2w ago

How Americans responded in 1955 when the invention of the polio vaccine was announced

source: https://x.com/rcbregman/status/1868015427332255863

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RFK and conspiracy thinking right alongside Luigi are ALL symptoms indicating the same problem: a health care system that enriches CEOs at the bankruptcy and death of the masses.
At base it’s like the Hepatitis C cure when it rolled out. A $ amount is put on this cure, only X number of people get it each month, up to a certain $ amount across all claimants, and the rest are SOL. Healthcare itself is like that. We did 18 NICU babies already this month, or we did 32 cardiac cath procedures this month, time to delay, deny, defend.
Wouldn’t it be cool if you could figure a way around needing that healthcare? If you could do 6 simple steps that are entirely under your own power, cheaply or for free, and fix your health on your own? What a dream that would be. This need for health independence is as predictable as a Luigi.
RFK is like a cherry on the shit sundae of our present system. He’s symbolic of the need for something other that we can maybe have more control over. Unfortunately, drinking raw milk has a higher potential of adding more problems.
- drinking raw milk
  will be the least of our problems from RFK. He killed more than 20 children in Samoa with his smallpox vaccine denial.
  
  This deserves a link.
  
  https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/07/how-rfk-jr-falsely-denied-his-connection-to-a-deadly-measles-outbreak-in-samoa/
  
  Here
  Although I think this article downplays his involvement by using weasel words. I started to look for one that stated it more clearly but then I'm no better than idiots looking to have their bias confirmed.
- If you could do 6 simple steps that are entirely under your own power, cheaply or for free, and fix your health on your own?
  This is so specific that i would be remiss if I didn't ask what those 6 things were...
  
  It’s a mimic of how most charlatans start their pitch for bullshit solutions.
- Luigi didn't do it
- People have opposed vaccines since they were first introduced. I find your explanation just trying to force it into the current discussion around health insurance.
  I would argue that it's primarily because some people can't fathom that the world is a chaotic place and shit just happens without sinister forces making it happen. Its exactly why the devil is such a popular theme in Christianity, because they need some evil force acting behind the scenes to justify the fact that absolutely terrible things happen while also believing in some supremely powerful and benevolent God.
  With the pandemic, and people losing their shit because they were in lock down, the idea that this evil force was making it happen and fucking with them really took hold..and that made the "freedom" from it, a vaccine, a very good target for people pushing their conspiracy theories that this was a good way to push some sinister agenda...and with the amount of fear at the time, people were susceptible. Once you've opened the door for vaccines being a vehicle for sinister agenda, that just opens the door for questioning previous vaccines as well.
  
  Everything you’ve said is correct. The basic chaos and statistics of life is too much to process for some people. However, the number of vaccine deniers is now a movement, and growing, and being given lip service by people in charge. That doesn’t happen in a vacuum.
  We are both correct in our main assertions.
  
  That doesn’t happen in a vacuum.
  I agree. And I think that non-vacuum isn't that our health system is whack, but that we just went through a traumatizing time as a society that left people very fearful and looking for answers. It's a convenient and easy one that the conmen are more than happy to advantage of for their personal gain.
  I guess I see our positions as very different. . .you attribute it to people trying to avoid our healthcare system, I see it as people just looking for something to blame for how crappy shit was during the pandemic; our healthcare system has been shit for a long time, but the rise to prominence of this anti-vaccine movement happened during the pandemic. I don't think the timing is coincidental.
  But I appreciate the cordial response.
  
  As someone inside the healthcare system, I can confidently state that COVID simply brought out a lot of festering problems that already existed. The pandemic didn’t create those problems, it revealed them.
  The one “but” here is that COVID did help speed up the timeline on doctor/nurse/caregiver burnout as well and create a bottleneck in getting care due to sheer numbers which is still happening right now. How long are you waiting for your next PCP appointment, or to get established with one? (One example).
  And as another “but”. What I just said above was already the trajectory of the system. We simply had a little healthcare “inflation” that sped all of that up.

214 comments