imagine watching a small child struggle to breathe because of a measles infection and then going on your radio show to explain that the “human body was designed to fight measles” with the clear implication that if you die your body just wasn’t good enough.
These people need to visit old cemeteries and see all the tiny headstones.
I have an old family Bible with births and deaths recorded for most of the 19th century, and the number of deaths that come within five years of the birth is just... staggering.
I write family histories and one death certificate from about 1905 stayed with me: age 3, sick for 2 weeks, then 10 hours of convulsions, then death. Whooping cough. Now there's a vaccine. Who is OK with a 3-year-old kid enduring 10 hours of convulsions before dying?
My parents are buried in a graveyard from the 1700s*. Way too many children under 5, groups of kids all dying at once, sometimes with the parents. Trump's industrial buddies are also getting rid of clean water rules. * So is a college friend who was murdered hitchhiking home from her music lesson.
Any cemetery old enough has plenty of gravestones like that.
And they’d say those babies dying was god’s will.
This is almost exactly the opposite of reality, because measles (possibly uniquely?) can just nuke your immune system so you're not only not "designed" to fight it, if you get it and live you won't be able to fight anything else either
right? no one is ‘designed’ to fight measles. virii are equipped to invade and conquer and many (but not all!) bodies are equipped to keep that from happening and at any given time we don’t know which one will win
It's all just nature!
Do they not know about diseases in TREES? What do they think about crop failures from fungi or things like this? The crops weren’t special enough?
They don’t. They’re morons.
Even if they did, they view humans as magic beings who exist outside of nature so it's still a moral failing to get sick and die.
People like myself with chronic illness are so tired of this bullshit. If I let my body be in charge instead of modern medicine I would be dead at least 6 times and would never have graduated high school.
And that doesn’t even consider that most “healthy” people without chronic illness have taken antibiotics for things like strep, ear infections, tonsillitis and other bacterial infections that when left untreated can have serious and even fatal complications.
My beloved niece died at the age of 57 due to complications from childhood diabetes. She was able to live that long due to science and modern medicine.👍🙏
My sister also died at 57 from complications of type 1 diabetes. I’m still heartbroken, but she would have died in her 20’s if it weren’t for the miracle of insulin.
Yes. Imagine all the wonderful moments we would have missed if not for science.❤️
Me too and having chronic illnesses means we have to fight every day to stay alive and people are so flipping about this and I feel like we're expendable because we have problems
Your body was designed to fight cancer so if your mom does from it she just sucked.
mmmm... it always makes me wonder at the way eugenics is never applied to bacteria and viruses in the sense that "the measles virus was designed to kill you and infect your loved ones"
where i live the naturalistic fallacy is very strong. holistic cures can’t fail, they can only *be* failed. if it didn’t work you didn’t do it right or believe hard enough. admitting they don’t know everything and are wrong is harder for some people to accept than the suffering and deaths of kids.
DEI DANGEROUS EGOTISTICAL IDIOTS.
Humans are part of nature. We don't call bird nests artificial because birds build them, even though you don't see bird nests that aren't built by birds. Why do we call anything humans do unnatural?
It’s horrific
If you die that's God's will and medical care is blasphemy. In Christian Science you can pray to God to save you, or even better you can hire a professional Christian Science Practitioner to pray for you.
the most infectious disease we have with a devastating secondary effect i am opposed to the death penalty except for these people
👊🏻
Until I was a parent, I struggled to understand how a parent could watch a child suffer without feeling anything. Now that I’m a parent, I don’t struggle with it, because there’s nothing about these people I care to understand.
The dark secret of parenting is that no one knows what the hell they're doing, and the people who refuse to accept that they have to figure things out for themselves are extremely easy to grift
Thinking about this because I'm currently listening to the Behind the Bastards episodes about those teen boot camps in the 90s where people paid ponytailed army cosplayers to kidnap their kids and starve them in the Utah desert and kept doing it even after a bunch of kids died
And fucking Dr. Phil afaik continues to endorse this and pretend it's therapeutic rather than sadistic. I know I saw some show of his a few years ago that featured this shit; it wasn't more than ten years ago.
Dr Phil is a huge piece of shit. I can’t stand him.
I'm embarrassed to admit that at one point I liked him. (I hasten to add that that point was 15-20 years ago -- I did catch on eventually.) I will still sometimes hate-watch him.
Digging the shit out of this thread
Haha😸🫶🏻
My mom depended on Dr Spock's book, not for the "how to raise well-adjusted kids" parts, but for the "does this rash/symptom need a doctor visit, the ER, or an OTC ointment?" parts. Dr's office had an isolation entrance for sick kids who shouldn't use the regular waiting room. Got all our shots.
Dr. Spock's book is still the best one because he tells parents to trust their instincts and not worry too much. Anyone who says they have all the answers is selling you something.
this literally triggered a memory of my mother checking 8yo me's rash against the pictures in that book and calling the family doctor the next day (he made a home visit!)—it was Rubella
Yay, dodged Rubella. Got measles, but was only 5 and my books with pictures in them were a bit simpler. Now have shiny new MMR since RFKjr's getting the banned back together.
This was pre-MMR but separate shots existed and I did have them all but didn't grow up in a herd immunity area. Had my MMR in 2017 during a local measles outbreak, yay! You were only 5? That's so sad! Did it leave you any lasting issues?
No way to tell. My hearing's never been great, but that could be just me. I remember Grandma taking care of my younger sister and me, parents getting out of town (don't remember if my younger brother was born yet or not.) The first measles shot wasn't out for a few more years. Got polio vax, etc.
that's so striking you say that, IIRC I had at least one childhood friend who lost hearing in one ear due to measles, and in adulthood I met several fellow GenXers with no hearing in one ear due to childhood measles
Said it specifically because hearing loss and blindness are classic symptoms of a bad case of measles, and a more common thing is losing immunities you had from previous disease exposure or vaccines. No idea if I got any shots redone after it, except the polio sugar cube was later. And a Sugar Cube.
100% I used to tell the wellness grifters that I thought they were doing child abuse Now I'm a parent myself and I *know* they are doing child abuse
It’s undeniably child endangerment and neglect for one’s own fanatical belief system. The children may be harmed for life if they don’t die.
Not to judge either of yall, but I am a 40 year Not-Parent, and even 20 years ago I knew these kooks were dangerous evil people
Exactly. You don’t need to experience something to know its wrong or bad
I’m older than you, I knew it 50 years ago. They’re so gullible and make themselves easy targets for grifters. Like trump supporters, anti-vax movement pulls in saps and suckers. Every time.
Parents who do feel something are often coached to resist those feelings as a spiritual or moral weakness.
Or you didn’t pray hard enough
Or "It was her time on Earth” and “she’s in a better place now.” Cognitive dissonance is a helluva drug
“The body’s designed to kill measles. I would encourage you to seek a higher authority, a spiritual authority, and let peace guide you,” he said. “Don’t be scared of anything,” he said, when the total number of reported measles cases rose above 1,000." They should have been scared of him.
I have an autoimmune disease, at one point it took out my spleen. After, I had to be revaccinated for EVERYTHING because of people like that and the people that believe people like this. I learned again during Covid how little my life is actually worth. I exist in spite of & to spite those fuckers.
Tax Church Thieves Heritageless $29 Trillion withheld over 40 years. Thank Reagan Dixiecrats CCP Voters FROM Out Actual Taxpayers' Federal Deposits/Trust Funds to Our Treasury Vouchers School Choice from Public School State & Counties Taxes CCP Plan2025 Using Public Money 2 Overthrow Democracy?
Welp, this is backward thinking. These people should be put in the way back machine and dropped in the 1400’s where they could get a nice hot batch of the bubonic plague and be dead by the age of 20. Believe RFK Jr. I mean his kids are all vaccinated so he doesn’t give a shit.
He doesn’t care about anyone that gets the measles I would love for him to sit in a room full of infected people and not get healthcare for oh three weeks. Then he can tell the world not to vaccinate. The guy even as an addict had the best health. So he can STFU.
The main way the human body fights measles is with the immune system. That's why we vaccinate. So your immune system knows about measles before you get it.
The north TX doctor, an MD for quite a few years, who suddenly had a divine experience, decided that traditional medicine was bad…he cranked out cod liver oil as the primary treatment for measles - needs to have his license revoked and for the people he treated who unnecessarily suffered - sue him.
This is horrific. The degree of fanaticism and indifference to completely preventible suffering is impossible to comprehend. I guess this is another cult-like phenomenon. Has this happened before in history? It is confusing.
They view all health issues as morality tests. This why they hate vaccines. Oh, if we just give everyone a shot they don’t get sick regardless of their life choices? I guess it isn’t a moral issue. Can’t have that.
All it took was for the last pre-vaccine generation to have experienced the loss of babies to infectious diseases to pass on. Back when every family grieved the death or disabling of a child, and graveyards had children’s sections. They knew the lifetime of disability suffered by many #vaccinate
Personally, I think medical technology and scientific advancement are cooler than social Darwinism
i said WTF out loud repeatedly while reading
Depraved.
It was also designed to fend off cold temperatures, but some soft cocks wear clothing. Looking at you Kennedy.
I had a hard time describing my experience reading this. And that as this happened they continued to deny the validity of that livesaving shot. More than anything Trump should be impeached based on this. The deaths of innocent children he has caused based on lies he has shared and continued.
And then become offended when their intelligence is called into question.
Stupid is as stupid does.
It's eugenics, but a really dumb version of eugenics where they're not even trying to select anything specific.
I could be wrong but isn’t measles one of the diseases non-afroeurasians are *way* more susceptible to dying from?
Soft eugenics. Let disease spread and let God sort out the bad ones. Survival of the fittest because they assume that they are the fittest & will survive because that is God’s plan.
Obviously, those ones were insufficiently pure for whatever reason
and they will continue to believe that right up to the moment their heart gives out from their ninth COVID infection, and then their spouse will also continue to believe that and will be coughing without a mask at the wake
Indeed
Except those whose parents did not vaccinate likely ended up with a stupid gene to start with. So already weak. And if they survive measles will have brain damage and an even lower IQ than their stupid parents. Unvaccinated kids should not be allowed in school it’s a risk to others.
I always want to ask people if those who are weaker deserve to die? But, I can’t. It was the same during Covid.
The human body was also designed to fight wounds from a bear attack, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to avoid getting attacked by a bear.
I had a breakthrough case of measles when I was 16. Hard to convey how awful it was. For example, those dots itch. Excruciatingly. All night long. We know what causes measles. We have a method that is hundreds of years old that mostly prevents the disease. Anti-vaxers deserve to be beaten up.
Could it be considered neglectful to not vaccinate your children?
Hmmm, I like the question. I'm inclined that way. Seems like it should be a public debate.
I would love to sell the antivaxxer real estate in like say the Antarctic. I mean I could make up a slick brochure with glossy fake photos and make the plots affordable and a great place to raise children. I would hire some enthusiastic staff,& every person who sells a home
could keep the down payment. I’m not greedy. I mean if these people are ignorant enough to not get their most loved people in the world vaccinated, it shouldn’t be that difficult to get them to give their money up for “prime real estate “ in the Antarctic. Just spitballing here.
There have been plagues that wiped out 90% of the population. I think this happened in Iceland…not sure the percentage. Not many people were left. It’s possible if these antivaxxers were isolated to wallow in plagues, they would not survive as a group.
Maybe that’s RFK Jr’s. goal, to cull naive herd. It is still a shame that children suffer at the beliefs of adults. Why is it considered abusive to starve children or not educate and clothe them, but to not to give vaccines or dental care is parental choice? Asking for children who have no voice.
There’s no such thing as ‘culling.’ But that metaphor is especially inapt because you only do this to animals to prevent disease spread when there is not other way. And the right wing will let the parents do anything to children, including starve and deprive them of education.
Thank you again. I just read the definition of culling. No where does it say to to kill. It say to separate according to desirable or undesirable traits. That’s all and it doesn’t say apply to animals it mentions groups. So thank you again for making me accountable.
Thanks agin. Nice learning from you. Have a nice afternoon! I’m going to hang sheets on a clothesline & make salad all while my Black Lab stalks me.
I should have said ‘there’s no such thing as culling people’ —maybe they think they’re ‘culling people’ but this is not something that make sense. If can involve killing animals in a herd, and that is the meaning I thought you implied as they are killing people. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culling
Thanks for the educating me. Inept was hard to read but good to know. When you know better you do better -Maya Angelou.
I was too blunt and inelegant! I meant—you cannot ‘cull’ a person…when they cull an animal it is to SAVE the other animals from a disease if there is not other way to save them. Because farmers believe in germs! But he IS a eugenicist. We can’t REALLY understand how they think. They are fanatical!
Don’t get all trumpy now
Believe me, I could never align myself with Two week Taco Man.
Yep, they've gone 𝘴𝘰 far down the rabbit hole of denial that their whole philosophy has been whittled down to just four words... Only the strong survive! 😒
It's modern eugenics with a dash of flimflammery.
Agreed.
The brain of homo sapiens sapiens was designed to think. Yet here we are with the so-called "conservatives" taking us back to the good old days of homo erectus.
Meaning no offense please, keep your erectus. We have enough on our hands with this #IgnoranusFotusCockalorum! The last thing we need right now is for some swinging d*ck to come around further adding to the already pandemic levels of LPS (little penis syndrome).
🤣
Sorry that should be "has a design that makes thinking possible" but that sounds rather clumsy.
The human body evolved to do a lot of things, including fighting other human beings, or running away. So I guess this asshole saw a chainsaw-wielding maniac charging toward his kid, he'd just be like "you got this, kid, you'll be fine"
Throw the kid into the chainsaw, it's what his body is designed for
Probably already sells a supplement that helps against chainsaw maniacs.
my company sells child-sized chainsaws that uses smaller, replaceable razorblades so children can develop a natural resistance
Over 1300 active cases now. They all can thank Kennedy for that. He must be so proud.
That article was infuriating. The dying children utterly failed by people who should know better broke my heart. Would it breach journalistic ethics to have asked the antivaxer parents whose 4 kids ended up in the hospital if they regretted not getting them vaccinated?
I was infuriated that the article gave some credence to that quack doctor and RFK jr’s “cures”. I’m all for improving health. By all means, strengthen your immune system. But ignoring science and not vaccinating your kids is child abuse. And promoting fake cures should be illegal.
Yes, they make them sound heroic while battling an illness they gave to their own children who end up in the hospital, to other children, all a completely preventible disease that will end someone’s life eventually and possibly disable others.
Sometimes I feel like I’m living in crazy town
You are
They have to show all sides, donchaknow
Major fail on that point
Evolved maybe. But being built to fight doesn’t mean you’re going to win. Better to increase your chances by adding some scientific armor.
Reading your posts here causes me to wonder what these purity parents *really* think after the worst happens.
And the “I feel like I’ve been lied to” said by the chiropractor/fake MD isn’t about him reconsidering vaccines, it’s about measles making him sick. After reading this, there was nothing in this article suggesting that he reversed his anti-vax commitment.
What gets me is that vaccination is convenient and usually without bad side effects. You might be tired for a day or two, and your arm might be sore, but so what. If you’re whining about your sore arm, imagine the whining when you’re hospitalized.
Reminder. COVID has an infectiousness rate of R3.3, meaning each patient is likely to infect 3.3 others. Measles is R18.
This is just the secular version of snake handling.
We don't call this man a eugenist enough
Back to the medieval concept that all disease and misfortune is God's punishment, meaning that the prosperity gospel stops being eye-of-the-needle offense and becomes the expected word of God. You're sick because you're bad, etc... We should be taxing these idiots.
Trumpists read the Grok "analysis" of the Cliff's Notes of Dickens novels and think the bad guys sound pretty cool.
Wait, what? Trumpists read?
You know, I know disinformation is everywhere, and people are not always that smart, but the irresponsibility of these parents still pisses me off. The data is easy to find, and your child’s life depends on you caring enough to figure it out.
I honestly think parents like that should be charged with murder.
I don't have to imagine this. We've been told the exact same thing about COVID for five years, even while millions died across the world and the number of long covid-disabled continues to increase. Meanwhile, vaccines are ancient and increasingly unavailable and nobody will wear a mask.
Cod liver oil my ass. This makes me furious
So angry. When I was very young I saw a TV show where the parents of an injured child wouldn’t allow treatment for religious reasons. I was horrified and it infuriates me
That was also an episode of Babylon 5, "Believers."
Oh, it was The Defenders in the early 1960s. I’m still mad more than 60 years later. I was probably too young to see it, but it made a strong impression.
Yeah, the anti-vaxx types—both left and right—are really just closet eugenicists.
Darwinism on display
The antivaxers and their symps make me livid. I remember losing friends over MMR hesitancy when my kid was young over a decade ago, and I’m glad I kicked them out of my life so their kids wouldn’t infect mine
Smart choice
The whole premise of science is that a hypothesis is tested. The focus is on "falsifiability" - showing that a theory is false and can be discarded. So, we know the MMR vaccine is effective and safe. A small proportion of idiotic quacks who look at the clear evidence and deny it (cont)
always exist, but they are a clear minority and the general consensus is solidly against the quackery. Why? Because scientific testing confirms it is a lie. So, the standard of care among competent professionals is for vaccination against measles.
Malpractice in law is defined as someone deviating from the accepted standard in the profession in which you practice. Each quack in question should be sued for malpractice. And, each suit where a person died should be a wrongful death suit.
I'm not thrilled to live in a world where I think, "all of this science and these riches are an avenue to reduce/prevent suffering for humanity" and find out that I'm not in the majority for believing this.
We are the majority though. Especially globally we are.
Agree there are needs for drugs and vaccines for a safer World. Horror in distribution channels of Big Pharma & Corp Farmers has added too many layers with too many $USD kickbacks for medical industries non-producers. Church & State has scattered self-healer power with Indoctrination Dogma(nure).
IMAGINE WHEN IT WAS YOUR OWN CHILD?!?!?!?!?!
there was a terrible measles outbreak (almost 500 kids) in a fundamentalist community in British Columbia about 10 years ago. no deaths, thank goodness, but several lifelong disabilities, including hearing loss, resulting from encephalitis. it's so cruel.
Did the community learn anything after that? Or are they still not vaccinating. ?
you know, I don't know. They were in a rural area, very tight-knit, and not majority English-speaking (Dutch reform). But many of those kids are adults now, and some will have deconstructed.
there was a public health outreach worker at the time who had been raised as part of the community and was working really hard to liaise with them. I would be interested to know how things went during covid, because in-person gatherings are a huge thing in that kind of community.
It wouldn't surprise me if they didn't learn anything. Those communities tend to be pretty insular.
Then there will be the suffering to families when @FEMA is dismantled. #MAGA cult of socioecopath don’t care about people or the env or the criminals committing ecocide. @stopecocide.bsky.social
Or worse, watching a child suddenly die from meningitis caused by measles, which happens sometimes
Wanna know something else fucked-up about measles? It can affect your immune system, erasing immunities you'd previously developed. A lot of (healthy) people can survive measles, but it CAN leave you worse off than before in many ways. Get vaxed.
They mention this in the story. The children are now at risk for who knows how long.
And then there’s the SSPE time bomb it leaves in 1 in 5000 people (and potentially as many as 1 in 610 unvaccinated infants).
Ouch. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subacut...
A very special place in Hell
The goal is to deligitmize scientific healthcare as a whole so A. voters stop demanding the government provide any and B. so the snake oil industry can rake in the profits
Yeah, you wonder who profited from the 1200 lbs. of castor oil or whatever it was they were doling out for this preventible plague they were spreading. All these predators out there making money while the children struggle to breathe in the hospital. It’s truly disgusting.
I do not understand how Eli Saslow can write with the urgency and reverence of a medical drama about parents racing to do absolutely everything to save their children other than vaccination, while showing no remorse for harming their children nor the others who will be infected down the line. Awful.
disease is a fact of natural life on this planet and even a healthy person with a badass immune system that would be played by Predator-era Arnie in a movie about its life can just have a bad fucking break with a viral load and fucking die. it's not a morality tale, it's just life.
The morality tale is about people with influence and power persuading people with far less power to act against their own interests. Today it is the policy of our federal government to lie to people about the effectiveness of vaccines in reducimg the likelihood of disease, pain and sometimes death.
You forget or willfully ignore the fact that many diseases have evolved to kill. So don’t post such ignorant pap when we have developed the means to get out of this cycle
i'm hating on RFK's eugenics nonsense. being sick isn't a judgment on the sick person, it's just something that naturally happens to everyone sometimes because, as you said, these fuckers evolved along with us and are good at being diseases. if they weren't they'd be extinct.
Apologies for my rude tone 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻. This is a nice place here.
this is *eugenics* even according to them.
That will be the time you wouldn’t care about the welfare or safety of the vaccine deniers and have murderous inclinations towards them.
It makes me indescribably angry. It's one thing when it comes to people who are just misinformed and do want to do what's best but fell for the fear mongering over the actual science. It's another thing when it comes to those using it as a power grab and drift. Our kids deserve better.
Smh
It's the logical endpoint for people who idolize hypermasculinity: the idea that you can build yourself up into the "perfect" man (always a man), an impenetrable fortress of muscle and strength. And that anyone unable or unwilling to buy into their image of healthy is simply too weak to survive.
Yup. I’m surprised I was able to read this article through to the end.
Has any outlet done an in-depth investigation of the grift? How much money did he make from the antivax propaganda that he was spreading while he watched his kids and others suffer?
I might have to go outside and scream.
That sounds so much like it was rooted in a Calvinistic Presbyterian view… they believed anything bad that befell you was due to you not being a good enough xtian.
It's called the Just World Fallacy and it's one of the foundational ideologies of American conservativism. Good things only happen to good people. Bad things only happen to Bad People. So if something bad happens to you, it's because you're a Bad Person and therefore you deserved it.
It's why they get so mad when you call them racist, because racists are Bad People, and they're not a Bad Person. How dare you accuse them of being a Bad Person. They're a Good Christian.
“the human body was designed to fight measles” — not yet it wasn’t, but the these idiots are literally doing their best to evolve us there by killing people
Measles and other diseases were killing us for millennia before vaccines. Not once did humans develop immunity to them.
Yes, non-idiots can see that
If that's the case... The human body was designed to fight limp dick, ban all viagra. The human body was designed to fight vision problems, ban all glasses, surgeries, & contacts. The human body was designed to walk everywhere. Ban all forms of transportation. 🤦♀️
It’s backwards. Measles evolved to fight the human body. That’s why after a measles infection it can wipe out existing immunity
Perfectly put
Let the weak ones die. Not the best disease prevention strategy.
My body is “designed” to see well. But I still wear glasses because the design often sucks!
I wear glasses because of measles.😢
Also, FUCK Dr Edwards who, “continu[ed] to see patients even as he suffered a mild breakthrough infection and developed a rash himself.” Measles is one of the world’s most infectious disease - if you’re in a room with 10 unprotected ppl, it will infect 9.
They've been doing it about kids and Covid since 2020.
Moreover if you live, statistically the most likely outcome, it’s proof that you’re ubermensch material.
I'm legit sympathetic to the idea we shouldn't use pharmaceuticals to do things we can do for ourselves, but... a vaccine just works by prompting your body to practice doing the thing under safe circumstances! It's not doing the work for you. It's studying for the test, not cheating on the test.
I never understood why so many sports figures were against vaccines. "Hey, would you like to see the other team's playbook before the game?" Seems like a really easy sell!
Because they don’t understand their great success is mostly due to good luck. Good luck at not being born in a war zone, or in desperate poverty. At being born somewhere the opportunity to be supported while developing their talents exists. They think THEY have controlled everything.
These people are eugenicists. They need people to die to prove their theories. If we all get the same outcome by cheating with vaccines, they cannot sort us appropriately
