The "false god" of modern medicine

[browngrl]

Not to be mean and insensitive (ok, actually to be mean and insensitive) but perhaps this sort of thing is just evolution in action. If someone is offered a readily available prevention for something that could kill/disable and they decline - well that is a very poor survival tactic. I can just imagine fundie sorts in cave man days:

Scene one: caveman #1-I have discovered fire which can cook food and warm you and be a weapon

fundie caveman- not for me - if God wanted us to have fire he would have made our fingers into matches

Scene two: fundie cave man is frozen and can't move so he is eaten by a saber tooth tiger

:)

[Blahblah]

Last year, I came upon a group called the Australian Vaccination Network (which sounds like a group who might espouse the benefits of vax, don't be fooled), and last week after doing a bit more reading, I see that there revered president, Meryl Dorey, is also an Aids Denialist......

avn.org.au

This woman seems to be all sorts of stupid though, spouting off random information to suit herself.

meryldorey.org

The NSW Dept of Fair Trading ordered the avn to change their name late last year.

Edu.au/anti-vaccination-network-told-to-change-its-name-or-be-shut-down-11368

[Sister_Wife]

The NSW Dept of Fair Trading ordered the avn to change their name late last year.

Edu.au/anti-vaccination-network-told-to-change-its-name-or-be-shut-down-11368

Yes, They have seven days left....

[guidedbybobafett]

I feel like people like this- particularly the non-religious ones, have a real issue with thinking they are somehow smarter than people who you know, spend their whole lives studying modern medicine. What makes someone believe they could possibly know more than tens of thousands of medical professionals? What kind of brain block makes someone believe they know better than the CDC?! That's some serious blind narcissism right there, gotta say.

[Wolfie]

Not to be mean and insensitive (ok, actually to be mean and insensitive) but perhaps this sort of thing is just evolution in action. If someone is offered a readily available prevention for something that could kill/disable and they decline - well that is a very poor survival tactic. I can just imagine fundie sorts in cave man days:

Scene one: caveman #1-I have discovered fire which can cook food and warm you and be a weapon

fundie caveman- not for me - if God wanted us to have fire he would have made our fingers into matches

Scene two: fundie cave man is frozen and can't move so he is eaten by a saber tooth tiger

:)

But what worries me is if these people, allowing their children to be hosts for these diseases, also allow the diseases to mutate so that those of us who are vaccinated are now succeptable.

I agree with the other poster, that somehow these people can't belive that the threats of these illnesses are real simply because they haven't seen it in their lifetime. This is very, very stupid. I have a teeny medicine kit that my great-great-great grandfather brought out to CA in a wagon in 1851. Nothing in there will actually treat these diseases. Some of the "meds" may help with symptoms, but nothing will treat them. We live in a much better time now, why want to turn back to the 1800's?

[kolga]

I am heavily involved in the movement to counter the antivaccine propaganda surrounding us - I participate in a number of webpages, blogs, and Facebook pages designed to either counter the AV lies, or actively take them down (i.e., the AVN, the former Proud Parents of Unvaccinated Children page on FB). I even wrote a book for parents recently about the issue.

One thing that has always struck me, hard, about the anti-vaccine movement is their utter contempt for science, scientists, doctors, research, or anything outside of their "I feel, therefore it is" mindset. I am, of course, used to the relatively normal anti-intellectual bias in American society, where education is to be mocked and sneered at, and ignorance held up as a virtue. But the levels of contempt in the anti-vaccine movement are far beyond that. They literally see scientists and doctors as purveyors of evil lies designed to kill children for the enjoyment of the scientists and doctors. I can't count the posts and threads I've read accusing me, or others like me, of delighting in the "damage" to children via "Western/allopathic medicine."

Another thing at which I've always marveled is the anti-vaccine movement's complete egocentrism. They write/post "I never got sick, therefore vaccines aren't needed!" "Nobody in my family died of polio, therefore polio is not dangerous!" as if they believe the historical documentations of disease epidemics are faked in some way (and some of them actually do).

They live in a world of fear and paranoia, and I'd allow them to do so, if they weren't placing innocent lives at risk with their filthy propaganda and their anti-science rhetoric.

[maybeizfundie]

Yes, though often if you call them on the "doctors are liars" thing with personal knowledge of real live doctors who are not, they will back pedal and do the whole song and dance about exceptions to rules.

Your doctor may mean well. But he's stupid. :roll:

I'm watching several whooping cough sagas among friends who don't vax. It just goes on, and on, and on. ER visits, oxygen, sleepless nights. For weeks and weeks on end. But later on they will say "Oh, my kids had it and it was no big deal." Or worse "Vaccinated kids are the reason my kids got it."

[docmom]

Our doctors today are not practicing the same kind of medicine as Luke the physician did in the Bible.

By this logic they shouldn't be doing anything that wasn't done in the Bible... I have to say I love that FJerites are for the most part so pro-vaccination. It makes a real change from some other sites I've been on. I've spent most of my professional career working an an HIV vaccine and I can tell you I'm not making huge amounts of money and I'm not evil and in cahoots with the government to destroy all christian children. I watched many people die of AIDS despite fantastic diets and tons of herbal medications. I saw the almost overnight miracle of anti-retroviral therapy (the first patient I put on it was kicked out of his hospice 6 months later for not dying). Now I want a world free of AIDS- that's my motivation. You don't have to go back to Victorian times to see the devastation that infectious diseases have caused, but if you do go back and read some contemporaneous texts you'd be on your knees thanking science for vaccines and modern medicine. Just an aside, I wonder if they know that Queen Victoria's daughter and several of her grandchildren died from diphtheria.

[cindyluvs24]

How distorted must this person's view of history be? All the widespread death caused by disease.... And if she thinks the immune system God gave us is not affected by outside influences, how does she explain the drastic population decrease of the Native Americans when Europeans came over?

The willful ignorance is maddening.

Oh thats easy. To them, native savages are simply inferior to "us". Therefore, God won't mind when the soldiers hand out blankets with smallpox microbes on them to the Indian tribes.

[cindyluvs24]

My MIL lost a baby brother to polio. She used to drive me crazy checking to make sure I got Junior all of his shots. My grandmother came over from the old country. In her day, it was expected to lose one or two kids to illness or infection. Ironically, she felt that vaccinations and operations and antibiotics were miracles from God.

As far as the autism thing, I have a son with Asperger's. I have pissed off many moms in my special ed PTA group in my town over the years because I have attributed his HFA to: My husband's age, my age , a few lullabelles lurking on both sides of the family tree -- not vaccinations! I mean, go ahead and blame drugs but at least take a good look at other factors first. They didn't like that.

As far as modern medicine in general, I freakin' love the specialists at Sloan-Kettering. It makes me feel better to know that there are people with big brains in the world. They are making sure my husband has every advantage. If fundies want to pray and drink cranberry juice, go ahead. Me? I pray to the insurance company and Big Pharma.

[Roycroft]

The book that I am currently reading, about death and the American Civil War, is very blunt about the huge numbers of both soldiers and civilians that died due to various communicable diseases rather than bullets. (This Republic of Suffering, by Drew Gilpin Faust - I highly recommend it if you like reading about that era of history.) Thousands died on both sides, and both Generals Sherman and Longstreet lost children to typhoid. There was nothing that anyone could do to prevent those illnesses, and not much that could be done to treat them, except pray for the victims to recover. I cannot imagine how horrible that must have been for everyone involved.

Maybe fundies should try reading books instead of crying for them to be banned.

On a lighter note, I've been to Africa, so I've been vaccinated six ways from Sunday. Just think of all the mental illnesses and physical infirmities I have to look forward to, all due to ebil science! :lol:

[browngrl]

"Our doctors today are not practicing the same kind of medicine as Luke the physician did in the Bible."

Hell, I am not even practicing the same medicine as I learned in med school -because science moves on and new information and studies come to light. I can not roll my eyes enough.

[jenny_islander]

"Our doctors today are not practicing the same kind of medicine as Luke the physician did in the Bible."

Hell, I am not even practicing the same medicine as I learned in med school -because science moves on and new information and studies come to light. I can not roll my eyes enough.

Back in St. Luke's day they believed in the four humors, the power of the moon and stars over medicinal plants, the physical resemblance of plants to the body parts they were supposed to cure, and the vaccinatory power of engraved gemstones. What exactly does she think St. Luke was doing, I wonder?

[Free2BeMe]

After reading this thread I am reminded that I need to get myself assessed for Medicaid so I can recieve my boosters. I think I'm late on a few. :?