Tag: holocaust

Is Vaccine Discrimination a Thing?

Hopefully everyone understands that discrimination is still very common these days. From race and religion to age and sex based discrimination, even with protective laws and regulations, many people face discrimination each and every day.

Is Vaccine Discrimination a Thing?

We should start by saying that vaccine discrimination is not really a thing. After all, no one is discriminating against children and adults with true medical exemptions to getting vaccinated.

Is a physician or nurse being nosy or bossy if they ask about vaccines when you go to a clinic or ER with your sick child?

It is only folks who intentionally skip or delay vaccines who think they are being discriminated against.

How does that work?

If their intentionally unvaccinated kid without a medical exemption can’t go to camp, play in a baseball tournament, or has to find a new pediatrician, they are now crying discrimination.

Bob Sears goes as far as saying that the discrimination against parents whose children are intentionally unvaccinated is worse than the treatment of blacks in the Jim Crow era!

“In my opinion, this is a new type of discrimination at its worst. It’s taking a new class of vulnerable children — the vaccine-compromised — and saying that because they refuse to finish their damn shots, they don’t get school. Forget separate but equal. This is separate … and NOTHING! No school at all. Soon it’s going to be no playgrounds and no drinking fountains either. Hey, the last time our government did this to a group of people, at least they GOT drinking fountains. They even got to ride buses, as long as they sat in the back. Because our government said “those people” were not safe for the rest of us to be around, and our society stood by and let it happen. And the discrimination we perpetrated on our equals so many years ago is one of the great evils our country is still guilty of. Is that what this article, and the California SB 276 bill it’s supporting, is asking us to go back to?”
Bob Sears

I would say that this is the worse thing that he has ever written, but I remember his post about how we were going to start making unvaccinated kids wear yellow stars…

This isn’t even the first time that Bob Sears has written about vaccines and discrimination.

Life was good in 1988... if you weren't affected by discrimination, segregation, or any of these now vaccine-preventable diseases. — Life was good in 1988… if you weren’t affected by discrimination, segregation, or any of these now vaccine-preventable diseases.

Bob was right about one thing… There is a carefully crafted PR campaign going on. It’s full of propaganda to scare parents away from vaccinating and protecting their kids.

This isn’t discrimination though.

These are the consequences of their vaccine choice. Unfortunately, it is typically the kids who get stuck with the consequences of the choices their parents make.

Equating real problems of discrimination and segregation to the issue of parents choosing to keep their kids unvaccinated and unprotected is not only silly, but it is also offensive.

“We shouldn’t accept the idea that there is an ounce of discrimination when we are confronted with these bogus accounts of abuse. By conceding some degree of unfair treatment, when unwarranted, we undermine the real meaning of discrimination. Providing a soundboard to advantaged phonies who are unable to discern between a privilege and right only emboldens those at the top.”
Time to Fight Fake Discrimination

It subverts the work of all of those who are trying to end true discrimination.

Is There a Plan to Send Unvaccinated People to Concentration Camps to Be Force Vaccinated?

Wait, what?

Someone believes that there is a plan to send intentionally unvaccinated people to concentration camps to be force vaccinated?

Larry Cook joins anti-vaccine folks who use Holocaust imagery to try and scare parents away from vaccinating and protecting their kids.

Is that what this bill, which wasn’t even put to a vote, does?

Is There a Plan to Send Unvaccinated People to Concentration Camps to Be Force Vaccinated?

Of course it doesn’t!

“Relates to the removal of cases, contacts and carriers of communicable diseases that are potentially dangerous to the public health.”
AB 99

Anything about forced vaccination?

Just the part that goes out of its away to reassure folks that it doesn’t allow forced vaccination!

Larry Cook didn’t mention this part of the AB 99 for some reason…

The bill, which never made it out of committee, wasn’t even about unvaccinated people.

It was about being able to manage people who have contagious diseases, who might be a danger to the public, either because they refuse to stay in quarantine, get treatment, or have contacts that refuse public health orders to get treatment.

Anyone surprised?

More on the Plan to Send Unvaccinated People to Concentration Camps to Be Force Vaccinated

Decoding Anti-Vaccine Protests

Yes, even in this age of record–breaking measles cases, there are some anti-vaccine folks protesting because they want to keep their kids unvaccinated and unprotected.

Decoding Anti-Vaccine Protests

What reasons do they have to intentionally not vaccinate their kids?

Who's protecting us from the people protesting against vaccines? — Who’s protecting us from the people protesting against vaccines?

As many reasons as there are anti-vaccine talking points…

What is truly disturbing though, is that today’s anti-vaccine protestors are co-opting many symbols, language, and slogans and using them to get attention.

Del Bigtree wasn't the only one to wear a yellow star during anti-vaccine protests. — Del Bigtree wasn’t the only one to wear a yellow star during anti-vaccine protests.

Remember when anti-vaccine folks had to be called out for using Holocaust imagery to protest against vaccines.

How Did These Become Anti-Vaccine Slogans?

That’s not all they are doing though.

Did you know that they are also using:

If you do not consent, you won't get vaccinated and protected.

Me Too – a movement to support survivors and end sexual violence, anti-vaccine folks use it to when they talk about vaccine injuries.
I do not consent – typically about limiting searches when police don’t have a warrant, the anti-vaccine movement abuses it for something that they do have to consent for – getting vaccinated! If you do not consent, you won’t get vaccinated and protected.
Informed consent – again, this is something anti-vaccine folks abuse, as their decisions are being influenced by myths and misinformation, so it is not informed consent. It’s more like misinformed consent.

And then there are the anti-vaxxers who use “choice” as their argument.

If you weren't aware, this post makes it obvious where the choice argument comes from. No, it's not AoA, but from the pro-choice movement. — If you weren’t aware, this post makes it obvious where the choice argument comes from. No, it’s not AoA, but from the pro-choice movement.

Anti-vaxxers are only pro-choice for not vaccinating their kids though. They don’t care if we have a choice about wanting to be protected from being exposed to vaccine-preventable diseases.

Dog Whistles for Refusing Vaccines

What’s the big problem with choice as an argument for anti-vaccine folks?

Parents already have a choice to leave their kids unvaccinated and at risk for measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases.

They already have choices!

No one is forcing them to vaccinate their kids.

Of course, what they want is more choices. They want the option to send their intentionally unvaccinated kids to daycare and school, where they would pose a risk to others. They want to limit our choices for decreasing the risks of keeping our kids safe from vaccine-preventable diseases.

How? Their intentionally unvaccinated kids are at greater risk to get measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases, which they can then spread to others.

What does all of this really mean?

Just realize that all of these slogans are being co-opted and are being used as dog whistles for the anti-vaccine movement, diluting their original meaning.

The Very Worst of the Anti-Vaccine Movement

We have gotten used to some outrageous behavior from the modern anti-vaccine movement.

What we are seeing these days is over the top though.

That’s right.

Del Bigtree, the producer of VAXXED, was called out by the folks at the Auschwitz Museum for “instrumentalizing the fate of Jews who were persecuted by hateful antisemitic ideology and murdered in extermination camps like #Auschwitz with poisonous gas in order to argue against vaccination that saves human lives…”

VAXOPEDIA

Is Vaccine Discrimination a Thing?