The anti vaccine cult has hit another low,
sending out violent death threats against
California Senator Richard Pan, who introduced
SB 277, the bill that would repeal the personal belief exemption to school vaccine mandates. The bill still allows for legitimate medical exemptions (like immunocompromised children who need to be protected through the herd effect).
Although Sen. Pan is the leader of the legislators who are attempting to make this bill into law, many other lawmakers are championing mandatory vaccines for children to protect the general population have withstood intense and illogical criticism from the anti vaccine cult.
Senator Pan responded to the threats by mentioning the “vitriol” of anti-vaccine advocates, including Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who apologized after likening mandatory vaccines to the Holocaust (the mark of a Holocaust denier is not understanding that 6 million Jews were murdered and thinking that something else compares to this).
Pan said, “What does that mean for the followers when they make comments like that? That stimulates people to want to make threats.”
This illogical reaction by anti-vaccine cultists over SB 277 ignores a Los Angeles Times data analysis that revealed that in 2014, for the first time in 12 years, less Californians claimed their beliefs disallowed immunizing their children.
Part of the anti vaccine cultists' beliefs is that the scientific concept of “herd immunity” is completely and utterly wrong (without providing one nanogram of evidence supporting that belief). Just in case herd immunity is unfamiliar to some, it is defined as “protecting a whole community from disease by immunizing a critical mass of its populace.” For herd immunity to work, somewhere between 85 and 95% of the population needs to be immunized. This prevents a vaccine-preventable disease from moving from individual to individual.
Emily Willingham and Laura Helft wrote an article for NOVA that stated that vaccinated individuals protect:
...members of the community who cannot be vaccinated, preventing the chain of disease from reaching them and limiting potential outbreaks. Every vaccinated person adds to the effectiveness of this community-level protection.
In other words, not only do vaccines prevent each child from dangerous and sometimes deadly diseases, but it also protects the broader community, including children and adults who cannot be vaccinated. I know that altruism may be a foreign concept to the narcissism of the anti vaccine cult, but that's how a society survives.
We send soldiers to war protect our country, but not all of us go, just a few, even in the largest wars. We build hospitals to protect everyone's health. We send public health servants into epidemics to help stop diseases. Everyone usually shares in the overall well-being of a society, and everyone usually participates. A civilized country protects each other, why is this ideal so foreign to the anti vaccine cult?
This hatred is quite ironic, since one of the ongoing tropes of the anti vaccine cult is that those of us on the pro science/pro vaccine side are the so-called "bullies." As far as I know, none of us have ever had to advocate violence, since we are on the side of scientific evidence and logic. I loathe the anti vaccine cult, because they are truly on the side of harming children, but I would never want anyone do deny their rights to make ignorant and stupid comments through violence. I'm too much a believer in the ideal of the common good.
It's also telling that hate-filled anti vaccine cult websites, like the Age of Lying About Autism, are saying nothing about the threatened violence by their sycophants.
The anti vaccine cult has absolutely no evidence supporting its "beliefs." No science. No evidence. Nothing. But they're really good at using inane logical fallacies and paid shills to push bad science. And apparently hate and violence–the last outpost of those who are intellectually corrupt, like the angry and pathetic anti vaccine cult.