Have you heard of these “AntiVax” assholes yet? They’re the idiots who refuse to allow their children to be vaccinated out of the mistaken belief that vaccines are harmful or might cause autism or some shit. They deny their children the benefits of the greatest inventions in human history because they think that maybe one time some celebrity’s kid got autism from a vaccine. Which didn’t happen, by the way. What’s more silly is that these people will intentionally infect their own children with diseases like chickenpox trying to confer “natural immunity” to them. In other words, rather than taking their child to the doctor for a simple shot, they’d rather their child actually got chickenpox and suffered for awhile instead! I grew up before the chickenpox vaccine was invented so I remember having chickenpox. It was goddamn awful. Two weeks of being itchy and miserable was something I would happily have taken a shot to avoid, given the chance.
Since it’s becoming harder and harder to find people with chickenpox in any given area in order to have a pox party, idiot parents have taken to mailing each other infected items instead. No, really! Actual adult humans who presumably live in first world countries and have had the benefit of some kind of education beyond learning about the birds and the bees behind the barn actually do this. Remember when that dude was mailing anthrax to senators and journalists? This is exactly the same as that, except the recipient requested the diseased parcel!
Sure, chickenpox usually has no lasting effects, but really, why would you subject your child to any disease which is easily prevented? The answer, of course, is that you’re a fucking moron who thinks vaccines cause autism. Well, let me tell you from personal experience that I’ve had the MMR vaccine like four or five times (most people get it twice) and I’m only slightly autistic! One time my own sister injected me with the damn thing because it was easier than looking up my vaccination records in this old fashioned database known as a ‘filing cabinet.’
OK, so I’m just one person, and the plural of anecdote is not data. I get it. But if you wont listen to me, maybe you’ll listen to a couple of magicians:
Yeah, they’re a couple of foul mouthed crazy libertarians who think people should be able to choose not to vaccinate their children if they want. But they still make a pretty persuasive argument that you should still do it.
And if you can’t believe magicians, who can you believe? Doctors? Pshh. Whatevs.
This is why measles is currently rampant in parts of NZ – because of stupid moron idiot hairy greenie hippies who rely on everyone else immunising so their own precious little flower children aren’t at risk from the evil vaccinations.