funwiththoughts #fundie

funwiththoughts #fundie reddit.com

"Most unvaccinated people will die as children" is just as stupid as "vaccines cause autism", and if you spread memes promoting the former myth, you do not have the right to feel superior to people who spread the latter

The way Reddit talks about vaccines you'd think the Angel of Death personally visits every child on their first birthday unless the mother (always the mother, anti-vaxx fathers don't exist) gets them vaccinated. When in reality, for every unvaccinated child who dies of measles, 500 will just get a fever and runny nose for a week. Meanwhile they smugly insist that it doesn't even matter if vaccines cause autism because "autism doesn't kill children", when if they could be bothered to do some basic fact-checking they'd find that autism makes you 40 times more likely to get lethal injuries in childhood. The worst part is that if you point out how stupid their memes are, they assume you're an anti-vaxxer; it's just like how after 9/11 anybody who pointed out how ridiculous Bush's policies were was accused of supporting the terrorists (EDIT: that was an unfair comparison, spreading dumb memes is not the same as invading a country unprovoked. But it's still the same worrying mindset of "our enemies are so evil that anything condemning them must be accepted, no matter how obviously wrong it is").

16 comments

old comment by Swede

There is a joke and/or meme that says:
"There are two things that never get old.
1. Jokes about anti-vaxxers.
2. Children of anti-vaxxers."
So s/he's got a point.

As long as the herd immunity works, non-vaccinated people will benefit from that. But when too many are unvaccinated, herd immunity will cease, and more people will die (babies and people with compromised immune systems first, I guess; the ones who can't be vaccinated).

Measles isn't the flu. Measles is "millions" of itchy spots all over the body AND fever AND a cough AND inflamed eyes. I had measles when I was little, before general vaccination, and it was pretty far from fun. My youngest sibling is 12 years younger than me, and he got vaccinated against most of the childhood diseases. I was very jealous of him even then, to never have to live through all the grueling diseases that I had had. (Sure, I was vaccinated against some, like polio, and didn't have to live through that, as my grandmother had to do.)

It's true that autism doesn't kill children, but measles does.
Only producers of tiny coffins profit from anti-vaxxing, as my favorite podcast often says.

old comment by Anon-e-moose

According to medical science, it is utterly impossible to suffer Bell's Palsy more than once. The chances of anyone doing so - because of proven medical fact - are so astronomical that anyone has a higher chance of being struck by lightning twice in their lives.

LBC Radio presenter Nick Abbot has experienced that form of facial paralysis twice: thus making him medically unique

There are more people in the world who are immune to HIV.*

There have been people who have become HIV+ by tripping over, falling into bushes or thick grass/undergrowth, experienced a painful stinging sensation on their arm or leg, and discovering a used syringe that had been carelessly discarded now sticking out of said limb.

Remember about Nick Abbot: and the old wives' tale 'It's impossible to be struck by lightning twice': which may have some mathematical credibility behind such? Well, say hello to Roy Sullivan: a park ranger who - between 1942 & 1977 - was struck by lightning [I]seven[/I] times. He alone destroys Chaos Theory mathematics.

Careful how you go, OP. Probability - the twin sister of Fortune - can be such a sadistic bitch like that. [/Ignatius J. Reilly]

Moral: If vaccines are such a bad thing, why - after having so many in my youth - am I still here, then?

Seems those vaccines are the iddqd which mean I more-than win The Game.

There is no 'noclip' for Reality. Like I say: Careful how you go, OP.

*- (from Wiki link):

While antiretroviral therapy (ART) has slowed the progression of HIV among patients, gene therapy through stem cell research has progressed scientific resistance to HIV. One method of genetic modification is through the manipulation of hematopoietic stem cells, which replaces HIV genes with engineered particles that attach to chromosomes

...so what are your thoughts on the above: considering how so many of you tinfoil (ass)hatted antivaxxers are anti-genetic modification as well...?!

old comment by Kadorhal

Meanwhile they smugly insist that it doesn't even matter if vaccines cause autism because "autism doesn't kill children", when if they could be bothered to do some basic fact-checking they'd find that autism makes you 40 times more likely to get lethal injuries in childhood.

If you want to be taken seriously on this subject you're going to have to drop that tendency to deny actual facts when they don't suit your narrative. If we don't get to assume non-vaccinated children are more likely to catch fatal but easily-preventable diseases because you've decided that possibility is far better than the alternative of you possibly having to deal with an autistic child, you don't get to work off the assumption that vaccines cause autism in the first place when it's been debunked multiple times.

Oh, wait, that assumption is the only fucking reason you dipshits are anti-vaxxers, isn't it?

old comment by K'Zad Bhat

On top of everything else, the quote of for every death 500 only get a fever and runny nose . . . well, one, his specifically stated disease of measles is significantly worse. And two, the only reason that it is now 1 in 500 deaths, which is probably lowballing, is because of vaccinations. If you get the vaccine, you can still get the disease. But it's severity is almost always significantly reduced because your immune system is already at least partially prepared.

The ratio of deaths to survivors was quite a bit higher for measles before vaccinations were widely available against it. Other diseases were worse, particularly smallpox and polio. All of this because a person's first exposure to attempt to prepare for each disease almost always came from the infection itself, and by the time most people's immune systems could get into action against it they were already dead. One noted exception was in the case of smallpox. Those who worked with dairy cows almost never got it, because cowpox was similar enough that our immune system treats both exactly the same, while cowpox is significantly less symptomatic and deadly in humans. So they became infected with cowpox, had a few marks and minor fevers if that, got over . . . and were basically just a hair's width away from being totally immune to smallpox. Thus began the journey to the development of the first vaccine that would save millions of lives, and faces. This is also the origin of the phrase "pretty as a milkmaid", as milkmaids almost never had the pockmarked skin that signalled a smallpox survivor.