The Miller Family: The Rolling Pertussis-Mobile

[Carol]

I keep going back to their contention that they got the pertussis virus from someone who was vaccinated.  God, the arrogance!  Of course it adds weight to their theory that the vaccination is bad...but how the fuck could they gamble with their kid's lives that way?  Are all their children disposable?  Does losing a child elevate the status of the fundie family?  God's plan and all that?  I don't mean to be mean but this is all kinds of fucked up.

If Abigail, after having gone through hell, alone, with a seriously ill child, has changed her mind about vaccinations we'd never hear about it.  This would blow Paul's view of himself as the all knowing family patriarch, the great one, the one who knows best about everything 'cause god told him what to do.  

Fuck Patriarchy, fuck fundamentalist christianity.  Their deliberate ignorance is staggering.  I hope the Miller kids get the hell away from both parents as soon as they reach majority.  Not likely, but I'm hoping for at least one outlier.  

[JDuggs]

3 hours ago, chaotic life said:

Gosh golly.....it's not like ANTIBIOTICS early in the Disease process won't obliterate the disease entirely and thereby prevent the convalescent stage at all.

Nope, modern medicine has definitely found NOTHING to help this disease.

Just, you know, vaccines AND antibiotics....oh and a highly accurate test to identify it, and immunoglobulin treatments to specifically target.....and all of nifty options when you ignore all of the EASY treatment options and wait until your kid is in respiratory distress before seeking help.

This might have been an experience you've had with pertussis, but when my vaccinated twelve year old son and husband had it, neither of their doctors did anything to diagnose it and I think only my husband was prescribed antibiotics way too late to help. I know that pertussis in babies is a lot more serious and it is treated more seriously by doctors. Not to say that it wasn't horrible for my son and husband. Because their doctors weren't on the ball with the diagnosis, I don't think either of them missed any work or school. Who knows if they infected others. This was about five years ago and it seems like it was the beginning of the outbreaks because I don't think there was as much discussion about it as I read now.

[SadieJane]

My experience with the pertussis vaccine. My OBGYN insisted, INSISTED that I get the pertussis vaccine, at 34 week pregnant, so that it could get into the babies bloodstream as well.... I'm not a doctor, so I have no clue what this means, but yeah, I've had a lot of pertussis vaccines. I have to get them now for work (hospital), but I will always remember my OBGYN , whom was amazing with all my births, even the sucktastic ones, saying, I am going to give you shots now, and you're going to like it.  lmao.

 Also, I am dying that they arent taking that baby to go be looked at. Essential oils.... for real.... did you eat lead chips? Okay. I'm good.

[Shiny]

Edited. Sorry, it felt too personal.

Edited September 19, 2017 by Shiny

[JustmeandJas]

I have my booster (?) booked in for Thursday at 26 weeks pregnant. I doubt they will do it though as I've got a chest infection.
Luckily my GP practise is very on the ball with this - I remember a few years ago there was a big push in the UK for pregnant women to be vaccinated but, if the nurse hadn't have mentioned it, I would probably have forgotten all about it...

Would the mother having the vaccine in pregnancy have helped this poor baby?
At least we can assume that the adults are as unvaxxed as the kids?

Edited September 19, 2017 by laPapessaGiovanna
Removing tapa signature

[JermajestyDuggar]

10 minutes ago, JustmeandJas said:

Would the mother having the vaccine in pregnancy have helped this poor baby?

Possibly. But what would have helped this baby most would be his older siblings and parents to be vaccinated. If they had all been up to date on their vaccines, it's much less likely he would have caught it. Along with the 9 others. That's why my husband had his booster while I was pregnant. 

Edited September 19, 2017 by JermajestyDuggar

[JillyO]

Ughhh. I hate these fucking people. How can they watch their baby almost die from an easily preventable infection and still insist that their kids are better off without vaccines?

My MIL is a genuinely lovely person, but she has some fucked-up beliefs about vaccines. She's not entirely anti-vaxx, but she thinks vaccines are too hard on kids under four, and apparently they are better of risking contracting measles or chicken pox or whatever. Well, my husband's first memories are of the whooping cough he caught when he was three years old, and the pneumonia he got on top. His life was in serious danger, and yet my MIL still thinks she's right. Luckily, as she is a properly certified midwife, she is legally obligated to be up to date on her own vaccination schedule.

I got my Tdap booster shot last month.

[JermajestyDuggar]

56 minutes ago, JillyO said:

She's not entirely anti-vaxx, but she thinks vaccines are too hard on kids under four, and apparently they are better of risking contracting measles or chicken pox or whatever.

I noticed the Millers stated something similar. Saying all the vaccines are hardest on young children. 

Well if that is their thinking, why aren't they vaccinating their older children? They have three adult children who seem to be quite healthy. Why can't the parents and the older children vax? I just don't get it. If they had started backing their kids at say, 6 years old, this whole thing could have been prevented!

[ChickenettiLuvr]

This whole topic actually scares the bejeebers out of me. For whatever unlucky reason, my body doesn't respond properly or well to vaccines.

After receiving measles vaccines (twice) - I got the measles. Twice.

Every time but once on flu shots - I actually got the flu within 24 hours and was pretty sick. (The one time it DID work was great - everyone else came down hard with the flu, and my case was very mild.)

Fast forward to 2 years ago. Doctor's office gave me two shots. Within 48 hours I had frightening neurological symptoms and was in ER, paralyzed, then admitted to Neuro ICU.

One of my Neuro team actually listed vaccines now in my Known Drug Allergies. 

So ... praying this whole pertussis thing doesn't find me!

[Red Jumper]

If a vaccine were hardest on the little ones, wouldn't be this disease be even harder? I don't understand the logic.

[JenniferJuniper]

1 hour ago, Red Jumper said:

If a vaccine were hardest on the little ones, wouldn't be this disease be even harder? I don't understand the logic.

It is.  Small children are the most vulnerable. 

Some years back I went to see my GP for something unrelated and ended up getting a pertussis booster.  I asked why I needed it and the nurse said, "It's not for you.  It's for any babies you might come in contact with if you get it."

[NotQuiteMotY]

23 hours ago, Red Hair, Black Dress said:

I got the pertussis vaccine as a baby and then found out about 8 years ago that the vaccine doesn't last forever when I got whooping cough.

I think that's why they tell pregnant women to get the boosters during pregnancy, as well as the people who'd be handling the baby. There's no way to predict whose shot didn't take, better to get everyone.

1 hour ago, ChickenettiLuvr said:

This whole topic actually scares the bejeebers out of me. For whatever unlucky reason, my body doesn't respond properly or well to vaccines.

After receiving measles vaccines (twice) - I got the measles. Twice.

Every time but once on flu shots - I actually got the flu within 24 hours and was pretty sick. (The one time it DID work was great - everyone else came down hard with the flu, and my case was very mild.)

Fast forward to 2 years ago. Doctor's office gave me two shots. Within 48 hours I had frightening neurological symptoms and was in ER, paralyzed, then admitted to Neuro ICU.

One of my Neuro team actually listed vaccines now in my Known Drug Allergies. 

So ... praying this whole pertussis thing doesn't find me!

Oh, that sounds awful! I think you're the person everyone else gets vaccinated for...

[JermajestyDuggar]

1 hour ago, Red Jumper said:

If a vaccine were hardest on the little ones, wouldn't be this disease be even harder? I don't understand the logic.

The chemicals!!!!!! 

Seriously. That's all they talk about is the chemicals. When in actuality the chemicals in vaccines find their way into your body anyway. Like aluminum. But you can find aluminum in formula. 

[SoGladIWasCofE]

Everything is chemicals! This is a stupid argument!

[December]

1 hour ago, ChickenettiLuvr said:

This whole topic actually scares the bejeebers out of me. For whatever unlucky reason, my body doesn't respond properly or well to vaccines.

And people in your position are another solid reason that those who can get vaccinated safely should do it. Last time my doctor suggested I get a vaccine (actually, it was TDAP, so very relevant!) she was shocked I agreed immediately. Apparently she has to do a lot of convincing with most people, and plenty still refuse it, which is kinda sad.

7 minutes ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

Seriously. That's all they talk about is the chemicals. When in actuality the chemicals in vaccines find their way into your body anyway.

Also, in many cases, who knows what the heck goes into these other supplements/essential oils/etc. that people are using. 

[Red Jumper]

I'm glad there are chemicals in my shots. Otherwise they were imaginary and I'd better see a shrink to tell her I have hallucinations.

[sawasdee]

I'm another who is allergic to vaccines, and also to antibiotics. So if I get something like whooping cough, treatment for me is 19th century style. ( A doctor once said to me "If it was developed since 1900 you seem to be allergic to it!"....)

I rely on herd immunity. Which is why I'm very glad that vaccines are now very cheaply and widely available in Thailand, and most people get them. Very glad I don't live in a fundy/crunchy area - I'd be terrified to go out in an outbreak!

 

Edited September 19, 2017 by sawasdee

[Lurky]

6 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

Well if that is their thinking, why aren't they vaccinating their older children? They have three adult children who seem to be quite healthy. Why can't the parents and the older children vax? I just don't get it. If they had started backing their kids at say, 6 years old, this whole thing could have been prevented!

This is what I don't understand.  I guess their logic is homeopathic too.  The same thing happens with people who say they believe in vaccines, but not all at once, but then don't go by any other schedules.

I remember that Canadian(?) mother on Reddit going crackers because her daughter, who was 16 or 17, had taken herself off to free clinics and got herself the full range of vaccines, and how irate the mother was.  The hardcore anti-vaxxers seem to hate anyone getting vaccinated at all.

The ones I feel sorry for are the kids who don't even realise they aren't protected.  There are periodic outbreaks of mumps and measles in UK universities, because the parents who believed Wakefield's fraudulent bullshit he promoted to make money for himself.  Mumps as an adult is no joke, especially for men - orchiditis is horrible, and can leave men infertile.  So these poor lads who never even knew they were at risk. 

I do wonder if people in that situation will end up suing their parents.  In the UK, it's all about Wakefield's deliberate lies-for-profit about the (completely disproved) "links" between autism and the MMR jab, and I do wonder why there hasn't been some kind of court case against him from young adults and families damanged by his bullshit.  It's hard because he's basically fled the UK, but he is a vile excuse for a human, and it's pretty horrifying Trump was meeting with him.

[BlackberryGirl]

I am what happens when a mother has Rubella during early pregnancy. I am quite deaf, have mild cp, I was born with a VSD, and collapsed lungs and had to be resuscitated. They didn't even weigh me at first, a couple days later i was 4 pounds. The nurse baptized me while the dr was doing mouth to mouth.

 

The Rubella vaccine came out in 1969 or 70. My mother came to school and pulled me and my sister out of class and drove about 50 miles one way to a doctor she heard had the vaccine.

Vaccines and seatbelts are my soapbox issues.

[sawasdee]

There is an Agatha Christie novel, "The Mirror Crack'd From Side To Side" (later made into a film) where the motive for the murder is that the victim went to see the murderer knowing that she had rubella - and the murderer's child was subsequently born with severe disabilities. I read it as a child, and it made a major impression on me - Ms Christie may have saved others by that book. She obviously felt quite strongly about it, from the way she wrote, with the murderer being treated with sympathy - unusual for Christie.

Edited September 19, 2017 by sawasdee

[FundieFarmer]

I too am very sensitive to the flu vaccine. Every time I get it, I get sick. My mother just doesn't seem to get that. "Get your flu shot!" "Mom, it makes me sick..." "No it doesn't, you just already got the flu!"

Every time, right after I got the flu??

I have a fairly strong immune system for someone with all my heart problems, but I stay away from the communicable things. Even working in a hospital [emoji23]

[Lurky]

44 minutes ago, sawasdee said:

There is an Agatha Christie novel, "The Mirror Crack'd From Side To Side" (later made into a film)

Oh, that was based on a real life case - Gene Tierney was doing WWII work as a lot of Hollywood did, and was unknowingly infected with rubella while she was pregnant, by someone who later wrote to her to say how thrilled she was to meet her, and how she'd snuck out of the barracks despite being quarantined.  Tierney never forgave herself for the disabilities her daughter suffered as a result.

(If you want to know more about Tierney, there's a great podcast - I love this series: http://www.youmustrememberthispodcast.com/episodes/youmustrememberthispodcastblog/2015/1/27/star-wars-episode-iv-gene-tierney-or-the-many-loves-of-howard-hughes-chapter-5)

Edited September 19, 2017 by Lurky

[sawasdee]

@Lurky I didn't know it was based on a real life incident! Maybe that explains the anger Christie seemed to feel at the victim, who was portrayed as a very unlikeable person -  - and the sympathy for the killer.

But the book was a good PSA.

Edited September 19, 2017 by sawasdee

[Lurky]

@sawasdee I'm really interested in the books where Christie has sympathy for killers - Murder on the Orient Express, and at the end of Crooked House, eg.  Even when she doesn't overtly, Poirot will often let killers commit suicide, rather than face the shame/scandal of a court case (though that's cloaked in sympathy for their families and so on).  I always wondered, as a teen, why Poirot always believed the murdered had taken the shotgun out and done the 'honourable' thing, rather than fired into the air and legged it!

ETA It was a great PSA, and I really liked the book.  I always remember how well Elizabeth Taylor played the part in the film, too (though Joan Hickson is the only screen Miss Marple for me!)

Edited September 20, 2017 by Lurky

[sawasdee]

@LurkyJoan Hickson embodies the Miss Marple of the books, and is definitely the best portrayal. But I always have a soft spot for the totally batty Miss Marple of Margaret Rutherford...and the way she always insisted her husband have a bit part.