I cracked the government-big pharma vaccine conspiracy

[Northern Lurker]

Hi all!

Today I was taking a shower when I got an epiphany. There really is sort of conspiracy driving the vaccinations: both the government and the big pharma want to maximally profit from children.

Vaccinating them ensures they stay healthy and grow up to be good tax payers and stay alive long enough to get diseases like diabetes II, ulcers, hypercholestromia, hypertension, cancer, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Vaccines are cheap, the real profit comes from long treatments to aforementioned diseases.

Lurky

[raven]

Hi all!

Today I was taking a shower when I got an epiphany. There really is sort of conspiracy driving the vaccinations: both the government and the big pharma want to maximally profit from children.

Vaccinating them ensures they stay healthy and grow up to be good tax payers and stay alive long enough to get diseases like diabetes II, ulcers, hypercholestromia, hypertension, cancer, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Vaccines are cheap, the real profit comes from long treatments to aforementioned diseases.

Lurky

*Gasp* The fiends! What horrors will they think of next!

[bknight]

Of course there are immediate benefits to most of the vaccines to include with your list of long term effects.

[onebigmonkey]

I saw a genuinely serious post by on a flat Earth facebook thread by someone who had bought into pretty much every conspiracy meme going, where she wholeheartedly agreed with a satirical report that said that vaccines had been proven to give people grey hair and wrinkled skin.

[gillianren]

I was astonished when my faith-healing aunt came out in vocal support of vaccination on my Facebook page.  Then I realized . . . Aunt Karla's old enough to remember polio.  And when you just got measles and mumps and so forth.  She knows the difference; of course she prefers vaccination.

[Jason Thompson]

Aunt Karla's old enough to remember polio.  And when you just got measles and mumps and so forth.

This is one of the biggest issues for any measure related to health and safety: when the measures are effective and the original problem is reduced or eliminated, people forget that the measures are the reason for the downturn, and the measures themselves become seen as unnecessary precisely because the thing they defend against isn't happening. It's the same reason we've had police and fire services reduced here: crime and fire rates are low so why do we need all these police and firemen anyway? People who remember how things were before the problem was eliminated tend to remain in favour of the measures because they remember, or even experienced personally, the problems.

I wish the anti-vax brigade would get the message that we vaccinate against these diseases because they kill. Even if the proposed 'dangers' of vaccination were actually real, surely even the most ardent anti-vax parent must be swayed by the choice between an alive child with problems and one that doesn't live to be an adult.

[onebigmonkey]

I wish the anti-vax brigade would get the message that we vaccinate against these diseases because they kill.

I wish they'd go on holiday to somewhere with endemic but preventable diseases and not bother with the means of prevention.

It bugs the hell out of me that by and large every single one of them spouting this nonsense has a pock mark on their upper arm...

[gillianren]

And then when they are presented with real issues, some of them claim they're all fake.  Like my "imaginary friend" Chris and his son, who got measles at four months old after a family visit to Disneyland.  I call Chris my imaginary friend because parts of the internet are convinced he isn't real.

[Dalhousie]

I wish the anti-vax brigade would get the message that we vaccinate against these diseases because they kill.

I wish they'd go on holiday to somewhere with endemic but preventable diseases and not bother with the means of prevention.

It bugs the hell out of me that by and large every single one of them spouting this nonsense has a pock mark on their upper arm...

Such places are getting harder to find as the current global immunisation rate is 85% for the four big childhood killers.

[twik]

Aunt Karla's old enough to remember polio.  And when you just got measles and mumps and so forth.

This is one of the biggest issues for any measure related to health and safety: when the measures are effective and the original problem is reduced or eliminated, people forget that the measures are the reason for the downturn, and the measures themselves become seen as unnecessary precisely because the thing they defend against isn't happening. It's the same reason we've had police and fire services reduced here: crime and fire rates are low so why do we need all these police and firemen anyway? People who remember how things were before the problem was eliminated tend to remain in favour of the measures because they remember, or even experienced personally, the problems.

I wish the anti-vax brigade would get the message that we vaccinate against these diseases because they kill. Even if the proposed 'dangers' of vaccination were actually real, surely even the most ardent anti-vax parent must be swayed by the choice between an alive child with problems and one that doesn't live to be an adult.

Exactly. One of the worst things for an effective treatment or deterrent (whether it's medical or social) is that when it works, it's eventually mocked as a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

Sort of like how many current financial commentators don't see the reason for restrictions on risky bank loans. Surely, they say, no one working for a bank would exceed sensible risk tolerances! Whyever should we put artificial limits on what these responsible grown-ups can do with their own assets?

[gillianren]

There's a screenshot going around of someone on an anti-vaxx forum who wants to know how to keep their kids from getting measles.

[raven]

There's a screenshot going around of someone on an anti-vaxx forum who wants to know how to keep their kids from getting measles.

That would be as precious as the tweet about 'flat earthers all around the globe' if kids were not involved.

[ka9q]

There's a screenshot going around of someone on an anti-vaxx forum who wants to know how to keep their kids from getting measles.

Well, I would certainly like to ask those anti-vaxxers how to keep their kids from getting measles, if not with the vaccine.

[Peter B]

There's a screenshot going around of someone on an anti-vaxx forum who wants to know how to keep their kids from getting measles.

Well, I would certainly like to ask those anti-vaxxers how to keep their kids from getting measles, if not with the vaccine.

*sigh*

Google 'pox party'.

At the moment here in Australia there's a government ad on TV about meningococcal vaccines. It features a girl about two years old who's had her hand amputated as a result of the disease (and you can't see whether her other hand is intact), and her mother talking about wishing she'd known about the risks. Unpleasantly confronting, and I can only hope the message gets through - seeing what challenges her family is going to be facing in coming years I can almost believe there are things worse than having a child die.

[Northern Lurker]

Sorry for dark humour https://imgur.com/gallery/u8yRvT5 about a serious matter. Also https://imgur.com/gallery/VjxNzaE 

Lurky