more than nice aromatherapy or hope to earn a good living by becoming distributors. They prey on desperate people, sometimes because they’re desperate themselves.
khead
@satby:
This. I’ve enjoyed your pushback stories. I’m also still amazed at the person who has 4000 people under her.
bemused
@satby:
That’s the question. If someone like my classmate really believe the oils healed her (and I have no idea what health issues she had), he/she is likely to share their own healing with oils stories. Who knows how many people could overboard with self healing with the oils.
bemused
@khead:
Oh, me too! I read her newsletter and just shook my head. Seemed a little farfetched for a 67 year old woman with a ton of other time consuming things going on to manage to sign on 4,000 but she’s been at it for several years so maybe it’s true.
emma
@trollhattan: not bad, actually. At least not the first one. It’s a two-shot deal.
Montanareddog
@Brachiator:
After my visit, when I looked at the speedo, I had no idea where I was, but after checking the GPS, I had no idea how fast I was going.
J R in WV
@bemused:
I enrolled in grade school in 1955, and had classmates who were recovering (or NOT) from polio. One died between 3 and 4th grade.
I remember getting the Salk vaccine, mostly because it happened at my family’s business, where everyone employed and all their relatives were vaccinated. Also because my little brother, a babe in arms, screamed as if they were twisting off his limbs. It was no big deal to me.
Then a couple of years later on I remember the whole family joining the whole neighborhood at the local school for the Sabin oral vaccine on the sugar cubes. I’m pretty sure I had 3 different polio vaccinations, which was almost enough.
My wife, as a child, remembers a neighbor coming to her family’s home for dinner. He died of polio overnight. She finished his mac’n’cheese since he wasn’t really that hungry. Wife had gamma globulin injections, which in pre-vaccination days were the only attempt at improving one’s chances of not becoming infected by the virus.
As for those talking about measles and antibiotics in the same paragraph, those are idiots who don’t know the difference between a viral disease and a bacterial disease, they shouldn’t be in Congress [or any job, really!] as they don’t know enough to do the job at all~!!~ Texas ~!!!~
Plus these anti-vaxers aren’t endangering themselves, they all got vaccinated as kids. They’re endangering their kids, and all the kids their kids know. Should ALL be in jail for child abuse!
leeleeFL
@Betty Cracker: I love you, Ms. Cracker! I really, really do.
EthylEster
@schrodingers_cat: Deepak Chopra effect? Probably the only living Indian with name recognition among Americans.
EthylEster
@Kelly wrote:
MY anecdata: I had shingles about 15 years ago and it wasn’t bad at all. Some nerve pain and one small lesion. It lasted about a week. I would not like to have a full blown case. But all episodes are not like the horrible vax commercials shown on TV. I am considering getting the new one. Strangely, out here in Seattle they are telling us to get the shot at the pharmacy…and there is a wait list. So I still have some time to gather more info (i.e., anecdata).
EthylEster
@Boomzilla: Anyhoo is a tell.
EthylEster
@A Ghost To Most:
Fried okra is the biggest thing I miss about the south.
Hob
@satby: Oh my God. It’s not the first story of that kind that I’ve read, but… this makes me want to cry, throw up, and put my fist through the computer screen. That poor poor kid, he knew he needed his medicine, and he begged them to give it back to him. Jesus. And then I read down to the end and… four months? That fucking quack, that murdering asshole, got four months?
JR
@Miss Bianca: I thought the FDA was created in response to the elixir sulfanilamide scandal. In that case it was antibiotics, not vaccines, that were the flash point.
Ruckus
@EthylEster:
You are one of the lucky ones then.
I had shingles on my face and neck. I went to the doc within 24 hrs of the first evidence and still had intense pain and lesions on my face and neck. I’ve had migraines painful enough to tell the doc that his pain chart that goes to ten was off by two steps. Step 10, the normal last step is when you have to be sedated, 11 is when you are considering shooting yourself and 12 is when you are hoping that someone, anyone will just shoot you in the head. I’ve been hit by a truck head on going about 30 mph and I wasn’t in a car. All of this is to say shingles was more painful than any of that. And there isn’t anything you can do about it other than wait or try step 11 or 12, which I obviously didn’t go through, just thought about it. And BTW getting hit by the truck was the least painful of all. I walked away.
Ruckus
@khead:
Don’t think that will work on anyone stupid enough in this day and age, who still thinks science has no basis in fact and substitutes blind allegiance to ignorant fucksticks over reality. They need to be injected with one of the diseases that they refuse to vaccinate their kids for and put in isolation till they are no longer able to transmit the disease. I was exposed to all the diseases and survived, mostly OK, that should be their fate for being so fucking irresponsible to the rest of the world. So if they survive great, lesson learned, if they don’t, their kids will probably be better off not having to be around anyone that fucking stupid.
J R in WV
@satby:
You all need to read that tragic story. The “herbalist” who told the family not to use insulin, but to rub lavender oil on the boy’s spine was convicted — his sentence is 4 months in jail and he has to pay for the boy’s funeral. In other words, not the murder he committed, just “practicing medicine without a license” and a slap on the wrist.
Should spent the rest of his life in prison, not months in jail and a $4000 fine. Tragic!
LongHairedWeirdo
No they don’t. What kind of durn fool put *that* idea in your head[1]?
Product safety law says that if your contraption hurts someone, you are liable (unless you’re in a position to force arbitration, in which case you might be liable, if said liability can be estab… estab… estaBWAHAHAHAHA! Yeah, you’re SCREWED because you won’t ever get to force discovery.
If you knew damn well that the contraption was dangerous, and if you chose *to do nothing*, now you’re liable for punitive damages, in addition to actual damages.
Putting a warning label is “doing something”. You have no longer “done nothing”. Your potential for punitive damages is now greatly reduced.
Now: there may well be regulations on certain things. I’ll guarantee you that there are no regulations that say “label your strollers so they tell people ‘don’t smush your baby inside the stroller while folding it up.'” That’s a pure defensive action to avoid a danger that has provably come to the attention of the manufacturer, precisely like “caution: this beverage is hot” labels on coffee.
[1]Granted: I could also be factually incorrect. There are some dumb regulations out there. However, 99% of people’s complaints about “stupid overregulation” are about labels, etc., put in place to reduce potential liability. They are, in a sense, a very libertarian thing, voluntary action undertaken by free agents, though I’m betting there are libertarians who’d howl at the thought, or change the subject to “tort reform”.
brantl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
. If I could punch him on the chin every day I’d be happier.