As fewer people have their children vaccinated, pertussis -- whooping cough --
is coming back. One of the victims is 31-year-old Julia Ioffe, who
has been coughing for 72 days:
So thanks a lot, anti-vaccine parents. You took an ethical stand against big pharma and the autism your baby was not going to get anyway, and, by doing so, killed some babies and gave me, an otherwise healthy 31-year-old woman, the whooping cough in the year 2013. I understand your wanting to raise your own children as you see fit, science be damned, but you're selfishly jeopardizing more than your own children. Carry your baby around in a sling, feed her organic banana mash while you drink your ethical coffee, fine, but what gives you denialists the right to put my health at risk—to cause me to catch a debilitating, humiliating, and frightening cough that, two months after I finished my last course of antibiotics (how’s that for supporting big pharma?), still makes me convulse several times a day like some kind of tragic nineteenth-century heroine?
If you have an answer, I’ll be here, whooping, while I wait.
2 comments:
I agree with her, but what gets me is the use of the word "denialists." I was wondering when the word was going to be used. It's so in fashion to call someone a denier when they reject science in favor of their emotional or political causes.
The thing is everyone has their causes, and when they feel strongly enough about them many reject sound, opposing arguments, even when those arguments are backed by scientific findings.
Denying favors no political persuasion. When it lands near home, we believe what we want to believe.
Many who embrace the science of global warming reject the science of vaccinations when it comes to autism. It is difficult exonerating the putative culprit (vaccination) when it is your child suffering autism. There are many others who say, "Why take the chance?" A reasonable, if wrong, response to fear.
And for this you get called a denier. I'm not sure it's ever a good idea to brand someone a denier, when you need to win that someone over to your side.
To call for someone else to take drugs so that you do not get sick, is frankly ridiculous. You are responsible for your health or lack of it, not some new born child. I empathize with your health challenge. I trust you will recover in time, however, do you really think that all children in the world should be injected with drugs at birth because you have a cough?
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