Boy, this story pisses me off:
So this beautiful, healthy baby dies overnight. The cause isn’t mysterious: She was co-sleeping with her mom, who woke up to find that she had rolled over and suffocated in the crack. The medical records are clear, and mom even blurted it out when she called 911.
But anti-vaxxers targeted her on social media, and now she is convinced her baby was killed by vaccinations. They are using her as a literal poster child.
Whoops
Sounds like the mom is too shattered to face reality. Very sad.
Sounds like the mom is too shattered to face reality. Very sad.Exactly. And if you read details, the mom had one drink -- a scotch and soda -- a couple of hours before going to bed. She was not intoxicated, and the drink was not considered to have contributed. However, she had enough guilt about it to have offered the information. Once approached by the anti-vaxxers, she had an excellent refuge from the guilt.
The worst part is this little girl is “famous.” She is on billboards and magazine ads. There is a fancy website about her. And the mom does public speaking. It’s horrible to think of how many people she is influencing out of her own cognitive dissonance and guilt.
We’re in the new dark-ages. Disinformation is spreading faster than information and people are suffering because of it.
Although not all anti-vaxxers are religious nuts, a huge percentage are. And the laws in the US regarding medical exemptions for religious reasons is extremely loose. Parents rarely serve time.
PS I realize it happens in Canada and the UK as well. But I have read it is an even bigger problem in the US.
These conspiracy nuts know no bounds and no decency. Many of them seem to have serious mental issues. They see a dead kid and instead of a tear in their eye you often see glee at how this “proves” their conspiracy theory. They literally don’t seem to have a filter in their heads to tell them what is and is not appropriate behavior. I read an article just yesterday or the day before about mysterious cow mutilations where some guy called the tip line to tell the officers that they needed to look for depressions in the ground under the corpses because the aliens would take them up to the ship, do their thing and then drop them from a great height. The depressions were made when they impacted the ground. Just no filter in this guy’s head to tell him, “Hey, you have no proof of this, it’s just something you think. And this is not going to help the investigation. Like, at all. They’re just going to think that you’re as nutty as a…whatever you are. So maybe don’t call with this stupid ‘tip’”.
The other issue is the anti-vaxxers don’t like talking about is public health. It’s all fine and good to want to protect your own children, but just imagine for a second that a highly contagious, potentially deadly disease that’s been all but eradicated starts to spread again because some dumb parents refused to get their kids vaccinated?
Even if (big if) some kids die because of vaccines, it’s nothing compared to the lives that were saved by the actual vaccines in the first place.
These people act like they’re trying to save the world, but it’s really just selfish behavior.
All conspiracy theories are selfish behavior. Those who engage in conspiracy theories have complete disregard for public health and safety and/or the feelings of people mourning the losses of loved ones. 9/11 conspiracies were a slap in the face to those who died. Sandy Hook conspiracy theories were even worse on that front. The family of Seth Rich still suffers from a subset of the Clinton Body Count conspiracy theory. Anti-vaxxers are endangering children AND causing pain to bereaved parents. Pizzagate is hurting a small business even now and it’s a miracle it didn’t get anyone killed in the shooting. It’s all selfish, self indulgent behavior with no regard for the real world consequences of a little trip to fantasy land. In my opinion there is nothing more selfish than letting people suffer and die just so you have something juicy to talk about in pretend play time.
And you made me think Tee was back. I opened this thread, saw Tee’s avatar and peed a little.