Reminder that in the UK in 1900, before mass vaccination for childhood diseases began, 20% of all babies died before their fifth birthday (from diseases we currently vaccinate them against).
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@graydon @petealexharris @cstross but the set of babies that seem to end up killed by their policies is often their own. Conning *other people* into not vaccinating their children might make sense, but so far, it's mostly their own political supporters (whom of course they might regard as mere meat for the grinder).
To me it looks like panic at the loss of white majority and political power, and they are flailing, destructively, hoping to blow up the world so that the rubble will land "better".
@dr2chase Reducing white women to the status of chattel is important to the project; they can't do that without reversing the demographic transition as it applies to white people, too. And that unconcerned "kid died of measles" couple may well be representative.
They've deeply internalized "women, cattle, and slaves" and a Late Romantic "survival of the fittest" which ignores the actual environment and supposes some ideal person. Facts are not much involved anywhere.
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@cstross People who are anti-vaccination for whatever fruitloops reason need to spend some quality time in old churchyards looking at monuments to dead children put up by bereft parents.
@Infoseepage @cstross It seems like the generations that remember losing siblings, cousins, and friends to what are now vaccine-preventable diseases have mostly passed away so we’ve lost firsthand accounts of what it was like.
My late paternal grandpa, from the Silent Generation, lost one of his school friends to measles.
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@david_chisnall @arafel @cstross @bjn @lauren Tangential, but perhaps worth noting: blanks can indeed kill at sufficiently close range.
Though yeah, it'd certainly be nice if the antivaxers could experiment on themselves in isolation without inflicting the effects on the rest of society.
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@bhasic This is scary.
@Infoseepage @cstross -
RE: https://mastodon.laurenweinstein.org/@lauren/115963873612884664
Reminder that in the UK in 1900, before mass vaccination for childhood diseases began, 20% of all babies died before their fifth birthday (from diseases we currently vaccinate them against).
RFK jr's appointee wants to kill roughly 20% of all newborn Americans "to improve the breed" or something.
(Not including those paralysed for life by polio.)
@cstross I am not a medical professional, nor do I wish to play devil's advocate, but common sense tells us that at the beginning of the 20th century, hygiene standards and knowledge of medicines were much lower, so it is difficult to assess the impact of one factor or another on child mortality.
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@cstross I am not a medical professional, nor do I wish to play devil's advocate, but common sense tells us that at the beginning of the 20th century, hygiene standards and knowledge of medicines were much lower, so it is difficult to assess the impact of one factor or another on child mortality.
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@gwenh @cstross
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7086672/"The infant mortality rate in 1880 in New York City, a particularly crowded urban area, was as high as 288 per 1000 live-born infants, primarily related to various infectious processes. Infectious diseases such as diarrhea, diphtheria, scarlet fever and tuberculosis dominated as the major causes of morbidity and mortality among children... "
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@gwenh @cstross
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7086672/"The infant mortality rate in 1880 in New York City, a particularly crowded urban area, was as high as 288 per 1000 live-born infants, primarily related to various infectious processes. Infectious diseases such as diarrhea, diphtheria, scarlet fever and tuberculosis dominated as the major causes of morbidity and mortality among children... "
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"The early years of organized U.S. pediatrics were marked by a number of landmark advances in the diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases of children, with substantial reduction in infant mortality rates, to 189/1000 live births in New York City in 1900, with rates as low as 147 in Chicago and as high as 311 in Biddeford, ME (5)."
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"The early years of organized U.S. pediatrics were marked by a number of landmark advances in the diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases of children, with substantial reduction in infant mortality rates, to 189/1000 live births in New York City in 1900, with rates as low as 147 in Chicago and as high as 311 in Biddeford, ME (5)."
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RE: https://mastodon.laurenweinstein.org/@lauren/115963873612884664
Reminder that in the UK in 1900, before mass vaccination for childhood diseases began, 20% of all babies died before their fifth birthday (from diseases we currently vaccinate them against).
RFK jr's appointee wants to kill roughly 20% of all newborn Americans "to improve the breed" or something.
(Not including those paralysed for life by polio.)
It's eugenics. The rich will still get vaccines for their kids, while the poor will be denied vaccines, care, and coverage.
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@cstross All countries should ban American entrants unless they have up to date vaccination certificates.
Certificates can be faked. Blood tests at the port of entry administered by port authority medics would work better.
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RE: https://mastodon.laurenweinstein.org/@lauren/115963873612884664
Reminder that in the UK in 1900, before mass vaccination for childhood diseases began, 20% of all babies died before their fifth birthday (from diseases we currently vaccinate them against).
RFK jr's appointee wants to kill roughly 20% of all newborn Americans "to improve the breed" or something.
(Not including those paralysed for life by polio.)
@cstross If I may be allowed a small rant.
What shits me is that this nonsense doesn't stay in the US. These folk fund anti-vax messaging across the world.
So, a sole health worker in remote Australia has to combat targeted anti-vax propoganda funded by US organisations, and increasingly by the US government. Some US organisations simply pay elders to betray their communities' best interests. The local clinic nurse doesn't always succeed in winning against the powerful, and in some remote communities old diseases have come back.
These communicable diseases make unusable the sole medical clinic for hundreds of kilometres.
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Certificates can be faked. Blood tests at the port of entry administered by port authority medics would work better.
@MissGayle @cstross But would take too long.
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@MissGayle @cstross But would take too long.
Too long for whom? Only Americans would be affected, and frankly, that doesn't bother me any. And yes, I'm American.
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@cstross https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Alexander_(polio_survivor)
Considering he died not that long ago means there are polio survivors probably still floating around, so it isn’t that long ago polio was killing people. I also remember my mom talking about her mom taking them and standing in line for the vaccine when it came out because she knew how deadly it was.
Yes, there are polio survivors “still floating around” — here's one I know:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/171663427-limp-forward
(Thank you Libo for being an inspiring colleague in several presentations and projects.)
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RE: https://mastodon.laurenweinstein.org/@lauren/115963873612884664
Reminder that in the UK in 1900, before mass vaccination for childhood diseases began, 20% of all babies died before their fifth birthday (from diseases we currently vaccinate them against).
RFK jr's appointee wants to kill roughly 20% of all newborn Americans "to improve the breed" or something.
(Not including those paralysed for life by polio.)
And his "vaccines cause autism" nonsense is basically old folklore about changelings in a new guise.
https://sunkencastles.com/2025/10/27/a-long-history-of-ableism-the-changeling-narrative/
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@cstross I am not a medical professional, nor do I wish to play devil's advocate, but common sense tells us that at the beginning of the 20th century, hygiene standards and knowledge of medicines were much lower, so it is difficult to assess the impact of one factor or another on child mortality.
@gwenh Not just that: overcrowding was rife to an extent that's largely forgotten today. 20 people sleeping in the same room.
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@cstross That means they’ll need even more white babies. Don’t these people talk to each other?
@cstross reminds me of the project Lebensborn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensborn @bart
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@cstross If I may be allowed a small rant.
What shits me is that this nonsense doesn't stay in the US. These folk fund anti-vax messaging across the world.
So, a sole health worker in remote Australia has to combat targeted anti-vax propoganda funded by US organisations, and increasingly by the US government. Some US organisations simply pay elders to betray their communities' best interests. The local clinic nurse doesn't always succeed in winning against the powerful, and in some remote communities old diseases have come back.
These communicable diseases make unusable the sole medical clinic for hundreds of kilometres.
