this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2025
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Politics
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Yeah. Sure. Measles can actually destroy the immune system so that it forgets not only that you have had measles, but everything else you've developed an immunity to (it's called immune amnesia) by having the disease or having a vaccine, and face getting the whole mob again. Or, you could be the 1 or 2 people in 1000 who will die, or the 1 in 1000 who will get encephalitis and live, albeit significantly intellectually and physically disabled. Or you could get subacute sclerosing panencephalitis ten years after you had measles, and that's almost always fatal.
Makes getting shingles after having chicken pox as a kid seem like a walk in the park, mmm?
How the fuck can anyone possibly think autism is worse than this?
Because they mostly have no clue that measles is a potentially fatal illness, with potential severe lifelong complications including some which require 24/7/365 full nursing care.
They think of it as a mild rash with mild flu-y symptoms for a week or two.
They also have no idea it is so very contagious.
So though the measles vaccine has an amazing safety & efficacy record, whether singly or as part of the combined MMR, with endless research turfing up no link to autism whatsoever, and carrying only a negligible risk of vaccine injury (none as severe as the complications of measles), those who reject it do so not only out of totally false beliefs about the vaccine, but also out of fully wild misconceptions about the risk of measles.
Though now the anti-vaxx movement has become such a big thing for a while, they're all egging each other on with the help of ideological pundits. This combines to create a group highly distrustful of public health organisations and all medical advice on the matter, who are much more resistant to accepting correct information than their vaccine-shy counterparts ever were in the past. It also seems to be true that scary conspiracy theories are comforting to them in a world where serious infections can just catch a person, where autism isn't something one can simply opt out of - they want simple answers, and everything which debunks that simple wilful ignorance is a threat to their sense of security.
Ignorance