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).

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.)

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.)

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.)

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 wow, what a moron - we had to monitor our sewage systems and proactively vaccinate children to get rid of the damn thing.

I remember growing up with kids my age wearing thick metal frames around their legs because of the disease.

Don't see them anymore because we eradicated it.

Get rid of the idiots soon guys!

@cstross I wonder when the rest of the world will start requiring USians to have proof of vaccination before entering the country

@cstross callous and selfish people like the MAHA folks need callus and selfish responses. Its all they understand. One such response in the 'my tax dollars range' : It is my tax dollars they are wasting. Why should my tax dollars pay to treat you when you could have been vaccinated? My tax dollars paid for that vaccine, why are you wasting it. Its not the government, it's my tax dollars. Etc blah blah.

@jpages Massive public education campaigns and immediate isolation of outbreak patients put the brakes on. As did better living conditions (it's hard to isolate in a slum with eight people sleeping to a room; also hard to isolate when there are ten kids in a family).

@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.

@arafel @bjn @lauren Preferably a wilderness area rewilded with cloned-from-DNA-samples sabretooth tigers.

@cstross @bjn @lauren Well, ideally, yes. But I'm not a perfectionist, no need to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Areas densely populated by black bears would work just as well. Or even polar bears, if we're going for neutral territory to avoid favouritism.

@cstross No, put them where they want to be. Greenland.

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 No, put them where they want to be. Greenland.

@bjn @cstross @lauren It's not, but I'm starting to think that the proponents of "stop vaccinating, natural selection!" should be left in a wilderness area for a week or two, on their own, with whatever tools they can make. Natural selection, right?

@bjn @cstross @lauren It's not, but I'm starting to think that the proponents of "stop vaccinating, natural selection!" should be left in a wilderness area for a week or two, on their own, with whatever tools they can make. Natural selection, right?

@Infoseepage @suzannealdrich @cstross I binged through the @empirepoduk podcast, haven't finished it, but listened to 150+ episodes. It's good.

There was a fascinating one where a British woman brought the concept and technology of #smallpox #inoculation home with her from #Turkey...

Here it is:

'She was a pioneering scientist, proto-feminist, and letter writer extraordinaire. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu escaped a marriage to Clotworthy Skeffington to become one of history's most incredible women. Listen this week as William and Anita are joined by Katie Hickman to tell the tale of her life.'

https://youtu.be/Ji8JlFNz1rA

'Clotworthy Skeffington,' I think that might be my next fake name.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Mary_Wortley_Montagu

@graydon @cstross

If they *were* just a death cult that would also be true.

Not saying it's that simple, but if someone said "Look out, that death cult is coming to get us" I don't think "But they only want to kill people like us, not themselves" would be responsive to the situation. Which is why I think *from outside the cult* there's no important terminological distinction.

If they could be reasoned with, you could apply reason to their goals as they perceive them, yes.

@cstross Not to put a too fine point on that, but people in iron lungs also don’t breed easily.

Pure eugenics.

@cstross Unfortunately, there is nothing that will convince vaccine skeptics.

I once watched the BBC programme "Unvaccinated" by Hannah Fry, who meets seven unvaccinated people in an experiment.

She showed them the evidence, they slowly started to believe the evidence, or said that they did, but they remained skeptics at the end of the programme.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0019g27