“Don’t do it!”
That’s what one friend said to another about giving their children swine flu vaccinations. An otherwise boring dinner party suddenly got more interesting.
“Ah, so you’re an anti-vaxer. Why?” I asked.
I figured he would be against vaccinations because he thought it was linked to autism or some reason like that. Boy was I wrong.
He replied, “They’re using the vaccines to introduce microchips into the population — these chips are the mark of the beast. They’ll use them to track us and eventually we won’t be able to buy or sell without these chips, just like the Bible says. Don’t get the vaccines!”
I was trying to measure out whether he was joking or not. After weighing his words and manners, I came to the unfortunate conclusion that he was not.
Now I’m a guy who hears a lot of crazy things fundies believe. I blog about some of them. But this was about a month ago, and I hadn’t heard this one. I was a little in awe of that — a friend of mine believes in something so fucking crazy I hadn’t even been sent a link about it. I felt like I had discovered a new species of insanity in my own backyard.
Being who I am, I couldn’t let it go at that. I told him it was something easily proven or disproven by scanning the person after they had the injection to see if they had a microchip. “Ah,” he said, unknowingly channeling every conspiracy theorist who ever lived, “but they’re too small to be detected and neither can the transmissions.”
The only thing missing was a tin foil hat.
“Where in the world are you getting this from?” I asked.
“The web.”
Yes, the web, the blessing and curse of instant information. Mostly blessing I think — or at least I hope. My curiosity got the better of me and where else would I find someone talking about this but World Nut Daily:
A Florida-based company that boasts selling the world’s first and only federally approved radio microchip for implanting in humans is now turning its development branch toward “emergency preparedness,” hoping to produce an implant that can automatically detect in its host’s bloodstream the presence of swine flu or other viruses deemed a “bio-threat.”
VeriChip Corporation currently sells a small, under-the-skin Radio Frequency Identification capsule, or RFID, that patients can opt to have implanted, containing a number computer-linked to their medical records, enabling doctors with a special reader to access the information even if the patient is unconscious or unidentified. The company boasts its microchip, roughly the size of a grain of rice, is the only such implant approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
But VeriChip has also turned its attention to other uses for the technology, including microchips that be used to tag and log human remains after a disaster and implants the company hopes will be able to warn if their host is infected with the H1N1 swine flu virus, the H5N1 bird flu virus or other pandemic agents deemed to be a “bio-threat.”
So it seems this “mark of the beast” paranoia is based on information that a company is hoping to produce an implant to detect swine flu in the bloodstream. It’s amazing how something like this can morph from “they might” to “they have” to “they are,” especially among those who want to believe.
What concerns me most is that based on this, my friend was commanding someone to not vaccinate their children — the very ones who have the highest mortality rate with the swine flu. His advice would increase their chances of death.
Ultimately, it comes down to superstition and paranoia. These people want to believe and they’ll believe anything as long as it is presented somewhat credibly and supports what they believe is true.
If I really wanted to make him concerned, perhaps I should have told him the government is watching him right now. They know where he is at all times. And guess what — they know it because of something in his hand… just like the Bible predicted!
That is, instead of being paranoid about some microchip that doesn’t exist, maybe he could focus his paranoia on the GPS chip in his cell phone.
After all, big brother is watching you.
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74 Comments
This has probably evolved from an internet video about the “New World Order” conspiracy in which the ex-boyfriend of JD Rockerfeller’s grandson talks about how he (the grandson) used to boast about how his bank really ran the world and was in charge of everything and how he we’re heading towards a day when we all get an RFID chip implanted to control us, so that if we become dissidents then they can turn the chip off and stop us from buying/selling anything. Clearly he’s never heard of bartering, but I digress.
Conspiracy theorists never consider that maybe the boyfriend was lying for whatever reason (revenge maybe), or maybe Rockerfeller Jr. was just really, really, really high on something. It’s got that ring of somethign that a conspiracy junky would hear and instantly want to believe.
Combine that with swine-flu vaccine paranoia (had swine flu, also had the vaccine since it’s possible to get it twice) and Robert’s your father’s brother, instant conspiracy.
Don’t know about that Rockefeller connection, but yeah, this is directly out of the New World Order and Mark of the Beast craziness.
Good ol’ Revelation. I can’t help thinking that the world would be somewhat less crazy and more peaceful if that book had not been included in the Bible.
Ever heard of a debit card? If the bank doesn’t want you to buy anything, they turn off your debit card or decline that transaction. THAT part doesn’t sound crazy. The rest sure does though.
Yes, except in the real world they don’t do that if you have money because it’s illegal.
Yeah, I saw about this a while ago. Barmy, it is.
I’d totally love to have an RFID, I’d set it up so my house said hello to me when I came in the door and stuff like Prof. Kevin Warwick did!
A facebook “friend” of mine joined this group recently. It’s scary that people can so easily buy into such crap.
I like the picture of big scary needles dangling over innocent children- look how big and sharp and pointy they are! What kind of monster would allow someone to stick one of those into their child??
Didn’t see any mention of the mark of the beast though.
Well the web site link for this is David Icke so that sums it up really
Can we somehow engineer the virus to weed out extreme stupidity like this?
Well, yes. As soon as swine-flu or some other virus gets so bad that people start dropping like flies, those of us smart enough to have the vaccine will live. The retards will dies. Simples.
That system is so perfect for weeding out stupid only a divine creator could have invented it!
Ah well, it’s funny how you don’t hear creatards objecting to the treatment of illness because they think God created them bugs, isn’t it?
Because they don’t think that. They keep saying that it was sin that caused and is causing all those diseases and harmful mutations and natural disasters. Don’t waste your time asking how sin does this, or why the creator allows this stuff to happen though. You never get an answer, at best you get a sudden switch to a totally different topic.
And in a funny and unintentional way, his mad musings are being picked up by total strangers now… Like me.
I guess believing these kinds of “conspiracies” makes people as gullible as those who bought into Gore’s global warming fraud, huh?
Obvious troll. Please ignore.
That is, instead of being paranoid about some microchip that doesn’t exist, maybe he could focus his paranoia on the GPS chip in his cell phone.
Exactly. I wish you’d thought of this on the spot because that’s exactly how the conversation goes when I get the crazy co-workers or family members who insist on spouting this lunacy. Which has been around for a good solid decade now I’m fairly certain – the first time I ran across the “vaccines are a tool of the AntiChrist” was about a decade ago at this point. I chalked it up to Millenium Fever at the time – EVERYTHING seemed to be a “tool of the AntiChrist” as we creeped up towards Y2K.
Nowadays I like to bring up their credit cards and bank accounts – it’s fun to see them squirm when you start describing credit cards using the “Mark of the Beast” terminology from the Book of Revelation. I point out that anytime they use an ATM, or walk into a bank to get out money, or use a credit card online or at a point-of-sale machine, they leave a trail that can be tracked. Their bank number and credit card numbers are as much a “Mark of the Beast” as any tattoo or tracking device you can imagine from any Apocalyptic or Science-Fiction scenario. And it’s SOOOO much less costly than fitting every citizen with an electronic collar. (And then the media reinforces this pretty quickly – the next episode of CSI or NCIS they watch will inevitably have the police track some guy down by using credit card receipts at gas stations or something.)
I’ve yet have one of them decide to give up their bank accounts and credit cards though. Apparently it’s too inconvenient to live without those things these days. (Funny how rabid they are about fighting the hordes of Satan when fighting them involves NOT doing something they don’t want to do – like getting a vaccination – and how little it suddenly matters when the fight involves actively giving up something that makes their lives more comfortable. Perhaps I just get amused easily).
Back in the 80’s my mother was convinced that VISA was really an acronym for ‘666′. Her evidence? VI is six in roman numerals, so S and A must be six in some other language. It was remarkable how well she could squirm away from any evidence to the contrary, from discussions of the origin of the word, to the fact that no known written language used S or A as numerals.
Ahh, that brings back some fantastic memories.
VI-Six
S-first letter in six
A-another six
Ta Da
Well, actually…
Both Greek and Hebrew had their alphabets double as numbers until we adopted Arabic numerals (OMG it’s an islamic conspiracy we’re all doomed!!!111 Um, sorry about that…)
Thus the Greek letter sigma was 200, and alpha was 1.
The Hebrew letter shin was 300, and aleph was 1. The “S” sound could also be represented by the Hebrew letter samekh, which was 60.
So, if anyone wants to perform some fancy calculations from all that and get 666, be my guest…
I hear you brother! When my son was sick with suspected H1N1 (I couldn’t be bothered to wait hours for an appointment to tell me what I already knew), I got a call from my son’s friend’s dad who went on to warn me about the vaccine:
…has microchips in it.
…people are being forced to get the vaccine.
…Obama has declared martial law but Americans don’t know it yet (wait, we’re in Canada, how does HE know this?)
…people will be forced into FEMA camps.
When you get a phone call from a full grown man (late forties) spewing off utter nonsense are you supposed to laugh, cry, hang up???
Tell him to go fuck himself.
And give them detailed instructions on how they should do it. Speak calmly and in a clear concerned voice, as if what you are saying is perfectly natural without any hint of malice.
If he asks you to repeat yourself, stay calm and repeat. Then hang up.
… and now I just have to dry this. Damn.
Er. Try. Not dry.
It’s the Concerned voice part that wins it. Putting that, “I understand your plight and I care about you, I have a solution that will easily bring you through this minor spot of trouble and resolve any concerns you may have.”
“I’ve thought that way several times myself and I can help you get through this, Now, do you own any vegetable oil?” …
The order is laugh, hang up, THEN cry.
I come very close to crying.
And then I swear at Glenn Beck :)
If you already believe that people can physically rise from the dead, that bushes can talk, and that a magical immaterial being is watching and guiding your every thought and action during every moment of your life, it’s not really that much of a stretch to also believe that the government is secretly experimenting on you.
I don’t know that a lot of these nuts are actually religious, you know. And I also do think that there is a grain of truth in their paranoia about some things – fractional reserve banking and the complete unsustainability of the capitalist system, for example. They just take it waaaaaaaay too far!
If the transmission are too small to be detected, they are too small to be received.
Sunny Day wins the thread.
My best friend of 20 years is one of these lunatics. She believes wholeheartedly that we will all soon be forced to be microchipped and that the gov is building FEMA camps that any dissenter will be forced into. She believes we are in the “end times,” and that OnStar is the mark of the beast. As are credit cards (which she still uses). I’d be interested to see if she has read up on the vaccination thing. Wonder if I should even bring it up; I often seriously fear for her sanity. My son has autism, and many of my friends are anti-vaccination. I’ve been told several times that I’ve poisoned him b/c I had him vaccinated.
I genuinly think that anybody who is that offensive about how you as a father treat your son deserves a very hard punch in the face.
I read your article: The Mark of the Beast in Your Vaccine!. Something, we hear as irrational, can be valid. Such is the case of a true story badly told. You are misinformed. The microchip is an implantable GPS device and is true and is commercial several months ago. Follow the advice: do not let them implant you or your family
Evidence? No, of course not. Piss off you lunatic.
If we’re misinformed, please provide us with this evidence. Otherwise, it appears you are the one who is misinformed.
If you think they make a GPS chip small enough to travel in the bloodstream without being detected, you have to make your case. Because as far as I know, that ain’t possible much less it already being put into the population.
Just because you want something to be true, doesn’t mean it is.
If there was a GPS chip small enough to travel in the bloodstream, it would cause either a myocardial infarction or an ischaemic stroke, and the chipped person would be dead very soon after implantation.
It could be alien technology. LOL
If you don’t believe this, I think you must investigate it. Or it seems you want to deny a reality that haunts him now! Of course there are many types of computer microcircuits, but nanotechnology made them possible!! You’re right about conspiracy theory. It’s necessary this must prove, but the possibility continues.
Why should we do your work? You can’t even provide a reference to support your craziness, so why should we waste our time refuting it?
You know this is so crazy there isn’t even internet pages claiming there is evidence (that I could find)! At least with all those crazy religions you get people claiming there is evidence, even though it’s always shot down. With this bullshit, it’s just people making nonsensical claims without even the crazy side of the internet trying to back it up.
Daniel, if they’re too small to be detected, how can you expect to find evidence! ;)
Why not?
Of course, no such device exists, but still. Why not?
The swine flu vaccine is very new & we can’t be sure of it’s safety. Also, the whole vaccine issue is thorny, like maybe certain vaccines ARE safe, but only if used in a certain way. For instance, pharma companies are pushing hard for a multi-vaccine combo to be given to U.S. babies the day they’re born. Other countries, countries with better infant mortality rates (hey, who would have guessed?!), wait until later, sometimes much later, to give those vaccines.
These genuine gray areas can really feed the hyper-suspicion of the ‘one more step & I’m crazy’ faction.
The heck with lilliputian microchips in vaccines, they govt could have had dentists implanting chips in our fillings for years now. And now large bills have something in them…some rumor I heard I haven’t bothered to check out, something to let security know when someone is taking a pile of cash, like drug money, thru the airport. All the new passports of some kind of chip. Credit cards easily could, cell phones…why even take the trouble with the vaccine theory? It’s like declaring that oreos have mind control drugs in them, so you walk briskly & nervously past them on your way to the wonder bread.
Okay, as a nurse I’m going to go ahead and say that unless you can provide evidence, then this little gem:
“pharma companies are pushing hard for a multi-vaccine combo to be given to U.S. babies the day they’re born.”
Okay, as a nurse I’m going to go ahead and say that unless you can provide evidence, then this little gem is complete, absolute bullshit. Citation from a reliable source (NOT a conspiracy site) or STFU.
“The heck with lilliputian microchips in vaccines, they govt could have had dentists implanting chips in our fillings for years now.”
You’re talking about a conspiracy that would involve hundreds of thousands of people, each one of whom would have to have no conscience whatsoever and never let go of their secret under any circumstances. Therefore you’re talking bollocks. People don’t work that way.
“And now large bills have something in them…some rumor I heard I haven’t bothered to check out, something to let security know when someone is taking a pile of cash, like drug money, thru the airport.”
In 2001 I started my first job with HM Customs & Excise, so I can speak to this directly from experience: There is no “device” in money. Border agencies use sniffer dogs which can smell cash. I’ve seen them work. I’ve seen them smell out 20,000 Euros which one lady had stuffed in her vagina and was trying to take through Liverpool Street railway station in London. She collapsed a short while later from ink poisoning – somebody else who should have learned about condoms.
20,000 Euros which one lady had stuffed in her vagina
The lingering question in my mind is, “How big were the bills?”
(e.g., 200 one hundred Euro bills?)
Fifties, twenties, tens and fives. We confiscated it under the Proceeds of Crime Act and told her she could have it back if she could tell us where it come from. She never came back for it, amazingly. I didn’t envy the clerk who had to count it, I’ll tell you that.
Custador – the point about chips in fillings is not whether it would be impractical to involve thousands of laymen dentists, the point is, for the parent who is the subject of the essay- why bother with a conspiracy that involves such advances technology as a microchip that could be passed thru a 25 gauge needle when society provides puhLENTY of much more doable opportunities? I think you missed the irony of the comparison.
As to the push to make more of an all-in-one vaccine for newborns, yeah I can provide evidence, but I tend to put defensive people who call things they don’t agree with “little gems” kind of low on my priority list & I need to go whiten my son’s socks right now. If you are a nurse, you know full well that many other developed countries do their vaccines later, so if you’re maneuvering yourself into a position that will make you have to defend the vaccine industry, you might want to rethink.
Susan: Bring it. Just bring it.
“the point is, for the parent who is the subject of the essay- why bother with a conspiracy that involves such advances technology as a microchip that could be passed thru a 25 gauge needle when society provides puhLENTY of much more doable opportunities? I think you missed the irony of the comparison.”
And I think you’re a retard for making the same mistake twice. It wouldn’t matter what the supposed opportunities exist to do this (and there are plenty – I inject people twenty times a day sometimes), there would still have to be a massive conspiracy that would be utterly impossible to keep secret.
Human beings are HUMAN BEINGS. We’re crap at keeping our mouths shut.
I wither before this blinding display of your scathing intellectual brilliance. Pretending to regress into calling me a retard, wow, what a masterful display of the subtle irony of retro language. It’s so hip & fresh!
In all seriousness…it scares me that someone so hostile & eager to insult gets to weild needles far sharper than her tongue.
So…. What you’re saying is, you can’t actually respond to the point I made in the process of insulting you? Didn’t think so.
“it scares me that someone so hostile & eager to insult gets to weild needles far sharper than her tongue.”
It scares you because putting yourself in Custador’s shoes you wouldn’t be able to comport yourself to the ethical and moral standards of your profession once your poorly thought out beliefs get in the way.
Which goes to show that morons such as yourself do not actually have any sense of morality or ethics aside from the incidental confusing bigotry and misogyny contained in a book of bronze age mythology.
(hey that rhymed)
“No name calling. Failure to follow the comment policy will result in a ban.”
Also I’m confused by your oddly worded post. Are you saying I’m a moron because I get my ethics from the bible? I have not sourced my ethics so I’m not clear on your point.
One should not get one’s ethics from one’s profession. I think that is a dangerous formula. One’s ethics come from within & should be minimally flexible. Then you find a profession that lets you live those ethics. Yes, it is disturbing to idly gaze down a blog page & see someone who’s posting a lot of comments that clearly have a lot of anger behind them, who, as a professional, is given the care of people who are weak & vulnerable & needing of compassion.
You’re right the second part of that post was uncalled for.
I Apologize. The first part still stands.
It scares you because putting yourself in Custador’s shoes you wouldn’t be able to comport yourself to the ethical and moral standards of your profession once your poorly thought out beliefs get in the way.
Yes, let’s drop the namecalling please.
Susan, it seems like you’re mostly speculating (though you did imply vaccines cause higher mortality rates). What exactly are you claiming and what are some reputable sources for your claims?
“One should not get one’s ethics from one’s profession.”
Wrong. Different professions have different ethical standards. It is unethical for a Dr to discuss the personal details about a patient with friends and family and passing strangers. It’s Not unethical for a car mechanic to do the same.
“I think that is a dangerous formula. One’s ethics come from within & should be minimally flexible. Then you find a profession that lets you live those ethics.”
Just like how a serial killer gets his ethics from within?
“Yes, it is disturbing to idly gaze down a blog page & see someone who’s posting a lot of comments that clearly have a lot of anger behind them, who, as a professional, is given the care of people who are weak & vulnerable & needing of compassion.”
Are you saying you are weak and in need of compassion?
No, you are just trying to cloud the issue and prevent a person from speaking passionately about something they have knowledge by attempting to use someones profession against them.
Do you know how truly small a 25 gauge needle is – that’s the one they use for insulin so that it won’t hurt so much.
Custador, Susan was actually realistic about this. but I think you misread it a bit.
She said that if the government wanted to tag people, the could have done it at the dentist already? So she is not claming that the nanochip in the vaccines is true.
Also it is technicall possible to tag money with a RFID but realistically technology is not far enough to do it right on large scale. (yes I work as R&D and know electronics)
Also realistically, the pharma industrie is a commercial entity, so of course they will try to get some profit from the vaccines and try to promote it. Some small scale corruption might take place and in Russia or Afrika you even might find fake vaccines by snake ol sellers.
BUT a global wide scale conspiracy what the anti-vacines people clame is just imposible.
What the conspiracy people always forget is that they do not live in a planet called USA, but a planet called Earth? The USA and what they think as the ‘government” and the “pharmacy” is only a small subset of the global world. There are many many pharmacies and governments out there that even hate the USA. If the vaccine conspiracy is true these hate countries would expose it as proof that the USA is evil.
The pro’s and contra’s of vaccines is complicated. A vaccine could kill you, but then again kissing your girlfriend that just ate peanut butter sandwich and you do not know that you are alergic can also kill you. If you happen to be one of those unlucly people you will die from the vaccine and the kiss of your new grilfriend. Especially when your new girlfriend is so new and se has never been tested by kissing other people to be sure that she is safe.
The thing is that if I take the vaccine, I get a 1 in 1.000.000 to die. If I do not take it then I have a chance of 1 in 3 to get the mexican flue if no one else is vaccinated and when I get it I will probably get a chance of 1 in 1000 that I will die.
So the question is this, I take the vaccine and I die or I do not get the vaccine and also die of mexican flue. OK then I could ask other friend to take the vaccine so I will be safe but then I am murdering my family because they can also die from the vaccine… Hmmm problem problem problem. In the end it is a choice you maken, based on reliable information. And the anti-vaccine people are very unreliable sources.
Thanks. And I’m totally with you on the risks. The tiny tracking chip vaccine cocktail is just nutty. Where do they come up with this stuff? But you can call it crazy & still need to weigh the pros & cons of this new vaccine. Questioning the safety does not mean you’re in the conspiracy camp. Just means you’re being the kind of cautious consumer we’re forced to be these days.
Well the best way I’ve heard it put is this:
I’f you’re in a high-risk group for swine-flu, taking the vaccine has a slight risk, about the equivalent of crossing a road at a crossing (actually it’s a lot lower than that, but you get the picture), whereas NOT having the vaccine when you’re in a high-risk group is like walking blindfolded accross a motorway (freeway) a hundred times.
I had seasonal flu in January and then had swine flu in July. Because this year’s seasonal flu strain is similar to swine flu, my immune system was able to cope very well with swine flu, and it was extremely mild.
However, if you have not had flu in the last three years, your body won’t have ever seen a virus similar to swine flu, and you will get very ill. Like seasonal flu, it’s no joke. You know when people say “Oh. I’ve been ill with flu, cough cough”? Mostly they haven’t. What people think is flu is actually generally just a bad cold.
Real flu will put you on your arse. Seasonal flu in January knocked me down for over a week. I could barely move, hardly breath and felt like my whole body had been repeatedly beaten with bats. Hard. And that was just seasonal flu. Imagine what swine flu does to you if you’ve no active immunity to it at all.
Now combine that with an underlying medical condition like asthma or incomplete immunity such as in a young child or elderley person.
Now, contrary to the hype, swine flu doesn’t actually kill young, healthy people – their own immune system does. If you haven’t had the vaccine or a recent strain of flu, your immune system will never have seen anything like swine flu. Sometimes (not often, but it does happen) when your body encounters swine flu for the first time and has no reference to any other bug like it, your immune system will go berserk and quite literally kill you dead.
People talk about the risks of vaccines, how they have heavy-metals in them (actually they contain less than a percent of what you’d find in breast-milk), etc. etc. etc, but you have to remember that pharma companies can’t just produce one and say “here you go, jab that in your arm”, they have to be licensed.
You also have to remember that pharma companies can release two to three flu vaccines PER YEAR just to keep up with the rate of mutation of the flu virus. It’s really not surprising or unique how fast the swine flu vaccine came out – if anything they were a little slow with it.
Didn’t “Family Guy” do this before all of the H1N1 hype? IIRC Stewie had to get a vaccine and Brian told him it was a government conspiracy. Basically all of the same arguments your friend gave.
Yeah, and he got a fever and started hallucinating. Was a funny episode :-)
I just wanted to clarify some GPS-related points. I’m going to have to spoil some fun, though.
And that is because GPS is, essentially, a passive technology. The GPS chip receives signals from several satellites and compares timing information, which it then uses to pinpoint its position. The magic word here is receive; it doesn’t send anything to satellites, it just receives signals.
Which makes a GPS tracking device essentially a radio/mobile phone with attached GPS receiver. Far too big for implantation. Also, skin, blood and other liquids would largely attenuate the GPS signal, which will be even worse to pick up by miniature on-chip antennae so small the chip can be concealed easily. This conspiracy theory is wrong on so many levels; how can anyone take it seriously?
Daniel writes: Susan, it seems like you’re mostly speculating (though you did imply vaccines cause higher mortality rates). What exactly are you claiming and what are some reputable sources for your claims?
I don’t think I implied a higher mortality rate. Oh, I see where. That other countries have better infant mortality. Since they seem to be having more success as measured by babies living, it validates their various choices, one of which is to vaccinate later, a position most ardently faught by the U.S. pharmaceutical industry. If it works for other countries, & it seems to as we’re currently way down on the infant mortality list, then why aren’t we doing it? And if the pharma copanies are so right, why aren’t the other countires listening? And then we see all the money fights over drugs & we must face that our drs are not necessarily our advocates. We have to be aggressive, self-educated consumers even if than means asking dumb questions sometimes.
Whether or not the swine flu vac is safe isn’t a dumb question. It’s a new vaccine, rushed to market. And it comes in part from the govt which tested syphilis on black men, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment) withholding treatment that would have saved them. And the hubris of the medical system has given us many “safe” treatments, one well known one being thalidomide which caused all those armless kids natl geographic did articles about when we were young. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide#Birth_defects)
The point I was making is that the medical community has a strong tendency to overstate the safety of its practices, while the conspiracy theorists have a strong tendency to overstate the dangers of medical practices. One should be wary of anyone who is immovaly entrenched in either camp. Being close minded in any direction is dangerous. And a nurse saying, “those of us smart enough to have the vaccine will live. The retards will dies.” is hardly interested in a dialogue. The swine flu vaccine may be wonderfully safe. It may save us all. But it’s still ok to ask questions.
Susan, please correct me if I’ve misinterpreted what you’re saying here, (it’s the end the day here) but what I’m reading from you here is:
1) Some countries with better infant mortality stats innoculate infants at a few months old
2) USA doesn’t have a standardised system of infant innoculation
3) Some people are pushing for a system of infant innoculation at birth
Nothing there provides the slightest logical connection, let alone evidence, that at-birth innoculations are bad. Only that no standardised system of innoculations are worse than standardised innoculations at a few/several months old.
1 is correct. 2 is not, the US does have a standardized schedule. 3 yes. Various drug companies are working on more vaccines for newborns, pneumococcal diseases being one example.
Right. There is no connection, per se. I am not drawing any causal relationship between the US’s high infant mortality rate & their early & heavy vac schedule. I’m saying the overall picture is one to cause distrust, fairly so.
Let’s say I starve my dog, beat my child, have disgusting personal hygiene & steal small personal items from visitors. Then I offer you dinner. You may be uninclined to eat it. I might be the best cook in the county, but you’re so appalled at the rest of my life, how can you possibly trust that I’ll feed you something healthy & tasty? Of course you will be suspicious.
It’s the same with the current US medical system. The CIA site lists the latest info with the US as 44th in infant mortality. 44th! South Korea is ahead of us for god’s sake. So is Cuba. The current vaccine schedule for kids, & all vaccines, may be entirely safe. But the vaccines are made by pharmaceutical companies who’ve been nailed for taking so many drs on tropical jaunts, they ought to just buy their own line of tanning salons & maximize their investments. The sad facts of money trumping health, & the confirmed fact that we’re somewhere in the 40s even by generous standards, has tarnished the overall trustworthiness of medical advice in general. I don’t want people to be afraid of being labeled as whackos when they desperately need to be alert & questioning medical consumers. There is a world of different there.
I did some quick research. Babies in the US get 20 vaccines by a year old. Some countries are the same, but others, Iceland, only 7th down in infant mortality, give 11 by age one. I do not draw a causal relationship between Iceland’s place on the list & their lower shot rate, but they are clearly doing several somethings right. And I could use many other countries as examples.
I don’t have a problem with the medical system not having answers, I have a BIG problem when they pretend to know everything & scorn you for asking questions. An example- The current C-section rate in the US is about 31%. The world health organization recommends between 5-15% as a goal. Iceland’s rate is about 17%. Do women in Iceland have wider pelvises? I rather doubt it. Drs here do too many c-sections. This is well known. But you just TRY to find even one dr who will admit to ever doing an unnecessary c-section.
The answer is some drs are lying. Statistics like these are the kind of thing that make me feel it’s worthwhile to think critically when the medical community starts channeling Marcus Welby. Hey….Know what they call the guy who graduates last in his class at med school? “dr.” Hmmm…food for thought there.
“It validates their various choices, one of which is to vaccinate later, a position most ardently faught by the U.S.”
As we do in the UK, hence my extreme skepticism of your post about vaccinating new-borns. I genuinly cannot believe that they do that in the states – infants keep their mother’s immunity for up to a year after birth anyway, so it’s just pointless risk at that stage.
“the confirmed fact that we’re somewhere in the 40s even by generous standards”
Could that not just be because the rest of us already get free healthcare? We don’t pay for meds when our babies get ill, we just go and pick them up. As I understand it, that means a lot of folks in the US can’t get medicines for themselves or their kids when they need them.
“The current C-section rate in the US is about 31%. The world health organization recommends between 5-15% as a goal.”
There are two causes of that: First, you live in a nation which bills you for healthcare and if you have a caesarian, a surgeon can bill you a small fortune for it. Second, legal paranoia. If something goes wrong in a birth in the US, the doctor and midwife will get sued for NOT doing a caesarian. The compensation culture in the US is far worse than anywhere else (though the UK is catching up).
Conversly, unjustified distrust because of things not at all or just remotely causally related is also detrimental. So instead of being scared of the “big bad pharma” , why not actually research the issue?
I say this as someone who didn’t take a med due to paranoia and was worse off because of it. My fears were unfounded and I paid the price.
Could be that Icelandic women are better informed. Here (Brazil) I’ve seen dozens of women who demanded c-section because it’s convenient, because they’re afraid of feeling pain or staying in labor for several hours, because they’re afraid of complications. Drs are against it, women demand it because they have a bad understanding of both processes. Drs obey…
well, I do research. That’s what I’m saying.
Many specific examples of bad choice in the us medical industry has tarnished its reliability as a whole. “I really CARE about you baby, all those other women meant NOTHING to me!” Uh huh. Sure.
I know what you mean about Brazil. Certain countries have a high c-section rate seemingly for elective sx. I don’t think the women in Iceland are better informed per se. Every subset of treatment as a culture. In the US, for instance, it’s seen as radical to have a midwife instead of a dr. Yet in Denmark, you would naturally choose a midwife for your pregnancy. Drs are in the background. And in the cities in brazil, it’s upper class to schedule a clean, tidy c-section. Custador hits a major point in that US drs are totally paranoid about lawsuits.
Yeah, there’s lots of crazy conspiracy nuts out there. However, being an “anti-vaxer” myself, I would not have my children vaccinated. For one thing, there’s toxic agents in vaccines like formaldehyde and mercury (as well as other revolting things) that I don’t want in my body unless absolutely necessary. I’m not against critical vaccines for life-threatening illnesses, but people who have died from swine flu have mostly had concurrent bacterial infections like staph. This includes children. I believe in boosting immunity – exercise, nutrition, control stress, sleep, etc. and then I trust my immune system more than the pharma companies. They do not necessarily have my best interests at stake. Their motive is profit. So while I don’t think they have microchips, what the vaccines do contain are nearly as bad. I know this is a controversial subject, for some reason…and I get a lot of flack for my beliefs. But if you research, there’s plenty of data to support my opinion! So please hold off on giving me a tin hat for now…kthanx
Toxicity is a matter of dose. You are exposed to far more formaldehyde in your daily life than from any vaccine, and thiomersal (mercury compound) has not been used in common vaccines for several years now.
I’ll leave you with this link.
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