The health secretary’s call for parents to vaccinate their children for measles contrasts starkly with the many years in which Kennedy has been a leading proponent of misinformation questioning the efficacy and safety of vaccinations. Even since he became the country’s top health official, he has depicted a measles vaccination as a personal choice and claimed inaccurately that the power of the inoculation is waning.
Children are dead because of what he chose to say.
He went on to blame the outbreaks on religious communities who eschew vaccines and on global health conditions.
I mean... a broken clock is right twice a day, I suppose. But he should not be in the position he has been appointed to. More people are dying.
Half his audience are those religious nuts so he is effectively throwing his audience under the bus. The only people who will be his audience are the crunchy Karen types who have convinced themselves that they are different from the other girls.
Don't worry... It'll only take another 20 years to get back the herd immunity we already lost. And that's assuming the idiots who listened to him in the first place don't decide this is a liberal psyop and they know he REALLY means NOT to get the vaccination.
Yeah they aren’t likely to listen to anyone tell them something that doesn’t fit their cult narrative. Some will mental gymnastics their way to getting vaccinated, but kore will mental gymnastics their way to ignoring his statement, if they even hear it in the first place.
To everyone saying broken clock and a glimmer of hope, you just need to read the article that it isn’t. He was just cornered and had no room to wiggle out of it.
Any hope that Kennedy’s measles statement might indicate a change of heart were dashed in the rest of the CNN interview in which he turned combative. Batting off questions from Bash, the health secretary responded with personal attacks.
He accused the CNN host of “saying nonsense”, “repeating like a parrot” and “making assertions you can’t support”. In one especially demeaning remark he said Bash had become “flustered”.
“I’m not flustered at all,” she asserted in a calm voice. “I am frustrated because you are the HHS secretary and you are talking about things that lead to vaccine hesitancy in this country.”
In a further comment dripping with condescension, Kennedy told Bash “you probably don’t understand this because you’re not a scientist”.
The journalist riposted: “But you’re not, either.”
Kennedy used the CNN exchange to spread further misinformation about other aspects of public health. He claimed that both respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) that is a major cause of infant mortality and Lyme disease were caused by manipulation of germs in laboratories.
Not really; or rather, they've been doing that since day 1. Both Mr. Worm-In-My-Brain and Mr. Orange Baby. In the age of governing through social media there's no such thing as consistency anymore.
Yeah social media is all about projecting vibes and knowing no one will bother to put any effort into finding any facts. And people are so saturated with information they won't remember that you're saying the exact opposite thing from what you said last week. With social media facts finding just slows you down, you win by producing more content, so you have an edge if you ignore the facts.
Before bending the knee to Trump, RFK Jr. said he believed the FDA was suppressing data on a host of issues. It’s likely he’s now been aware for quite some time that isn’t the case. Maybe the full weight of how wrong he is finally has an effect on him.
That, or he’s looking to distance himself from Trump like so many others. Blood in the water.
Gotta be the latter. I think they're all looking at Grandpa and seeing how long he has left - and everyone, every one of them is eyeing that big chair.
I'm assuming someone finally told him he could later face consequences for this. Not that he will, but perhaps he just got a little paranoid of what could happen if the world got saner at some point.
The sad thing is that millions of people have actually been looking to him for medical advice, which is like taking wardrobe and makeup advice from Ronald McDonald.
"I lost my virginity to an all metal toilet in Guam. It was Robert Downey Sr's 43rd birthday party, I was bill cosby's +1 and we were celebrating at the corporate training restaurant for Cici's pizza. The toilet penetrated me with the confidence of an Olympic fencing champion and I saw the face of god. They served corn dogs, but reverse what you're picturing."
-RFK Jr., 12 years old, mumblng to himself and convulsing before passing out in a ditch after snorting the entire contents of a full size fire extinguisher
P.S. RFK Jr. probably killed a young girl with a golf club and the family had a "lesser" cousin take the fall. And his wife later hung herself. What the fudge, right?
Even if we could magically vaccinate every single American today, the virus has a foothold and will spread by usually transmission. People will still go to work, school, shopping, social events etc. There will be more deaths. RFK llike to moron he is, will probably use that to say that vaccines arent effective.
Vaccinating now is still helpful, so if you're not covered, get covered! Tell everyone you know.
Imagine one of the dumbest persons on earth who is also a well known antivax telling you that you have to get some vaccines... and yet many people will still firmly oppose... We do live in the dumbest timeline.
Seriously insane anti-intellectualist culture were one's correctness is measured by how confident and loud one proclaims one's "facts" and how famous one is, rather than by being or not an expert in an applicable domain.
You see that shit even amongst people who think they're leftwing - notice the frequent parroting of some shit or other said by showbiz celebrities as long as it aligns with one's beliefs. (Sorry but an Acting Professional isn't really an authoritative source for jack shit anything outside their expert domain in showbiz, even if one agrees with what they say, hence their words on other subjects should be treated as having the same weight as those of any other random non-expert).
Will I risk to inflict minor side effets such as fever for a few days AND imaginary side effects like autism to my children ?
Or should I put my kids in danger of dying or suffer brain dammage because I obviously know better than decades of research and use of the vaccine with my two degrees in french and english litterature.
I'm among the most thoroughly vaccinated people around, after living in both SE Asia and South America. I'm also relatively well versed in statistics and am well aware that if your goal is to optimise for a good and healthy life, getting vaccinated is a no-brainier.
Finally, I think that if we want to convince people that are sceptical of vaccines to get them, or give them to their children, we should start by
Acknowledging that plenty of common vaccines have extremely rare, but nonetheless potentially severe side effects.
There is an actual ethical/philosophical dilemma that has been discussed for thousands of years regarding the morality of harm caused be action vs. inaction.
The dilemma that has shown up in countless philosophical debates throughout history is basically the trolley problem: "If you press this button, there's a 1/1000 chance that someone (e.g. your child) dies. If you don't, there's a 1/100 chance that they die." To me personally, the choice is easy (I press the button), but I recognise that people see this as a dilemma. There's plenty of research on how we humans tend to prefer inaction over actions that could cause damage, even when that choice is statistically unreasonable.
Based on this, I think the most productive way to engage with people that are sceptical of vaccines due to this very human mode of decision failure, is to engage with the philosophical question above, and trying to convince them that inaction (not taking the vaccine) is, in fact, also a choice that they are responsible for. I think brushing the dilemma off as trivial is a bit reductionist, considering that the trolley problem is one that has been so widely discussed through the ages (even though I personally think it's an easy choice).
Of course, if people are just blatantly ignoring or refuting established scientific results, there's not much you can do...
The numbers you're using are nowhere even close. You need to severely increase the ratio by 2 or 3 orders or magnitude.
Mortality rate for some diseases is close to 1 in 3 (measles in infants with co-morbodities) to 1 in 100.
With vaccines, we have changed that to 1 in 10k or better (with co-morbodities).
For the live virus polio vaccine, 3 out of a million kids would get polio DUE to the vaccine itself. That is peanuts compared to 50k kids (per million) who get polio despite the vaccine. That's also peanuts when we see that reported polio cases fell from 350k around 1990 to 30 around 2010 despite a huge increase in population.
Of course, if people are just blatantly ignoring or refuting established scientific results, there’s not much you can do…
Well... there you are, unfortunately. That will happen pretty much literally every time, no matter what you do, because it was never about the science. It will never be about the science, because we already know they're completely wrong about everything and therefore they need to make science irrelevant.
Conspiracy theories sell people the idea that they're seeing through "the bullshit" (sum total of human expertise, generally) which is a powerful feeling, that the dull world of undeniable facts and logic can't quite measure up to. Too easy to deny them anyway, you see. The package tends to come with a bunch of rationalizations for why, the instant you seem like you're not buying it, they no longer have to listen to anything you say.
Acknowledging that plenty of common vaccines have extremely rare, but nonetheless potentially severe side effects.
Unfortunately, if you don't also want to acknowledge the ones that are blatant lies, you are instantly The Enemy. Given stuff like belief perseverance and the backlash effect it's understandable to want to try, though.
Being "supportive" when arguing against known bullshit is not my forte, so I wouldn't be the one to get good results out of the supposed strat of... agreeing them out of their position(?), but I am damn curious about what it'd look like.
To me personally, the choice is easy (I press the button), but I recognise that people see this as a dilemma.
A false one, to belabor the point, but it's not relevant anyway. The reality is that if you get within light years of the concrete thought experiment, they'll be real suspicious. If any part of it is remotely realistic, you'll lose them instantly: "do you want a thousand times higher risk of death, and also help spread a potentially lethal and disfiguring infection?" cannot be made to sound all that reasonable.
There isn't even a way to prove that a random symptom that occurs in your body may be from a vaccine. There is absolutely no way to know where it came from.
Yes there is, sweetie. It's this thing called science.
This comment comes after the one you responded to was deleted.
In medicine it can be extremely difficult to definitively identify cause and effect. The human body is extremely complex, and many variables are involved with everything.
There's still legitimate debate on whether the COVID vaccine could cause long COVID symptoms in a small amount of patients.
But how do you retroactively prove that the patient didn't have asymptomatic COVID when they got vaccinated?
But how do you retroactively prove that the patient didn't have asymptomatic COVID when they got vaccinated?
Or they simply developed CFS/ME around the time they were vaccinated, since the two are both poorly understood and look virtually identical. Hell, long COVID may just be a specific cause of CFS.
At the same time I wouldn't discount the idea that the vaccine could cause it in susceptible individuals or under specific circumstances either. We simply don't really have any understanding of what long COVID and other post viral syndromes actually are. (We don't really understand viruses that well, they aren't even alive in the conventional sense)
Now imagine if instead of recommending vaccination during an outbreak, it was recommended before anything happened. Crazy thought, I know. Only way this could have happened is by not having a complete moron obsessed with his countless delusions as the fucking head of the health department of one of the largest country in the world, is all.
Someday he'll live out his life wealthy and entitled with access to the best doctors and lifestyle money can buy. He'll coast through life using his family name and resources to open doors and skirt accountability until he finally dies on his estate surrounded by dozens of people who'll talk about him like he's the second coming.
The weird right-wing conspiracy nutters feel the same way about Fauci. It's wild how obsessed they are with Fauci needing to be punished for a mix of unspecified and entirely invented crimes. Second only to Obama in that department.
I was explaining to my kids how their whole mindset is survival of the fittest. Get a sick...if you die or live if on you and your genes. The weak need to be culled out of exsistence so we can be a stronger species. Regret and shame of their own family tree.
Well, they are right, you just have to define "fit" in terms of intelligence and tool use, as is narrated in schools to describe the difference between a man and a chimp. And they are clearly not fit, don't be like them, they are a bad branch.
Yes, and rfk jr's anti vaccine grifting rhetoric also resulted in so many increased infant and child deaths in Samoa they needed to import more child sized coffins from new Zealand
Last outbreak we had in Virginia tracked back to an unvaxed Afghani family. We need to push on entry we vax everyone.
Virginia has confirmed a measles outbreak in Buckingham County (expanded to include Cumberland County) in 2026, with multiple cases linked to individuals who recently arrived from Afghanistan
The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) has identified that some of these cases occurred among Afghan evacuees transported to the U.S.
5 years ago, quickly contained? Noteworthy, sure, but unrelated to this article.
The question you should be asking is, "why are measles able to spread through US populations" regardless of origin? From the article:
Jha said that the dramatic rise in measles cases on Kennedy’s watch was not coincidental. “The administration has not done enough to promote vaccines. It has not done enough to highlight the harms that come from measles.”
Honestly, I'm surprised RFK Jr. changed his position at all. Some parents of children who die of measles double down on their decision not to vaccinate.
"why are measles able to spread through US populations"
People have egg allergies and can't get vaccines unfortunately. Then you have the nutters that won't take vaxxes and then here we are.
For me I had a really bad reaction to the last set of vaccines I got. I now know what Tetanus feels like in a minor way. Believe me you don't want it, it hurts a lot.
The amount of ovalbumin-like protein within the vaccine is extremely low (approx. 37 pg per dose) and is highly processed. While initially it was recommended that only children with a mild egg allergy could be safety vaccinated in primary care with the MMR vaccine. Multiple studies subsequently have shown that the MMR vaccine has an excellent safety record in children with an egg allergy.
Maybe there is a very, very small percentage of the population who cannot get vaccinated because of egg allergies. But that would be covered by herd immunity.
Then you have the nutters that won't take vaxxes and then here we are.
Correct! And why are they so prevalent? Partly because the head of health and human services spent years advocating against vaccines, is himself a nutter:
The health secretary’s call for parents to vaccinate their children for measles contrasts starkly with the many years in which Kennedy has been a leading proponent of misinformation questioning the efficacy and safety of vaccinations. Even since he became the country’s top health official, he has depicted a measles vaccination as a personal choice and claimed inaccurately that the power of the inoculation is waning.
But now he doesn't want the casualties attributed to him, so he pretends to be reasonable.
For me I had a really bad reaction to the last set of vaccines I got. I now know what Tetanus feels like in a minor way. Believe me you don't want it, it hurts a lot.
That is unfortunate. Thank you for getting vaccinated. Some people do not have the option, it would literally kill them, as would getting certain viruses. I hope it was some kind of fluke. Do you know what the specific reaction was that caused your pain?
People have egg allergies and can’t get vaccines unfortunately. Then you have the nutters that won’t take vaxxes and then here we are.
The people with allergies are a tiny fraction of the population, and they're one of the reasons why everyone else should get vaccinated. The other reason is that none of the vaccines are 100 percent effective. The tiny percentage of the population who can't get vaccinated, and the people for whom the vaccine didn't fully protect, are much safer if the other folks are vaccinated because the virus can't get a foothold, so exposure the up being negligible. Say someone comes in from another country that has an active infection. If all the people who that person encounters are protected, then the virus stops with that person.
The problem is that the number of people buying into the anti vaccine garbage is now nontrivial, so that herd immunity is out the window, and these previously well controlled viruses are now able to spread.
Well, when they succeed in slashing the funding for all the outbreak tracking programs, they can ignore the non-existent data and go back to saying whatever they like to hear themselves say...
Virginia has confirmed a measles outbreak in Buckingham County (expanded to include Cumberland County) in 2026, with multiple cases linked to individuals who recently arrived from Afghanistan
The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) has identified that some of these cases occurred among Afghan evacuees transported to the U.S.
While your logic is fine, the comparisons are inaccurate. The source says "Multiple cases of measles have been confirmed among individuals who have arrived in the United States from Afghanistan." Which sounds like they had measles before they got here. Though, the source isn't explicit one way or the other.
Wow, really? They were unvaxed coming from Afghanistan how hard is that to understand and a measles carrier? We used to quarantine ships (even Astronauts) to keep people safe and now days its a bloody free for all.
The level of not understanding the source of the issue is mind blowing. If they were quarantined and vaxed after there would be no measles outbreak...
If >95% of the people are vaxed it's not problem someone comes in unvaxed. Probably there is also a number on the opposite end, where coming in unvaxed is very dangerous for that person.
Virginia has confirmed a measles outbreak in Buckingham County (expanded to include Cumberland County) in 2026, with multiple cases linked to individuals who recently arrived from Afghanistan
The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) has identified that some of these cases occurred among Afghan evacuees transported to the U.S.
I am proud to say I never will accept the morally bankrupt hypocrisy of Republicans. Nice try trying to lie this into what Republicans are though, fascist.
125 Comments
Blackfeathr@lemmy.world · 186 pts · 21h
Ohhhh that's gonna piss off the plague rats.
manniesalado@piefed.social · 14 pts · 14h
But, but, but...what about thew leukemia you get from those bad medicines???
Arghblarg@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 18h
Cavemanfreak@programming.dev · 3 pts · 16h
Heads up, your link doesn't work. Might be because of the ] at the end.
SnoopSqueak@lemmy.today · 128 pts · 20h
Children are dead because of what he chose to say.
I mean... a broken clock is right twice a day, I suppose. But he should not be in the position he has been appointed to. More people are dying.
ChicoSuave@lemmy.world · 40 pts · 19h
Half his audience are those religious nuts so he is effectively throwing his audience under the bus. The only people who will be his audience are the crunchy Karen types who have convinced themselves that they are different from the other girls.
mycodesucks@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 18h
Don't worry... It'll only take another 20 years to get back the herd immunity we already lost. And that's assuming the idiots who listened to him in the first place don't decide this is a liberal psyop and they know he REALLY means NOT to get the vaccination.
anomnom@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 18h
Yeah they aren’t likely to listen to anyone tell them something that doesn’t fit their cult narrative. Some will mental gymnastics their way to getting vaccinated, but kore will mental gymnastics their way to ignoring his statement, if they even hear it in the first place.
daychilde@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 10h
A broken clock consistently says the same thing. He's not even a broken clock.
kunaltyagi@programming.dev · 3 pts · 9h
I'm gonna steal this
daychilde@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 8h
Can't steal it if I give it to you <3 hehe
gedfromgont@piefed.ca · 112 pts · 18h
Lmao! Well done!
snoons@piefed.ca · 31 pts · 15h
I have received +3 Mental Damage from reading that first bit.
nkat2112@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 11h
Lordy, I need to start using that line. Thank you.
scytale@piefed.zip · 95 pts · 17h
To everyone saying broken clock and a glimmer of hope, you just need to read the article that it isn’t. He was just cornered and had no room to wiggle out of it.
Salamanderwizard@lemmy.world · 59 pts · 21h
Grandfather Nurgle will not be pleased.
sad_detective_man@sopuli.xyz · 9 pts · 19h
Same exact thing happened to Morty when he got complacent with spreading the plague. Now Typhus is the favorite
Alexstarfire@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 19h
I can't tell if this is a Rick and Morty reference or something else.
sad_detective_man@sopuli.xyz · 18 pts · 19h
You wouldn't be the first
friend_of_satan@lemmy.world · 54 pts · 9h
Vaccines are not supposed to be reactionary, they are preperatory.
green_goglin@thelemmy.club · 7 pts · 8h
indeed
dreadbeef@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 4h
he told them to vaccinate because school is about to start
Steve@startrek.website · 43 pts · 20h
What about the AUTISM??1?
Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works · 11 pts · 18h
It was since discovered this is caused by women abusing Tylenol.
SparroHawc@piefed.world · 6 pts · 16h
Oh yeah it's TOTALLY caused by Tylenol you guys we figured it out
(it is not caused by Tylenol)
https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2025/the-evidence-on-tylenol-and-autism
snoons@piefed.ca · 3 pts · 15h
WOW TYLENOL CAN EDIT THE DNA IN YOUR GAMETOCYTES TO MAKE AUTISTIC KIDS WOW
fyzzlefry@retrolemmy.com · 9 pts · 16h
I need more! My database looks like shit!
huppakee@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 18h
Suddenly worth it or smth
Carighan@piefed.world · 38 pts · 16h
Oh how the turns have tabled.
A_norny_mousse@piefed.zip · 4 pts · 12h
Not really; or rather, they've been doing that since day 1. Both Mr. Worm-In-My-Brain and Mr. Orange Baby. In the age of governing through social media there's no such thing as consistency anymore.
SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 6h
Yeah social media is all about projecting vibes and knowing no one will bother to put any effort into finding any facts. And people are so saturated with information they won't remember that you're saying the exact opposite thing from what you said last week. With social media facts finding just slows you down, you win by producing more content, so you have an edge if you ignore the facts.
A_norny_mousse@piefed.zip · 1 pts · 3h
You put it much better than I ever could, 'specially the last sentence.
moondoggie@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 6h
“I DECLARE VACCINATIONS!”
1egg4u@lemmy.world · 27 pts · 19h
To be honest im kind of surprised he backtracked, i was fully certain he would let people die and perpetuate an outbreak just to stick to his schtick
Nobody@anarchist.nexus · 13 pts · 18h
Before bending the knee to Trump, RFK Jr. said he believed the FDA was suppressing data on a host of issues. It’s likely he’s now been aware for quite some time that isn’t the case. Maybe the full weight of how wrong he is finally has an effect on him.
That, or he’s looking to distance himself from Trump like so many others. Blood in the water.
Mirshe@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 11h
Gotta be the latter. I think they're all looking at Grandpa and seeing how long he has left - and everyone, every one of them is eyeing that big chair.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 18h
I'm assuming someone finally told him he could later face consequences for this. Not that he will, but perhaps he just got a little paranoid of what could happen if the world got saner at some point.
No1@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 52m
He can always just
pay a bribemake a donation and get a pardon.anomnom@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 18h
You mean continue to let people die and perpetuate the already record outbreak?
psx_crab@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 18h
He still denied the rest of the thing about vaccine though.
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world · 27 pts · 5h
The sad thing is that millions of people have actually been looking to him for medical advice, which is like taking wardrobe and makeup advice from Ronald McDonald.
Photonic@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 4h
I mean, when you’re going for the clown world they keep talking about, he is pretty much your best bet
jtrek@startrek.website · 25 pts · 9h
He should be personally, criminally, liable for the deaths and suffering caused by his policies. So should leadership that supported him.
smeenz@lemmy.nz · 5 pts · 2h
So should Elon for shutting down Usaid
Snapz@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 5h
"I lost my virginity to an all metal toilet in Guam. It was Robert Downey Sr's 43rd birthday party, I was bill cosby's +1 and we were celebrating at the corporate training restaurant for Cici's pizza. The toilet penetrated me with the confidence of an Olympic fencing champion and I saw the face of god. They served corn dogs, but reverse what you're picturing."
-RFK Jr., 12 years old, mumblng to himself and convulsing before passing out in a ditch after snorting the entire contents of a full size fire extinguisher
nullspace@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 5h
what the fuck did i just read
Snapz@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 4h
The truth, brother... The truth.
P.S. RFK Jr. probably killed a young girl with a golf club and the family had a "lesser" cousin take the fall. And his wife later hung herself. What the fudge, right?
MrSulu@lemmy.ml · 22 pts · 17h
Even if we could magically vaccinate every single American today, the virus has a foothold and will spread by usually transmission. People will still go to work, school, shopping, social events etc. There will be more deaths. RFK llike to moron he is, will probably use that to say that vaccines arent effective.
Vaccinating now is still helpful, so if you're not covered, get covered! Tell everyone you know.
psycho_driver@lemmy.world · 21 pts · 12h
Lord Dookie Diaper will be most displeased.
Manjushri@piefed.social · 20 pts · 8h
OMFG!!!11! THE DEEP STATE GOT TO HIM!!!
/s just in case...
aamram@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 18 pts · 8h
Imagine one of the dumbest persons on earth who is also a well known antivax telling you that you have to get some vaccines... and yet many people will still firmly oppose... We do live in the dumbest timeline.
A_Chilean_Cyborg@feddit.cl · 16 pts · 11h
Americans are weird.
Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 7h
Seriously insane anti-intellectualist culture were one's correctness is measured by how confident and loud one proclaims one's "facts" and how famous one is, rather than by being or not an expert in an applicable domain.
You see that shit even amongst people who think they're leftwing - notice the frequent parroting of some shit or other said by showbiz celebrities as long as it aligns with one's beliefs. (Sorry but an Acting Professional isn't really an authoritative source for jack shit anything outside their expert domain in showbiz, even if one agrees with what they say, hence their words on other subjects should be treated as having the same weight as those of any other random non-expert).
TehWorld@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 6h
You misspelled stupid. Sincerely, a mostly dumbass American.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 16 pts · 16h
which is it, vaccinate or not to vacicnate. anti-vaxxers are unlikely to vacciante.
1984@lemmy.today · -33 pts · 16h
TimRoquette@jlai.lu · 35 pts · 15h
As a parent myself it's quite the dilemma :
Fuck life is hard
Railcar8095@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 14h
As a parent, the bit dilema i face is different diagnostics by different doctors, or different treatments for the same one.
The dilemma I don't have is about vaccinations. They all agree vaccination is the right thing to do following the official schedule.
thebestaquaman@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 9h
I'm among the most thoroughly vaccinated people around, after living in both SE Asia and South America. I'm also relatively well versed in statistics and am well aware that if your goal is to optimise for a good and healthy life, getting vaccinated is a no-brainier.
Finally, I think that if we want to convince people that are sceptical of vaccines to get them, or give them to their children, we should start by
The dilemma that has shown up in countless philosophical debates throughout history is basically the trolley problem: "If you press this button, there's a 1/1000 chance that someone (e.g. your child) dies. If you don't, there's a 1/100 chance that they die." To me personally, the choice is easy (I press the button), but I recognise that people see this as a dilemma. There's plenty of research on how we humans tend to prefer inaction over actions that could cause damage, even when that choice is statistically unreasonable.
Based on this, I think the most productive way to engage with people that are sceptical of vaccines due to this very human mode of decision failure, is to engage with the philosophical question above, and trying to convince them that inaction (not taking the vaccine) is, in fact, also a choice that they are responsible for. I think brushing the dilemma off as trivial is a bit reductionist, considering that the trolley problem is one that has been so widely discussed through the ages (even though I personally think it's an easy choice).
Of course, if people are just blatantly ignoring or refuting established scientific results, there's not much you can do...
kunaltyagi@programming.dev · 3 pts · 9h
The numbers you're using are nowhere even close. You need to severely increase the ratio by 2 or 3 orders or magnitude.
Mortality rate for some diseases is close to 1 in 3 (measles in infants with co-morbodities) to 1 in 100. With vaccines, we have changed that to 1 in 10k or better (with co-morbodities).
For the live virus polio vaccine, 3 out of a million kids would get polio DUE to the vaccine itself. That is peanuts compared to 50k kids (per million) who get polio despite the vaccine. That's also peanuts when we see that reported polio cases fell from 350k around 1990 to 30 around 2010 despite a huge increase in population.
amio@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 7h
Well... there you are, unfortunately. That will happen pretty much literally every time, no matter what you do, because it was never about the science. It will never be about the science, because we already know they're completely wrong about everything and therefore they need to make science irrelevant.
Conspiracy theories sell people the idea that they're seeing through "the bullshit" (sum total of human expertise, generally) which is a powerful feeling, that the dull world of undeniable facts and logic can't quite measure up to. Too easy to deny them anyway, you see. The package tends to come with a bunch of rationalizations for why, the instant you seem like you're not buying it, they no longer have to listen to anything you say.
Unfortunately, if you don't also want to acknowledge the ones that are blatant lies, you are instantly The Enemy. Given stuff like belief perseverance and the backlash effect it's understandable to want to try, though.
Being "supportive" when arguing against known bullshit is not my forte, so I wouldn't be the one to get good results out of the supposed strat of... agreeing them out of their position(?), but I am damn curious about what it'd look like.
A false one, to belabor the point, but it's not relevant anyway. The reality is that if you get within light years of the concrete thought experiment, they'll be real suspicious. If any part of it is remotely realistic, you'll lose them instantly: "do you want a thousand times higher risk of death, and also help spread a potentially lethal and disfiguring infection?" cannot be made to sound all that reasonable.
1984@lemmy.today · -21 pts · 13h
Exatron@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 11h
Wish granted, kiddo.
baggachipz@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 11h
By all means, please list the supposed side effects. Are the side effects in the room with you right now?
voodooattack@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 13h
What side effects are you describing? Specific ones?
projectsquared@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 13h
Living to old age.
psycho_driver@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 12h
As someone experiencing that right now, I can tell you there are some rough patches.
nkat2112@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 11h
This.
Exatron@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 11h
Yes there is, sweetie. It's this thing called science.
village604@adultswim.fan · 3 pts · 8h
This comment comes after the one you responded to was deleted.
In medicine it can be extremely difficult to definitively identify cause and effect. The human body is extremely complex, and many variables are involved with everything.
There's still legitimate debate on whether the COVID vaccine could cause long COVID symptoms in a small amount of patients.
But how do you retroactively prove that the patient didn't have asymptomatic COVID when they got vaccinated?
RobotToaster@mander.xyz · 2 pts · 7h
Or they simply developed CFS/ME around the time they were vaccinated, since the two are both poorly understood and look virtually identical. Hell, long COVID may just be a specific cause of CFS.
At the same time I wouldn't discount the idea that the vaccine could cause it in susceptible individuals or under specific circumstances either. We simply don't really have any understanding of what long COVID and other post viral syndromes actually are. (We don't really understand viruses that well, they aren't even alive in the conventional sense)
unknownuserunknownlocation@kbin.earth · 5 pts · 15h
I think you forgot the /s
nkat2112@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 11h
That was kind of you to grant them an exit from the ratio-destroyed ignorance expressed in their comment. I'll be using this line - thank you.
1984@lemmy.today · -14 pts · 13h
I'm sure you are not alone thinking this. :)
cley_faye@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 3h
Now imagine if instead of recommending vaccination during an outbreak, it was recommended before anything happened. Crazy thought, I know. Only way this could have happened is by not having a complete moron obsessed with his countless delusions as the fucking head of the health department of one of the largest country in the world, is all.
rayyy@piefed.social · 13 pts · 10h
Which is it? Vaccines are bad or get vaccines? It depends on the wind, it seems.
Hawk@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 9 pts · 10h
The first phase was the "fuck around and find out"-phase.
Well, the fucked around and are probably in full damage control now
generic_computers@lemmy.zip · 10 pts · 6h
So, what company paid him to say that? He obviously didn't come up with that on his own?
rumba@lemmy.zip · 8 pts · 5h
MAGGA: 🎶 FUCK YOU I WON'T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME... 🎵
lechekaflan@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 9h
Fucking rotten bastard. Someday he'll fucking be sitting in jail for mass murder.
MJKee9@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 8h
No he won't. I'm not saying he doesn't deserve it, but I'm being realistic.
nomy@lemmy.zip · 13 pts · 8h
Someday he'll live out his life wealthy and entitled with access to the best doctors and lifestyle money can buy. He'll coast through life using his family name and resources to open doors and skirt accountability until he finally dies on his estate surrounded by dozens of people who'll talk about him like he's the second coming.
That seems more accurate.
Didntdoit71@feddit.online · 3 pts · 7h
That's he disgust truth. He's just another rich, know-nothing cunt.
Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org · 7 pts · 6h
The weird right-wing conspiracy nutters feel the same way about Fauci. It's wild how obsessed they are with Fauci needing to be punished for a mix of unspecified and entirely invented crimes. Second only to Obama in that department.
bilb@lemmy.ml · 6 pts · 1h
betanumerus@lemmy.ca · 6 pts · 3h
he should resign, he's way too late for redemption
crystalmerchant@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 19h
Are you floofing kidding me
SW42@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 17h
But… what about the autism?
DarkFuture@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 4h
TRAITOR
He is placing his own opinions over the health of Americans. He is making Americans sick (and dead) to validate his own beliefs. He is a TRAITOR.
JusticeForPorygon@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 5 pts · 18h
Tell those kids he killed in American Samoa to get vaccinated
melsaskca@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 11h
And just like that...lawsuits throughout the land.
green_goglin@thelemmy.club · 1 pts · 8h
This was the grift all along
phoenixarise@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 17h
Hahaha can’t wait to see the MAHA morons whine about this. 😂
Avicenna@programming.dev · 4 pts · 9h
oopsies we made a tiny weeny mistake
BilboBargains@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1h
In other news RFK is gonna save the mid term election by eating shit. It's not going down easily.
uberdroog@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 6h
I was explaining to my kids how their whole mindset is survival of the fittest. Get a sick...if you die or live if on you and your genes. The weak need to be culled out of exsistence so we can be a stronger species. Regret and shame of their own family tree.
belochka@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 5h
Well, they are right, you just have to define "fit" in terms of intelligence and tool use, as is narrated in schools to describe the difference between a man and a chimp. And they are clearly not fit, don't be like them, they are a bad branch.
ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 9h
Didn't he already do this a year ago?
whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 6h
Yes, and rfk jr's anti vaccine grifting rhetoric also resulted in so many increased infant and child deaths in Samoa they needed to import more child sized coffins from new Zealand
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Samoa_measles_outbreak
TIEPilot@lemmy.world · -33 pts · 21h
Last outbreak we had in Virginia tracked back to an unvaxed Afghani family. We need to push on entry we vax everyone.
https://www.vdh.virginia.gov/clinicians/update-on-measles-in-virginia/
SnoopSqueak@lemmy.today · 14 pts · 19h
5 years ago, quickly contained? Noteworthy, sure, but unrelated to this article.
The question you should be asking is, "why are measles able to spread through US populations" regardless of origin? From the article:
Honestly, I'm surprised RFK Jr. changed his position at all. Some parents of children who die of measles double down on their decision not to vaccinate.
TIEPilot@lemmy.world · -8 pts · 19h
People have egg allergies and can't get vaccines unfortunately. Then you have the nutters that won't take vaxxes and then here we are.
For me I had a really bad reaction to the last set of vaccines I got. I now know what Tetanus feels like in a minor way. Believe me you don't want it, it hurts a lot.
SnoopSqueak@lemmy.today · 10 pts · 19h
Who told you that?
https://www.bsaci.org/resources/allergy-management/food-allergy/vaccines-and-food-allergy/mmr-vaccine-and-egg-allergy/
Maybe there is a very, very small percentage of the population who cannot get vaccinated because of egg allergies. But that would be covered by herd immunity.
Correct! And why are they so prevalent? Partly because the head of health and human services spent years advocating against vaccines, is himself a nutter:
But now he doesn't want the casualties attributed to him, so he pretends to be reasonable.
That is unfortunate. Thank you for getting vaccinated. Some people do not have the option, it would literally kill them, as would getting certain viruses. I hope it was some kind of fluke. Do you know what the specific reaction was that caused your pain?
AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 19h
The people with allergies are a tiny fraction of the population, and they're one of the reasons why everyone else should get vaccinated. The other reason is that none of the vaccines are 100 percent effective. The tiny percentage of the population who can't get vaccinated, and the people for whom the vaccine didn't fully protect, are much safer if the other folks are vaccinated because the virus can't get a foothold, so exposure the up being negligible. Say someone comes in from another country that has an active infection. If all the people who that person encounters are protected, then the virus stops with that person.
The problem is that the number of people buying into the anti vaccine garbage is now nontrivial, so that herd immunity is out the window, and these previously well controlled viruses are now able to spread.
pelespirit@sh.itjust.works · 13 pts · 20h
Provide sources when you spew that shit. It can't be fox or equal since they've already said they're an entertainment company, look it up.
MangoCats@feddit.it · 6 pts · 19h
Well, when they succeed in slashing the funding for all the outbreak tracking programs, they can ignore the non-existent data and go back to saying whatever they like to hear themselves say...
TIEPilot@lemmy.world · -4 pts · 20h
https://www.vdh.virginia.gov/clinicians/update-on-measles-in-virginia/
pelespirit@sh.itjust.works · 13 pts · 20h
does not equal
Alexstarfire@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 19h
While your logic is fine, the comparisons are inaccurate. The source says "Multiple cases of measles have been confirmed among individuals who have arrived in the United States from Afghanistan." Which sounds like they had measles before they got here. Though, the source isn't explicit one way or the other.
TIEPilot@lemmy.world · -13 pts · 20h
Wow, really? They were unvaxed coming from Afghanistan how hard is that to understand and a measles carrier? We used to quarantine ships (even Astronauts) to keep people safe and now days its a bloody free for all.
The level of not understanding the source of the issue is mind blowing. If they were quarantined and vaxed after there would be no measles outbreak...
huppakee@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 18h
If >95% of the people are vaxed it's not problem someone comes in unvaxed. Probably there is also a number on the opposite end, where coming in unvaxed is very dangerous for that person.
ThreeCheesesalute@lemmus.org · 4 pts · 21h
Then you should get yours, republican
TIEPilot@lemmy.world · -10 pts · 21h
I do have my measles vaccine thank you. I'm up to date on all my vaccines.
eestileib@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 20h
Congrats, you're a racist with a sense of self preservation.
slow clap
TIEPilot@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 20h
How am I racist? I pointed out a fact
https://www.vdh.virginia.gov/clinicians/update-on-measles-in-virginia/
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 18h
Well if you're a Republican... You didn't deny it...
TIEPilot@lemmy.world · -10 pts · 18h
So should I deny being Gay or not being white? What kind of intolerant nonsense are you about?
So accepting and tolerant... lol NOT!
phoenixarise@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 17h
The only ones using the word “tolerant” these days are MAGAts. 🤔
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 9h
I am proud to say I never will accept the morally bankrupt hypocrisy of Republicans. Nice try trying to lie this into what Republicans are though, fascist.