Items

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  2022-01-29

  Save our Children Tour?

  The anti-vaxxers are out in full force. Disguising themselves as Patriots dedicated to personal freedoms and, for some reason, the saviors of children? This Save Our Children tour harkens back to Anita Bryant’s homophobic “Save Our Children” movement in the 1970s but it’s unclear if they’re the same thing? No about page on their website. I find this disturbing that not only are people hesitant to get vaccinated, some groups are mobilizing to spread misinformation and disinformation about the vaccines as well. This comes in the tail of Neil Young’s ultimatum he delivered to Spotify about their hosting of Joe Rogan’s podcast. Neil Young and now Joni Mitchell have demanded that Spotify drop their music if they keep hosting Joe Rogan. Spotify’s stocks are way down since they chose Joe Rogan over Neil Young.
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  2021-11-13

  Anti-Vaxxers in the Family

  I have a minimum of 2 resolute anti-vaxxers in my extended family. We try to avoid conflict but sometimes their ignorance is just too much for me to bear and I feel like I have to set the record straight. Here's a summary of what's going on in these screenshots from a FB post. 1. Great aunt posts a meme using the experience of the Polio vaccine to promote the COVID vaccine. (meme included) 2. Anti-vax aunt (orange) posts snarkily that in the case of the polio vaccine, it was only rolled out after 60 years of research. 3. I step in (as a historian of public health) and comment that she's mistaken, the polio vaccine went from lab to roll out in 25 years. While mRNA (on which the COVID vax is based) was first discovered in a lab 35 years ago so it stands to reason that the amount of time between lab and roll out is similar. 4. Meanwhile... anti-vax second cousin (purple- daughter of great aunt who made the original post and also resolutely anti-vax) tags anti-vax aunt (orange) and says "amen." as in... she lends her support 5. Anti-vax aunt (orange) responds to my initial rebuff in #3 and says "wrong. it took 35 years to discover it was a virus" (as if that, added to the 25 years of development constitutes 60 years of "research" 6. I step back in and repeat... polio vaccine research began in 1930, and it rolled out in the US in 1954. Surely she doesn't want to go back to the "good old days" when it took 30 years to discover whether something was a virus, really...?? 7. I was wrong. Anti-vax aunt (orangs) DOES want that. She says, "Yes, really" 8. pro-vax cousin (light blue-an oncology NP) comments "Wow. That's sad to think about" 9. Anti-vax aunt (orange): ? 10. pro-vax cousin (light blue): is we were not able to identify viruses like we can today. It's sad to think about all of the people that would die unnecessarily. This exchange went on but I just don't have it in me to continue with screenshots. Great aunt (original poster) chimes in and says she doesn't care what people's beliefs are but both of her daughters (one of them the anti-vaxxer in purple) families have COVID right now and she's in her 70s and was exposed to both and never caught it. She firmly believes it's because the vaccine works. Anti-vax aunt claimed she "didn't post a belief, she posted a fact" I said "no. you posted an incorrect fact that was skewed to make it look like the polio vaccine underwent 35 more years of research than it actually did and I corrected you." It's amazing to me that technology that has been in development for 35 years (mRNA) is seen with such suspicion because the virus it's being used with COVID-19 is new. So the assumption is that the vaccine is "untested" even though the technology behind it has a robust research history. I'm even more amazed by people who are anti-covid vaccine even though they had their full slew of childhood vaccines on schedule. I have two very close family members who refused to get vaccinated (different family members than the two distant family featured above) and they had all of their childhood vaccines. One of them even told me she fully expected that everyone who was vaccinated with the COVID vaccine will die in a few years or even "sprout dicks" for all she knows.... yes... It's imperative that we, as a society, figure out how to address misinformation and disinformation. Certainly, facts/statistics/"Research" are open to interpretation to a degree but much anti-vax info out there is politically motivated. It's not coming from scientists who spend their whole lives studying this stuff.... it's coming from PACs and anti-establishment groups who have beef with the US government and/or "Big Pharma" or Western medicine.
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  2021-09-22

  Breitbart says the Left is Trying to Kill Conservatives En Masse with Reverse Psychology

  I just can’t. I shit you not….. right wing nutters are now claiming that the organized left is doing everything they can to make sure the right does not get vaccinated… things such as vaccine Mandates…….. VACCINE MANDATES. He says the Biden Admin has instituted mandates in order to ensure that the right DOES NOT GET THEM. I’m so sick of the victim mentality exhibited by the far right. It’s so dangerous and the misinformation and disinformation being circulated on social media and right wing “news” is genuinely terrifying to me. I have family members who have refused to get vaccinated and I have begged them, BEGGED them to get vaccinated. So much that they refuse to talk to me about it. It’s lunacy to me that my efforts could be construed as “reverse psychology” to ensure their deaths.
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  2021-09-14

  Rampant misinformation and disinformation continues

  This is a screenshot from a group several friends are in. The group is holistic-minded which, in itself, is not anti-science but folks who are into holistic medicine seem to be particularly vulnerable to the misinformation and disinformation out there. This screenshot shows one person asking the OP if they’ve tested their child for COVID. The OP answers that they’ve swabbed their child several times. A third person warns the OP that sterile swabs contain ethylene oxide and so they cause cancer. Reuters did some myth-busting regarding this claim. (Link included). It’s so disheartening to see this rampant disinformation and misinformation, especially in communities I formerly felt a part of.
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  2020-10-20

  Health officials warn Canadians against believing COVID-19 'internment camps' disinformation

  Conspiracy theorists in Canada believe that the Federal government is planning on creating internment camps and forcing people into them. This is likely due to the government push for funding of federal quarantine sites offered to homeless and other individuals on a voluntary basis.