Anti-Vaccination Misinformation

In times of crisis, the only thing that is worse than the crisis itself is the misinformation campaign that pops up like weeds on a sidewalk. No more is this evident than what we see with COVID-19 leaving it's mark on the globe. No more is the misinformation campaign more dangerous than the one we see with the anti-vaccination movement, with wild assertions and theories that grow increasingly insane as time goes on.

It would be easy to just ignore these individuals entirely, just brush off their insanity as if it were nothing. However, even when there wasn't a global pandemic that was circulating across the globe, the real-life consequences that these individuals have already caused are enough to take the threat that they pose to the world seriously. With the current pandemic that we're experiencing today, it's that much more important to ensure more people don't get brainwashed into believing the dangerous bullshit they peddle. It's become increasingly apparent, as their beliefs grow wilder by the day, that even after this whole thing blows over, tackling the nebulous lies of the anti-vaccination movement will be a pressing issue going forward.

There's an obvious reason why there's a global push to find a vaccine for this virus. COVID-19 is a nasty little fucker, just like the diseases that humanity has made preventable - mumps, measles, rubella, pertussis, and polio, along with many others. In the case of COVID-19, blood clots and respiratory issues are the most prominent issues. I don't know about you, but I don't want that shit in my bloodstream, so yes, I'm in full support for a vaccine for COVID-19.

The mental gymnastics trying to connect 5G cell phone towers with COVID-19 are goddamn pathetic at best. The prospect of a zoonotic disease being spread by radio waves is laughable and defies all logic. Not to mention that the idiots trying to connect the two are woefully oblivious on the actual reasons the average person is leery towards 5G, chief among them being security and surveillance concerns. So no, harassing an electrician installing fiber optic cables and claiming they're trying to spread the virus around doesn't make one a freedom fighter, it makes one a a clueless jackass that the average person will (accurately) think has lost their fucking mind.

The same applies to this insane notion that Bill Gates being this kind of cartoon super-villain who wants to use the eventual COVID-19 vaccine to install microchips in people, with a grab bag of reasons that make it feel as though they were written up by some drunken bastard throwing darts at a wall while blindfolded. You do realize that you could have your information tracked through whatever device you might be reading this article on, right? You already have Google and Amazon getting shit for it because they use your browsing information for personalized ads designed to catch your eye, right? Why the hell do you think that free speech advocates are fighting tooth and nail to protect encryption on mobile phones? As is the cse with trying to connect 5G with COVID-19, anti-vaccination supporters latching onto these crazy theories , where actual, legitimate problems are staring us in the face, takes the focus away from those realistic issues to the point that anti-vaccination supporters need to be told to fuck off.

If you truly want the answer to what the hell is going on, I'll make this point more eloquently than a thousand carefully crafted sonnets could ever hope to achieve. All of these conspiracy theories are a distraction from the stark reality that COVID-19 presents to us. This virus isn't something that magically disappears with industrial-grade bleach or whatever the hell the anti-vaccination supporters pass off as a cure. The key reason why things are as bad as they are right now is that the areas that were the hardest hit didn't take the threat that COVID-19 presents until the problem was right on top of them. Meanwhile, the countries that took this seriously - Iceland, Greenland, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Taiwan and Hong Kong - were on top of the issue when there were just a handful of cases, and their success of keeping the virus on a leash whilst others dismissed it should be an absolute embarrassment to those that blew off how severe it was.

But alas, the denial from the anti-vaccination supporters will continue, and they will adamantly insist on going down this road of denial. With that being said, it's important to try and dissuade those who may be fooled into the anti-vaccination camp to understand the various flaws in their logic.

Facts and science take a back seat as they use cherry-picked data to prop up their narrative, as they trust the words of a random person on the internet over scientific findings and research. There is a whole slew of what essentially amounts to poison that is peddled by sources like NaturalNews, which anti-vaccination supporters claim is better for them than the medicines that doctors prescribe to their patients based on observations of their health. The only thing that the anti-vaccination camp cares about is being right, not being shown the truth that stares back at them, cold and unrelenting.

Like I said, it's incredibly frustrating to have to talk about the anti-vaccination camp. But going back towards the beginning of this article, the only thing worse than the crisis itself is the misinformation campaign that follows in it's wake. This isn't some harmless conspiracy theory like believing that a society of mole people live under our feet. This is a dangerous belief system with documented, real-life consequences stemming from their actions. Measles, a disease that was completely being eradicated from the Western world in 2000, has seen a resurgence because enough idiots are out there that believe a child-abusing scam artist who made that claim to try and cash in on an MMR vaccine patent. Not one person in the history of humankind has died due to autism, yet the past twenty years have shown us news stories of abusive parents refusing to vaccinate their children, sometimes to the point of negligently killing them. Even now, we have perhaps a few million irresponsible parents out there who insist on playing Russian roulette with their own flesh and blood.

Here's hoping that when this blows over, enough pressure is put onto the anti-vaccination camp that a generation from now, they'll be nothing more than an unfortunate carpet stain in our history. Here's hoping that their asinine actions will be laughed at by future generations who laugh at their ignorance.

But for now, I need to take things one day at a time.

So until next time, in the immortal words of Edward R. Murrow, "Good night and good luck".