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There is not a single ideologically valid defense for being anti-vaccine. It's just anti humanity, anti science, and anti life.
by tracerbulletx 1y ago
There is not a single ideologically valid defense for being anti-vaccine. It's just anti humanity, anti science, and anti life.
- jbritton 1y ago[flagged]
- WD-42 1y agoHow do these people even find HN.
- bdangubic 1y ago[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- JCattheATM 1y agoHN has just become reddit for tech, and as tech became more accessible, the conservation population of tech workers and hobbyists did too. The other part of the answer is compartmentalization, I guess.
- Krssst 1y agoHN is very American, and somewhat half of America is pro-Trump (which often comes with being anti vaccine to some extent though they don't necessarily see it like this), is how I see it. I was quite surprised at first too. Large cities are much more on the Democrat side and developers tend to live in those so the number of Trump supporters is still on the lower end.
- WD-42 1y agoIt’s not about being American, it’s that having a brain so cooked as to believe in total conspiracy theories AND being a HN regular/developer used to be mutually exclusive.
- maxerickson 1y agoJournal refused to publish that finding. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0379073824001968 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037907382... The concerns encompassed. • Inappropriate citation of references. • Inappropriate design of methodology. • Errors, misrepresentation, and lack of factual support for the conclusions. • Failure to recognise and cite disconfirming evidence.
- seattle_spring 1y agoAlso worth noting that "Dr" Pete McCullough had all of his board certifications revoked in 2021 for constantly spreading Covid misinformation. It blows me away that there can be a consensus of hundreds/thousands of researchers on something, and one person (with a history of mis/disinformation) comes along with a counter narrative, and certain people will point at that one person as proof that everyone else is wrong or "on the take."
- triceratops 1y ago> the Covid vaccine didn’t stop infection It worked for me and my family. > in some cases extremely adverse reactions including death A much-more-common "adverse reaction" of Covid itself. > Dr. Peter McCullough just testified that 74 percent of autopsies their group performed that the cause of death was the covid 19 vaccine Which group? I looked him up because I wasn't familiar. He lost his licence for lying about Covid vaccines. I guess if you think the Covid vaccine is dangerous that's just more "evidence" of a cover-up. Anyway of course a guy like that is going to say that. I mean, who knows, maybe 50 years from now all these crackpots will be vindicated. And if I'm alive then, not cut down early by myocarditis or mRNA cancer or whatever, I'll hail them as heroes. For now, based on the available evidence, they are crackpots.
- _9ptr 1y ago[flagged]
- acdha 1y agoIt was called a vaccine because it uses the same mechanism as all vaccines: training your immune system to fight a pathogen rather than directly attacking it. Your argument is as valid as saying Linux “simply” isn’t Unix because it wasn’t based on BSD.
- KiwiJohnno 1y agoGreat analogy!
- SketchySeaBeast 1y ago> They just called it that, but it had none of the properties of a vaccine. Interesting. What are all the properties of a vaccine? And what are "classic" vaccines?
- dekhn 1y agoYou mean this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_A._McCullough https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_A._McCullough who had his medical certifcation revoked for spreading COVID-19 conspiracy theories? The testimony you refer to is from a paper of his that was withdrawn by the editor...
- ethbr1 1y agoThe thing conspiracy theorists don't realize is that supposed expert witnesses to conspiracies have a monetary interest in furthering them. If RFK Jr. or Peter McCullough suddenly say "Oh, we were wrong, vaccines are fine" then how much money and power do they lose? Even if they went home every night convinced they're peddling lies... they'd still do it. It pays. (Especially after you lose your license to practice)
- jbritton 1y ago[flagged]
- kcplate 1y agoWell… I am not antivax but can we please stop pretending like our government and health authorities didn’t royally screw the pooch as it related to the COVID vaccine communications, mandates, etc…? People became more anti-vax largely due to the prior administration more than RFKjr. So there may not be a scientific defense but there damn sure is a backlash because of poor leadership.
- dekhn 1y agoI recommend spending some time as a public health official; it helps understand the logic that PH people apply when they make policy. I also recommend reading a bunch about the history of vaccines and the challenges associated with them.
- kcplate 1y agoNope, they don’t get a pass for being incompetent from me just because a job is difficult. I’ll also never accept a “well their intentions were good” type of argument—-If the results suck, the results suck. Our country moved towards antivax mentality in a big way because of how our government handled that pandemic. That’s unforgivable and I am not someone who will blame the effect instead of the cause.
- sarchertech 1y agoOur country handled the pandemic nearly the same as other developed countries, but none of them have had such an extreme reaction. What happened is that our country is extremely polarized and one side picked vaccines, masks, and lockdowns, so the other side took the opposite stance. Then the vaccine, mask, and lockdown side reacted by leaning farther in (probably a bit too far near the end of things). On the one side you had people yelling about masks causing them to asphyxiate and on the other you had people wearing masks alone in the car.
- amanaplanacanal 1y agoI'm sure I was one of the people wearing the mask alone in the car, but that was only because it was easier to leave it on when I left the house than to continually put it on and take it off when I was out running errands. I guess I never found them that uncomfortable.
- NotGMan 1y ago[flagged]
- owenthejumper 1y agoThat's a dangerous mis-information. You are reporting on deaths from measles (and others), but not cases. Both went down, but cases much less than deaths. Measles also cause other issues than death - weak immune system, blindness, and other conditions not covered in your mis-information chart. Improved access to medication, antibiotics to fight secondary infections, better healthcare overall, have reduced death rates from measles prior to vaccines. Less measles cases is better for EVERYONE. Those vaccinated, those unvaccinated, or those that are vaccinated, but did not get immunity. The amount of measles cases plummets in...1964, the year after the vaccine was introduced
- michtzik 1y agoSuppose you actually had some data to back up your comments, and you made a graph for "blindness caused by measles" over time. Do you have any reason to believe it wouldn't look just like the mortality rate graph linked above?
- thayne 1y agohttps://www.cdc.gov/measles/data-research/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/measles/data-research/index.html Has a plot of cases over time, where you can clearly see the number of cases dropping after the vaccine is developed.
- YZF 1y agoI generally agree with everything you said. The graph is very likely not relevant to the question of how well the vaccines work. https://www.statista.com/statistics/186678/new-cases-of-measles-in-the-us-since-1950/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/186678/new-cases-of-meas... What I found interesting is that cases per capita in 1985-1992 were quite high, anyone happens to know why that is? Also here is maybe a better graph to look at: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/measles-cases-and-death-rate https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/measles-cases-and-death-r... So the vaccine reduced the death rate from 0.2 per 100K to 0.04 per 100K... So x5. Measles and blindness: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14998696/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14998696/ "Measles remains a major problem in developing countries, where it affects an estimated 30 million children a year and causes up to one million deaths annually. Measles blindness is the single leading cause of blindness among children in low income countries, accounting for an estimated 15,000 to 60,000 cases of blindness per year. There is a close synergism between measles and vitamin A deficiency that can result in xerophthalmia, with corneal ulceration, keratomalacia, and subsequent corneal scarring or phthisis bulbi. High-dose oral vitamin A supplementation is recommended for all children with measles in developing countries. Higher measles immunization coverage to interrupt measles transmission and interventions aimed at improving vitamin A nutriture of children are the main strategies to prevent measles blindness." Did the graph claim anything about the benefits of vaccines? While data can be used incorrectly and to support bad ideas I don't think we should call this out as misinformation. At least assuming the data in the graph is true- if it's made up that's a very different story. The correct response is to say the data doesn't support X and here is more data to prove that. Without a data/science based discussion we're just reduced to yelling at each other. We (e.g. the people who support vaccination in general and possible the specific vaccination programs in effect, a bit of nuance there for you) should be open to data that proves us wrong (and this is not this data) and the anti-vaccination crowd should be open to data that proves them wrong. The advance of better healthcare is should be a real factor in public health decisions (e.g. something that might have been the correct decision in the 1950's might be false today). In terms of nuance, I and my entire generation had chickenpox. Now we have a vaccine. But the vaccine doesn't last forever and not everyone renews their vaccinations. The vaccine is something like 90% effective and by some sources lasts for at least 10 to 20 years. I do see some sources claiming "lifetime". I think it should be possible to debate public health policies here given that getting this disease as an adult is a lot more dangerous than getting it as a child. Given the lack of high quality data it's hard for me as a parent to make the right call. Health authorities make public health decisions but often do not go to great lengths to back up their policy with data that's easy to find and access. That part is really not about being anti-science, it's about being pro-science. Science includes adapting your position based on data. As lowly "citizens" we don't get access to good data from governments (this was particularly evident during the pandemic) which makes it hard for us to trust said governments given that we are inherently in a conflict of interest situation with regard to public policies and officials often have other conflict of interests or bias - or they're just not good at their job. Another example is that I'm not sure the data is clear whether teenagers really needed the third Covid booster that was pushed by certain health authorities. The update [EDIT: uptake] for boosters and followup shots was clearly significantly lower than the first two shots and I think the onus is on the government to show us clear data that shows enough benefit to balance any possible risks (with this and any other public health policy). EDIT: also consider those dosages could have been put to better use somewhere else.
- woleium 1y agoUnless you are an American aggressor who can manipulate social media to weaken your enemy from within.
- koonsolo 1y agoThis became very clear to me after the pandemic, visiting Slovakia. Before the pandemic, I heard some weird things from older Slovaks, such as EU has decided that kids must name their parents "parent1" and "parent2", and if they don't they will take your kids away. Absolutely bonkers. Then during the pandemic, all the typical anti-vax rhetoric really took hold there, like crazy. Then after the pandemic, all those anti-vaxers all of a sudden got pro-Russia. Which makes no sense when you think about that, because both have nothing to do with each other. At that point, I realised Russia was doing their campaigns way before covid already, but it got an extra boost thanks to it. And now Slovaks elected prime minister Fico attended the Russian military parade. The ironic part is that these anti-vaxers like to call the rest of us "sheep", but in the end they are the sheep that are lead straight to the slaughter house.
- ActorNightly 1y agoI firmly believe now that if someone has the privilege of feeling so strongly about something that has no real or observable effect on them, but they still chose to act according to that feeling, its because their life is so good that they don't actually have anything real to worry about, and instead, they must create fictional problems in their head to make it seem like they are doing something good.
- npteljes 1y agoSame here in Hungary. EU will also make us eat bugs instead of meat (which we already do with E120....) and they are making the people gay somehow as well. Absolute nonsense, and reeks of foreign interference.
- MathMonkeyMan 1y agoI've read comments like this on hacker news more and more recently. What narrative is behind it, and what is the evidence for this narrative? Is it "Enemies of the USA are deploying social media based psyops that destabilize the country by astroturfing propaganda?" That's an interesting idea, probably true, but also sounds like a conspiracy theory. Even if it is true, how would we know to what extent it affects public opinion? Or maybe you're referring to something else.
- refurb 1y agoHow about the vaccines pulled from the market for safety risks? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK561254/table/T4/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK561254/table/T4/ Are you being anti-humanity and anti-science if you didn’t want to take one of those?
- koonsolo 1y agoFunny how you provide a table where the top one says: SMALLPOX SMALLPOX ERADICATED Yeah, the smallpox vaccine was pulled from the market because it actually worked and eradicated smallpox. We almost got the same for polio, but unfortunately some anti-vax nuts prevented that.
- refurb 1y agoWhy would you ignore the six vaccines pulled for safety reasons? So I ask again - If someone refused to take those vaccines would they be "anti-science"?
- koonsolo 1y agoWith every shot comes risks. You have to calculate the risk vs the benefit. You also have risk when you don't take the vaccination obviously. Long story short: if you are anti-vax, you for sure are anti-science. We know a lot about vaccinations and the risks of taking them and not taking them.
- refurb 1y agoThat's makes no sense at all. You're ignoring the fact that the FDA approved them initially. They said "the risks are worth the benefits". Then years later, after more data was collected, the FDA changed their determination and said "the risks ARE NOT worth the benefits". So I ask you for a third time - "If I refused to take those vaccines for safety reasons when the FDA first approved them, would I be anti-science?" It's seem's like I'd be "pro-science" since I came to the same conclusion the FDA did years later?
- AStonesThrow 1y ago[dead]