• MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    His issue was specifically with mercury. Which was in medically insignificant amounts at the time and is no longer used.

    The medical consensus on the increase in childhood issues over the past forty years is that it’s not really in increase. It’s an increase in diagnosis. 40 years ago most kids who had an autism spectrum issue were undiagnosed and remain so to this day.

    However what we do have on our hands are measles outbreaks and polio on the horizon due to vaccine skepticism. I saw a study yesterday on Lemmy showing that 31% of Republicans think vaccines are worse than the diseases they prevent, which is total insanity. Few seem to understand herd immunity or even really the purpose of vaccination.

    I think it’s because we haven’t seen children dying large numbers due to measles and all the people who were crippled for life by polio are dead. Because we vaccinated almost everyone. Now that it’s a distant memory people question what the vaccines are for.

    • discusseded@programming.dev
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      1 month ago

      I can see how the advance/change of criteria can lead to an increase in diagnosis. But I don’t think it’s merely a perception that has evolved. Cancer rates in youth are rising significantly. The recommended age for common cancer screens are being lowered to reflect the change.

      There was a time when the use of lead was perfectly normal and the flight to eliminate it for public safety was deemed as fringe. Likewise, I feel that we have new kinds of pollutants affecting our health and I have a keen interest in knowing what’s safe and what isn’t, now that I have children to care for.

      I see vaccinations as one of humanity’s greatest achievements. mRNA technology is exciting to me. But just like scaremongering upsets me, so does hasty policy making and social policing.

      That said, my family is fully up to date on vaccination schedules. But I have worries that if we let our guards down and only take in facts on authority, we’ll give way to corruption due to our unquestioning nature. This is in no way limited to vaccines, in fact I hardly question vaccines at all. I’m mostly interested in industrial pollution and Robert has extensive experience in this area. That’s why I favored him, as a figure who lived to expose industrial and government corruption at the cost of human health.