Here it Comes
I have been saying it for years. The anti-vaccine idiots with their conspiracy theories are going to feel some serious pain soon. We are seeing it already in California with measles. Now the WSJ is saying that the spread of polio is a world health emergency.
The United Nations public-health agency called polio’s spread so far this year an “extraordinary event,” with illnesses or the virus alone found in 10 countries in South Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
I have always said that this was the big one to worry about. The iron lungs. The paralyzed kids. The death. All forgotten by the Jenny McCarthy crowd.
More polio information. It’s here. It’s now.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/08/health/08iht-polio.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/05/22/us-pledges-cease-fake-polio-vaccination-program
http://progress-index.com/news/op-ed/polio-makes-an-unwelcome-comeback-1.1686552
http://www.wired.com/2014/05/cia-polio-promise/
http://www.wired.com/2011/08/polio-returns-china/
C’mon, Doug, science marches forward.
This time around, it’ll be trachs with battery powered vents on their wheelchairs.
At least in the Western countries.
In the East and Africa, where this is really going to hit the fan, they’ll just die.
Of course, the polio non-vaccinators are examples of triple stupidity:
1. People refuse to believe that their governments would give them something for nothing, so refuse the vaccines.
2. A few oddball radical evangelical clerics tell them that the polio vaccine, specifically (but not other vaccines) is against the teachings of Islam. This in spite of the fact that even the putative head of Al Quaeda has issued an official fatwah saying that the vaccines are kosher (pardon the pun…).
Adding injury to insult, followers of these same imbeciles take any chance they get to murder local health workers who do vaccinations, thus reducing availability, as, in some areas, running a polio vaccination campaign is about as good for your longevity as playing Russian roulette with a Glock.
3. The epsilon semimorons of the CIA had the brilliant idea to have a local doctor create a semi-false polio vaccination campaign to get intelligence on the compound where bin Laden was staying. This, predictably, had the effect of making the locals, from Kandahar to Khartoum, believe that any polio vaccination program may be part of a CIA plot (since one already was, I can’t say that I blame them).
The fact that anyone at Langley could have thought that this was a good idea boggles my mind, as “everyone knows” that CIA is not allowed to use cover identities as State Department staff, because it might make the locals mistrust State, and those of us who have done EMS know that the police are NEVER allowed to claim to be EMS, for the same reason.
Basically, it’s a cluster. Fear, mistrust, and ignorance are a potent brew, and when seasoned with just the right amount of stupidity, can become quite deadly.
Good post.
We are seeing a fatalistic retrenchment of healthcare from that of fifty years ago. The concepts that diseases could be reduced, eliminated, mitigated, constrained on a public health level has been on the rise since the Broad Street Pump days and understanding cholera. Now, we’ve gone to an “it’s OK if it’s not my fault” basis – if someone dies of mismanagement or neglect, just sue the perpetrators. It doesn’t matter that the infrastructure of the system has been picked clean of its support base – just blame somebody, and get on with it. Sorry, Iron Lung Kid!
McCarthy-Wakefield Disease.
In “honor” of Dr. Andrew Wakefield and Jenny McCarthy. A pox upon both of them!
Should we add Michele Bachmann (“There’s a woman who came up crying to me tonight after the debate. She said her daughter was given that vaccine. She told me her daughter suffered mental retardation as a result. There are very dangerous consequences.”) and make it Bachmann-McCarthy-Wakefield Disease? Or make it reverse alphabetical giving the doctor top billing — Wakefield-McCarthy-Bachmann Disease?
Ms. McCarthy is worse than Rev. Jones since those who drink her coolade hurt others as well as themselves.