this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2025
914 points (99.5% liked)

Not The Onion

14465 readers
1574 users here now

Welcome

We're not The Onion! Not affiliated with them in any way! Not operated by them in any way! All the news here is real!

The Rules

Posts must be:

  1. Links to news stories from...
  2. ...credible sources, with...
  3. ...their original headlines, that...
  4. ...would make people who see the headline think, “That has got to be a story from The Onion, America’s Finest News Source.”

Comments must abide by the server rules for Lemmy.world and generally abstain from trollish, bigoted, or otherwise disruptive behavior that makes this community less fun for everyone.

And that’s basically it!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Marjorie Taylor Greene, a prominent Republican congresswoman and a staunch ally of Trump, suggested a return to "measles parties" for children. She criticized contemporary attitudes towards vaccination, stating, "Now, they demonize parents who refuse to vaccinate their kids."

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] riskable@programming.dev 190 points 3 days ago (3 children)

"I didn't vaccinate my kids and the one that lived turned out fine!"

[–] postmateDumbass@lemmy.world 37 points 2 days ago

"The Shotgun Philosophy of Life"

[–] hohoho@lemmy.world 32 points 2 days ago

Survivorship bias at its finest

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] atzanteol@sh.itjust.works 171 points 2 days ago (1 children)

“Now, they demonize parents who refuse to vaccinate their kids.”

It's pretty normal to demonize parents who abuse children.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 114 points 2 days ago (6 children)

She thinks the measles are like chicken pox, pretty much harmless to young ones. My parents tried to get me sick in the 70s, that's just how it was done before we had a chicken pox vaccine. Finally got it at 16, still have the scars nearly 40-years later. But I got my shingles vax!

She's literally this stupid. Some things we see these nuts try to pull off make sense, from an evil point of view. This move is plain stupid, and because we've forgotten what measles are people will listen.

BTW, I'm 54 and just now learning what measles are and how bad it can be. I had no clue, because I've never met anyone that had it.

[–] Ledericas@lemm.ee 22 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

i had chickenpox as a kid, i remember the aveeno baths for it, we were set in the same room to "inonculate" the rest of the siblings. as there was no vaccine at the time. Chickenpox is quite severe for adults though. i did get shingles around 20yo though. theres is shingles to potentially turn severe, but its rare. shingles can cause meningitis, and encephalitis, as well as spinal cord damage.

people who arnt sure about thier chickenpox immunity can ask thier doctors to do antibody titers(it doesnt detect dormant chickenpox in your ganglia though because theres no way to detect it outside of autopsy), your doctor maybe reluctant to administer the test though.

[–] volvoxvsmarla@lemm.ee 19 points 2 days ago (1 children)

When my husband moved to Germany from Russia, he had no idea whether he was vaccinated as a child or not (he very likely was, but there weren't records he was aware of and his mom died early). So he went to the doctor's to ask for titers. They said they could test that but he would have to pay out of pocket, and offered to just vaccinate him again for free. He went through all the children's vaccines - including chicken pox, which wasn't around when we were kids (90s). It is the simpler, more accessible, and cheaper alternative to titers.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (5 replies)
[–] medgremlin@midwest.social 79 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (10 children)

I spent SO MUCH TIME during my pediatrics clinical rotation explaining vaccines to new parents. In some cases, I sat there for a literal hour and debunked myths and conspiracy theories in order to get the parents to consider maybe doing a delayed vaccination schedule. I'm a medical student, so my time is basically worthless and I viewed this as a good use of it, but it was so incredibly frustrating to have to do over and over.

For other folks who know anti-vax parents (new or not), here's the best line of argument I came up with:

Vaccines have been around for a very long time now, and the only changes we've made to them recently is to make them better and safer. The preservatives in them like the mercury compound are perfectly safe, but we've still worked hard to improve the manufacturing process to minimize the need for those preservatives and make the vaccines as pure as possible.

Vaccines are made of little fragments of the virus or bacteria, or a modified, significantly weaker version of the pathogen to give your child's immune system a chance to see it before the real thing shows up. It's like giving your child's immune system a wanted poster or a punching bag to practice on because it has to make special tools to fight each different pathogen.

The reason we load kids up with so many vaccines in the first year or two of life is because their immune systems are still growing and it's an optimal time to introduce things for it to prepare for, and we want to give them some protection of their own before the antibodies from mom run out around 6 to 12 months of life.

We have decades of data showing that vaccines are safe and effective, and the complications and side effects are so minor compared to the problems that can come from the disease. And it's usually around 1000:1 ratio of complications from the disease versus complications from the vaccine, and the vaccine complications are almost always less severe than the complications from the disease.

If you refuse vaccination for your child for reasons besides an anaphylactic allergy to the ingredients, you are gambling your child's life with most of these diseases, and it would have been an entirely preventable death. Vaccines are very hard to make and we have prioritized making vaccines for the diseases that kill children. We don't bother making vaccines for things that are just a nuisance, so the vaccines we have exist for very good reasons. For the most famous example, measles has about 5 different ways it can kill your child that are impossible to treat or prevent once they have it, and many ways to cause permanent damage. The known and most common side effects of the measles vaccine are pretty mild and can be easily treated with medications we have available.

Edit: Fuck it. I've decided that I'm going to use some of my copious (/s) free time writing a children's and parents' book about vaccine safety with this argument. I will self publish if I have to and give it out in family medicine and pediatric clinics if it kills me.

[–] TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 25 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Another worth noting is if an antivaxxer says "we don't know what they put into vaccines", respond with "we don't know what they put in painkillers and yet you take them no problem". Nine times out of ten, these antivaxxers would take painkillers willy nilly without question. Saying this makes them question their line of thought. Heck, the same could be said just about anything. We don't know what cooks in restaurants put into the food we ordered, and yet there is no significant movement advocating to stop ordering takeaways or eating outside of home.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Lemminary@lemmy.world 20 points 2 days ago (4 children)

The sad thing about debunking is that you need to have direct contact with the person under a delusion to build rapport and need to be quite knowledgeable about the topic, but planting the the delusion can be done at a large scale by any eloquent doofus with time to spare. It's so frustrating.

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (8 replies)
[–] miss_demeanour@lemmy.dbzer0.com 79 points 3 days ago (1 children)
[–] vividspecter@lemm.ee 28 points 2 days ago

Chuckles I'm in danger!

[–] 100_kg_90_de_belin@feddit.it 64 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Now, they demonize parents who refuse to vaccinate their kids

They should have their skulls kicked in before even thinking of having children

[–] But_my_mom_says_im_cool@lemmy.world 32 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Lack of sex ed and no access to family planning services creates a whole bunch of idiots breeding more idiots

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] leadore@lemmy.world 59 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (8 children)

I was a kid when they were first developing the vaccines for measles, mumps, and rubella (we called it German measles). So my brothers and I all got every one of them. I remember being sick with them, and with one of the measles types (don't remember which) I was so sick I though I was gonna die. I'll never forget lying there, even thinking of certain things made me puke (or dry heave) so I had to concentrate on not thinking of anything. I remember puking so hard it came out my nose. One of my brothers was so sick, his fever was so high, they took him to the hospital.

Do parents really want to put their children through this instead of a shot? WTF

[–] RymrgandsDaughter@lemmy.world 18 points 2 days ago

should be child abuse

load more comments (7 replies)
[–] expatriado@lemmy.world 54 points 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

i had no sympathy for anti-vax adults during covid, their choice to risk their lives. But children with basic vaccinations? their parents are taking the risk and the ones that didn't choose are getting the consequences

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 26 points 2 days ago

One side takes the risk, the other side faces the consequences.

Are we still talking about parents/children? Because that also applies to republican politicians/everybody else

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 49 points 2 days ago (12 children)

Why are people debating measles vaccines again? The covid vaccine debate was stupid but I could kinda understand the concern there in comparison to this

[–] Tahl_eN@lemmy.world 20 points 2 days ago (5 children)

The MMR (measels, mumps, rubella) vaccine is the one Wakefield was against. The OG of the vaccines cause autism movement.

load more comments (5 replies)
load more comments (11 replies)
[–] Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world 44 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (11 children)

Just had a thought. What if we took a insignificant amount of the virus and injected it into people. This would allow them to develop antibodies so that if they do become exposed they are ready to fight it.

Probably safer then just exposing people to the virus. Could also do it to enough people that it virtually eradicates the virus.

Just an idea. We would also have to do a bunch of testing and have a bunch of regulations around it. Just to prove there isn't any unwarranted side effects.

[–] Rakudjo@lemmy.world 19 points 2 days ago (1 children)

If something like that worked, scientists would have done it by now.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (10 replies)
[–] PattyMcB@lemmy.world 40 points 2 days ago (3 children)

That moron again? Someone fire her please!

[–] xtr0n@sh.itjust.works 48 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Out of a cannon? Into the sun?

[–] xorollo@leminal.space 25 points 2 days ago

I am thankful that I can upvote your comment without fear of loss of access to information.

[–] TheLowestStone@lemmy.world 20 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Out of a trebuchet pointed at a wall.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] tal@lemmy.today 23 points 2 days ago (3 children)

She's a House Representative. As long as the public in her district in, I believe, Georgia, keeps wanting her to be the one to speak for them, she's gonna stay.

checks

Georgia's 14th district.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia%27s_14th_congressional_district

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Zexks@lemmy.world 38 points 2 days ago (2 children)

They’re not going to learn until they’re charged and convicted of homicide.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] futatorius@lemm.ee 38 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Measles parties will kill kids.

MTG is a psychopath.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] ObviouslyNotBanana@lemmy.world 33 points 2 days ago (2 children)

It's so weird that they don't want abortions to be legal but they basically want spontaneous death to happen after birth.

[–] altkey@lemmy.dbzer0.com 25 points 2 days ago

Yay, baby gambling!

But on the serious note, they want poor to be confused, miserable and desperate. They themselves take all the best healthcare, all shots and boosters, but they want for pandemic to happen because it would occupy ordinary people's minds and also give the government additional abilities to control everyone, while the collapsing market would once again benefit the rich and make poor even poorer. There's no downside for the likes of MTG, Trump and RFK as long as they are in power.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Iheartcheese@lemmy.world 30 points 2 days ago

Stupid bitch.

[–] HawlSera@lemm.ee 30 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Arrest her for attempted homicide

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Intergalactic@lemmy.world 28 points 2 days ago

She needs to be censored and imprisoned.

[–] TylerBourbon@lemmy.world 26 points 1 day ago (1 children)

She is massively psycho. She's the same shit stain that harassed teenage survivors of school shootings. Clearly she doesn't give a shit about kids.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Etterra@discuss.online 25 points 1 day ago

Psychotic Bitch Promotes Child Murder

FTFY

[–] houstoneulers@lemmy.world 25 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Well maybe their dumbasses will learn something about how stupid she is

[–] adespoton@lemmy.ca 45 points 3 days ago (5 children)
load more comments (5 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] themaninblack@lemmy.world 25 points 1 day ago

So arrest and jail her

[–] GladiusB@lemmy.world 24 points 2 days ago

Jesus Christ she is a fucking moron

[–] SplashJackson@lemmy.ca 23 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Margerine Taylor Greene can go fuck herself!

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] Kalysta@lemm.ee 22 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Thought the bitch was pro life? This seems quite anti-life to me.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world 21 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Measles isn't fucking chicken pox…

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] dwzap@lemmy.world 20 points 1 day ago

This is a death cult.

[–] gibmiser@lemmy.world 20 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Stupid bitch would be advocating for ebola parties if there was a vaccine for it.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 19 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

are these politicians trying to kill/alienate their own bases?

a new name for my filters btw.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 19 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

bet she won't be censured for "decorum violations".

load more comments
view more: next ›