Discussion: UK anti-vaxx 'freedom' morons, protests and QAnon idiots

[NoXion]

Damn all those obstinate real-life people out there still overwhelmingly opting for MMR and C19 vax despite the AVs best efforts

Wakefield may well have inspired an niche group,but there is NO overwhelming evidence of their influence on real life. There is a net inspired paranoia about them though....

Here is the evidence you claim doesn't exist:

The downward trend continued all through the 1990s and in 2000, by way of a highly effective vaccination program, measles elimination was declared in the US6,9. The measles post-elimination era in the US had been relatively stable with low pockets of transmission and fairly stable incidence rates in the country10. However, In recent years there has been a resurgence of measles in the US with the annual median number of cases and outbreaks between 2009 and 2014 standing at more than double the numbers in the first decade following elimination11. These have resulted in growing concerns of a potential re-establishment of transmission of measles, and loss of the ‘measles elimination’ status by the US in the years to come if no appropriate health policy actions are taken12. There are suggestions this resurgence of measles could be due to the declining vaccine coverage as a result of vaccine hesitancy13 and an ever growing number of anti-vaccination movements as observed in some parts of the country14.

You may choose to split hairs with your use of "overwhelming", but the fact remains that antivax movements have contributed to a resurgence of diseases such as measles that were previously being kept down by greater rates of vaccination, to the point where there are concerns about measles re-establishing itself.

I dunno about you, but I certainly don't want one of the world's most contagious diseases (and one capable of inflicting immune amnesia, making those affected more vulnerable to other infections) re-establishing itself in places where it has previously considered to be eliminated. You may argue that "it's not that bad", but why the fuck should we wait until things get worse before taking action? Peoples' lives and health are at stake, and should not be sacrificed in the name of debate bro bullshit.

 

[Thesaint]

what are you arguing btw ?

measles , mumps and other infections that are currently on the rise because Thier parents are sceptical of vaccines and you saying it had no effect on the real world

look at any medical journal or reporting ya plank

Wakefields influence was real but less than expected given his dramatic claims, and uptake of MMR returned. C19 vax uptake was high so unaffected given this subthread.

You can find the odd incident of anything if you want and with low number any uptick looks disproportionately large. People here and elsewhere are easily fooled by stats out of context, and finding experts that are worried about by XYZ isn't hard in any field.

Of all the world worries these days this ISNT a biggie. The subject of AVs is emotional for some and this distorts their objectivity.

 

[petee]

The subject of AVs is emotional for some and this distorts their objectivity.

especially the AVs.

 

[NoXion]

Wakefields influence was real but less than expected given his dramatic claims, and uptake of MMR returned. C19 vax uptake was high so unaffected given this subthread.

You can find the odd incident of anything if you want and with low number any uptick looks disproportionately large. People here and elsewhere are easily fooled by stats out of context, and finding experts that are worried about by XYZ isn't hard in any field.

Of all the world worries these days this ISNT a biggie. The subject of AVs is emotional for some and this distorts their objectivity.

Immunity-destroying diseases that were previously held at bay making a resurgence "isn't a biggie" for you? I think that says more about your low standards than anything else.

Besides which, the fact that bigger problems exist is not an excuse for letting smaller problems go unaddressed. Especially when it comes to infectious diseases that have the ability to snowball into larger problems through transmission.

 

[PR1Berske]

In tomorrow's Sunday Times (behind a paywall and they're very good at stopping paywall breakers), the wife of Andrew Bridgen claims her husband was kidnapped by an anti-vaxx cult, which destroyed their marriage and poisoned his mind.

 

[DaveCinzano]

In tomorrow's Sunday Times (behind a paywall and they're very good at stopping paywall breakers), the wife of Andrew Bridgen claims her husband was kidnapped by an anti-vaxx cult, which destroyed their marriage and poisoned his mind.

https://archive.is/PV9JV

(Not that good it would seem)

 

[PR1Berske]

Today, she reveals how her marriage and life have been torn apart by a “sect” she claims has “taken over” her husband.
She said: “The first alarming sign of radicalisation was when it was obvious that he was turning on us, when our child got terribly ill … There was no way of pleading with him. The human cost of radicalisation and the devastating impact it can have on individuals and their families, and in this case, our family, was spelled out for me for the first time in bold colours.”
Nevena, a classically-trained opera singer, who filed for divorce this month, claims she and her son have been left homeless after her marriage to Bridgen, 59, broke down and he “abandoned them”.
She also criticises the Conservative Party and the parliamentary authorities for failing to protect him from “radicalisation”.

She claims that he is willing to put indoctrination and the extremist ideology of the movement above his wife and an innocent child. She believes he needed to “get rid of her” as she did not “fully align with his extremist beliefs”.

“I watched my life shatter into pieces as I lost access to the household bank account … and kicked out on the street with a child just in time for Christmas,” she said.

Bridgen is building “Andrew’s Army” to mobilise support for him and his antivax views before the general election. He launched a website last week urging people to become his “foot soldiers” to help him “overturn the old political order”.

“Being a phone soldier in Andrew’s Army will require courage,” he writes. “It will not be for the faint-hearted. But if you share my convictions about the issues I raise and you want to ensure I can get through to my constituents despite the ever intensifying attempts to cancel me, become a phone soldier in Andrew’s Army today.”

Bridgen appears to have become radicalised to the antivax cause over several years. He has tweeted about the Covid-19 jab more than 100 times since 2022, when he first began to warn of alleged vaccine harms. After previously encouraging his social media followers to get vaccinated, he advocated for a “common sense” approach — opposing booster jabs for anyone over the age of 12.

By July 2022, his position had begun to harden. He warned on Twitter/X that “no one outside a vulnerable group should be boosted. No healthy children should be vaccinated.” In December that year, Bridgen called for the vaccine to be suspended.

A few months into 2023, Bridgen began to slip into conspiracy theories. Posting on Twitter/X in September, he claimed that Pfizer had “switched” the medically approved vaccine for an untested variant. Later, he alleged the vaccines were “defective”.

The first “red flag” for Nevena came when she heard him speaking to a group on a Zoom call while at her sister’s flat in Washington DC during the Christmas holidays in 2022. She said it was the first sign she saw he was being influenced.

“It was crazy, they were talking about crimes against humanity and someone saying that this was all done to eradicate the population,” she said. “They went on to say something along the lines of ‘You have to do your job now and call out the mainstream media and tell people the truth. This is your mission.’ The person spoke of a global military alliance. They were basically encouraging insurrection and saying the military should take this into their own hands.”

After he finished the call, she says she demanded that he stop. She asked him how he could put himself in a position like this, because they could have been recording him to use as blackmail. “I was trying to offer him advice but he didn’t take it.”

 

[2hats]

In anycase uptake returned back up to 90%+

No it hasn't...

Clearly an outsider introducing a bit of reality

You're confused. You are outside of reality, introducing specious drivel.

Wakefields influence was real but less than expected given his dramatic claims, and uptake of MMR returned.

Full MMR coverage has fallen below the necessary 95%† in all regions, and significantly so in many highly populated urban areas.

​

Source: Childhood Vaccination Coverage Statistics, England, 2022-23.​

† WHO target, considering the base reproduction number approaches 18.

People here and elsewhere are easily fooled by stats out of context

Not by the incomplete, stale and misinterpreted out of context 'stats' that you are hawking.

 

[stdP]

Meanwhile, in Leftpondia... DeSantis lickspittle and loonspud Joseph Ladapo (Florida's surgeon general) is fanning the flames of what is already a worrisome measles outbreak.

Unvaccinated Florida kids exposed to measles can skip quarantine, officials say

On Tuesday, nearly 20 percent of the school's 1,067 students were reportedly absent.

arstechnica.com

Florida is swamped by disease outbreaks as quackery replaces science

The state is in the grip of a measles outbreak, yet Joseph Ladapo, the surgeon general, continues to ignore medical science to stop it

www.theguardian.com

Ladapo’s advice deferring to parents or guardians a decision about school attendance directly contradicts the official recommendation of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which calls for a 21-day period of quarantine for anybody without a history of prior infection or immunization.

It is also in keeping with Ladapo’s previous maverick proclamations about vaccines that health professionals say pose an unacceptable danger to the health of Florida residents. They include official guidance to shun mRNA Covid-19 boosters based on easily disprovable conspiracy theories that the shots alter human DNA and can potentially cause cancer – “scientific nonsense” in the view of Dr Ashish Jha, a former White House Covid response coordinator.

I'll confess to having skin the game for this particular brand of idiots - my other half was hospitalised for a week with measles about five or six years back (likely caught from a traveller from NY which was undergoing a minor outbreak at the time) and is still dealing with some of its long-term after-effects. It was enough of a novelty at the time that a lot of medical staff and students came to have a gawp to witness some of the symptoms (and the hospital got a bollocking from NHS England for not reporting it as a possible measles case quickly enough).

UK gov page about rightpondian measles is here; naturally it's everyone's original fiend Wakefield and his diaspora that are largely responsible for take-up of the MMR jab dropping to below 90% for the second year running (including almost all of London) - because measles is so infectious, a vaccination/immunity rate of 95% or more is thought to be the minimum level to grant herd immunity.

 

[pogofish]

In tomorrow's Sunday Times (behind a paywall and they're very good at stopping paywall breakers), the wife of Andrew Bridgen claims her husband was kidnapped by an anti-vaxx cult, which destroyed their marriage and poisoned his mind.

Of course it just wouldn't be that Bridgen might well have been an utterly irredeemable self-serving/opportunist cunt before...?

 

[cupid_stunt]

I had forgotten about the the Great Barrington Declaration, from that Guardian link above -

Additionally, Ladapo was a signatory to the Great Barrington Declaration, an open letter claimed to have been signed by 15,000 scientists and medical professionals calling for a herd immunity approach to Covid, but which included a multitude of spoof names including Dr Johnny Bananas, Dr Person Fakename and Dr I P Freely.

 

[editor]

No it hasn't...

You're confused. You are outside of reality, introducing specious drivel.

Full MMR coverage has fallen below the necessary 95%† in all regions, and significantly so in many highly populated urban areas.

View attachment 414457 View attachment 414458​

Source: Childhood Vaccination Coverage Statistics, England, 2022-23.​

† WHO target, considering the base reproduction number approaches 18.

Not by the incomplete, stale and misinterpreted out of context 'stats' that you are hawking.

Thesaint I do hope you will respond to this post because it's made you look like a complete idiot.

 

[existentialist]

Thesaint I do hope you will respond to this post because it's made you look like a complete idiot.

Nah, it hasn't. It's just further cemented his reputation as a complete idiot. HTH

 

[Orang Utan]

Just putting this here as I thought of this thread earlier, when I was remembering a conversation with a foolish colleague who fell down every conspiracy rabbithole he came across. He was saying that people’s life expectancy had gone down drastically in the past few hundred years and that cancer had changed all of that. I gawped at him for a few seconds as I had no idea where to start, before just asking him how he got to that conclusion. His main conceit was that people used to live hundreds of years and now they don’t. After listening to him just talk uninterrupted for a bit, I realised there was no point in discussing anything with him at all, as neither party would benefit from the conversation.

 

[existentialist]

He'll no doubt go quiet, then come back all supercilious when he thinks the dust has settled. Seems to be the standard MO.

 

[petee]

His main conceit was that people used to live hundreds of years

well yeah, it says so right in the bible.

 

[Sue]

Just putting this here as I thought of this thread earlier, when I was remembering a conversation with a foolish colleague who fell down every conspiracy rabbithole he came across. He was saying that people’s life expectancy had gone down drastically in the past few hundred years and that cancer had changed all of that. I gawped at him for a few seconds as I had no idea where to start, before just asking him how he got to that conclusion. His main conceit was that people used to live hundreds of years and now they don’t. After listening to him just talk uninterrupted for a bit, I realised there was no point in discussing anything with him at all, as neither party would benefit from the conversation.

Ah yes, those halcyon days when a simple cut or broken bone or dental infection could kill you and catching measles or mumps could leave you blind or deaf or dead. Great times.

And yeah, pointless arguing with some people. (I've obviously fallen for the propaganda.)

 

[danny la rouge]

well yeah, it says so right in the bible.

Ira Gershwin had opinions on that…

 

[petee]

Ira Gershwin had opinions on that…

well he only lived to 86. kinda proves your man's point.

 

[pogofish]

Ah yes, those halcyon days when a simple cut or broken bone or dental infection could kill you and catching measles or mumps could leave you blind or deaf or dead. Great times.

And yeah, pointless arguing with some people. (I've obviously fallen for the propaganda.)

What OU describes is often preached by a particular subset of fundy Christians, who declare that "the race" as created by God is perfect and incapable of suffering illness of any kind, only injury/infection and was once capable of living immense lifespans. Illness only entered their and their descendants lives by "contamination" from inferior/demonic races, particularly more darkly coloured ones.

One of the main proponents of this view was one Dr Sheldon/Shelton, whose ideas precipitated and still underpin most current alternative medicine and many of the "ancient giants walked amongst us " types follow much the same ideology. And IME, they are always anti-vax!

 

[Sue]

What OU describes is often preached by a particular subset of fundy Christians, who declare that "the race" as created by God is perfect and incapable of suffering illness of any kind, only injury/infection and was once capable of living immense lifespans. Illness only entered their and their descendants lives by "contamination" from inferior/demonic races, particularly more darkly coloured ones.

One of the main proponents of this view was one Dr Sheldon/Shelton, whose ideas precipitated and still underpin most current alternative medicine and many of the "ancient giants walked amongst us " types follow much the same ideology. And IME, they are always anti-vax!

I guess being racist as well as stupid isn't a huge shocker.

 

[Orang Utan]

Came across this on Oscars night:

The mental leaps involved in coming to those conclusions are impressively gymnastic.
A grown man a terrible skit in his drawers is apparently a sight that will turn on paedophiles


<reads back>
Oops, unintended innuendo - he did a terrribe skit in his drawers!

 

[NoXion]

John Cena is older than I am. If I had a body like his, I'd want to show it off too.

 

[Orang Utan]

John Cena is older than I am. If I had a body like his, I'd want to show it off too.

I’d be ashamed of my tits

 

[petee]

Came across this on Oscars night:

The mental leaps involved in coming to those conclusions are impressively gymnastic.
A grown man a terrible skit in his drawers is apparently a sight that will turn on paedophiles


<reads back>
Oops, unintended innuendo - he did a terrribe skit in his drawers!

i can't imagine what her opinion of cher is.

 

[PTK]

The Jehovah's Witnesses (or Jehovah's I-Never-Saw-Nothing, as they are called in certain parts of the East End of London) claim that humans lived to hundreds of years before the Flood. The "waters above" protected human beings from radiation from space. The waters above then fell from the sky for forty days and nights, causing the flood. Since then, ionising radiation has been able to reach the surface of the Earth and the people on it, causing the average lifespan to be much shorter.

 

[NoXion]

The Jehovah's Witnesses (or Jehovah's I-Never-Saw-Nothing, as they are called in certain parts of the East End of London) claim that humans lived to hundreds of years before the Flood. The "waters above" protected human beings from radiation from space. The waters above then fell from the sky for forty days and nights, causing the flood. Since then, ionising radiation has been able to reach the surface of the Earth and the people on it, causing the average lifespan to be much shorter.

This seems like a hypothesis that would be relatively trivial to put to the test. Even if we ignore the fact that we can already detect ionising radiation and are aware of its effects on the human body (which do not look like the typical ageing process), we can study cave ecologies and even have people live underground for extended periods (or study populations of people who do likewise) in order to determine if a lack of exposure from whatever space radiation somehow makes its way through the atmosphere has any effect on the progression of ageing.

I don't understand why religious fundamentalists cling to ideas that can be so easily falsified. Whatever happened to having faith?

 

[PTK]

This seems like a hypothesis that would be relatively trivial to put to the test. Even if we ignore the fact that we can already detect ionising radiation and are aware of its effects on the human body (which do not look like the typical ageing process), we can study cave ecologies and even have people live underground for extended periods (or study populations of people who do likewise) in order to determine if a lack of exposure from whatever space radiation somehow makes its way through the atmosphere has any effect on the progression of ageing.

I don't understand why religious fundamentalists cling to ideas that can be so easily falsified. Whatever happened to having faith?

Also, as followers of Jesus, why do the JW's feel compelled to justify everything in the Old Testament?

 

[petee]

Also, as followers of Jesus, why do the JW's feel compelled to justify everything in the Old Testament?

b/c they're not trinitarians

https://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/faq/believe-in-jesus/

 

[PTK]

b/c they're not trinitarians

https://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/faq/believe-in-jesus/

No, that cannot be the reason, for Trinitarians, such as the Roman Catholics believe in the Old Testament too.