If you ever want to have your faith in humanity destroyed, join an anti-vaxxer group on Facebook.
A few years ago, I joined a handful of groups just to see what kinds of conversations were happening and to try to understand their logic. Spoiler alert: there is no logic to be found.
Thanks to known fraud Andrew Wakefield, we’re currently dealing with a Measles outbreak in the state of Washington. Measles. The easily preventable disease that we declared eliminated in 2000.
This is the dumbest first world problem.
Vaccines work. Get the shirt, only available in our store!
We’ve had this discussion over and over and over again. To the point that nurses are going viral (pun intended) trying to spread the message that vaccines are safe.
For reasons that I’m sure you can guess, I’m banned from just about every large-ish anti-vaxxer group on Facebook. It’s hard to keep your mouth shut when you see so much stupid being spewed.
If you can get beyond the fact that these are high school graduates who spent a few hours on the Google machine who think they know more than doctors, sometimes it’s a bit amusing.
Like this post, for instance. A mom posed a question regarding the recent Measles outbreak in the group “Natural Health Anti-Vaxx Community” (which sounds like a Leper colony with extra steps). She asks if there are any precautions she can take for her three year old child who is, of course, not vaccinated. I posted it to the aSE page to try to solicit some helpful advice for this misinformed mom.
Face, meet palm.
I had a pretty straightforward suggestion that I really hope someone tries out because it makes about as much sense as any of the other crap anti-vaxxers spew out:
I don’t see the problem there.
But others were kind enough to help out with their own advice. Here are some of my favorites from my post, and some others I found elsewhere:
You can substitute “Never Gonna Give You Up” as needed, for variety.
Exactly. Big Pharma doesn’t make cures, they make customers. Which is precisely what your homeopath tells you every month when you buy your supplements.
Thoughts and prayers man TO THE RESCUE!
Spicy.
#RIP in peace
You don’t need to vaccinate all your kids, just the ones you want to keep.
YES! Ask Dr. Facebook!
Emotional isolation is key to a speedy recovery here.
But these were the most sound pieces of advice: