this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2023
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Mississippi has long had high childhood immunization rates, but a federal judge has ordered the state to allow parents to opt out on religious grounds.

For more than 40 years, Mississippi had one of the strictest school vaccination requirements in the nation, and its high childhood immunization rates have been a source of pride. But in July, the state began excusing children from vaccination if their parents cited religious objections, after a federal judge sided with a “medical freedom” group.

Today, 2,100 Mississippi schoolchildren are officially exempt from vaccination on religious grounds. Five hundred more are exempt because their health precludes vaccination. Dr. Daniel P. Edney, the state health officer, warns that if the total number of exemptions climbs above 3,000, Mississippi will once again face the risk of deadly diseases that are now just a memory.

“For the last 40 years, our main goal has been to protect those children at highest risk of measles, mumps, rubella, polio,” Dr. Edney said in an interview, “and that’s those children that have chronic illnesses that make them more vulnerable.” He called the ruling “a very bitter pill for me to swallow.”

Mississippi is not an isolated case. Buoyed by their success at overturning coronavirus mandates, medical and religious freedom groups are taking aim at a new target: childhood school vaccine mandates, long considered the foundation of the nation’s defense against infectious disease.

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[–] DarkGamer@kbin.social 102 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Ah yes, that most cherished of freedoms, the freedom to let children die of easily preventable diseases

[–] girlfreddy@lemmy.ca 18 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Up until now we've mostly seen diseases like measles and chicken pox but I'm expecting polio to show up soon ... then the shit will hit the fan.

sigh

[–] DarkGamer@kbin.social 16 points 11 months ago (6 children)

It's a shame it's the children of the ones who fuck around who get to find out

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[–] ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.world 12 points 11 months ago

Whooping cough is back. Yay.

[–] zcd@lemmy.ca 14 points 11 months ago
[–] BeautifulMind@lemmy.world 68 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Can we just call these people pro-pestilence instead of dignifying them with names like 'medical freedom activist'?

I swear this sort of euphemism has become the obvious tell that they're up to no good and still demand respect for it

[–] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 16 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Up there with "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" as far as names that usually mean the opposite of what they're claiming, huh?

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 63 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (9 children)

How many children are going to die because of these very likely 'pro-life' activists?

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[–] ZeroCool@feddit.ch 59 points 11 months ago (4 children)

‘Medical Freedom’ Activists

Plague rats. They're plague rats.

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[–] QuentinCallaghan@sopuli.xyz 39 points 11 months ago (2 children)

When someone says "I'm not against all vaccines, just the ones for COVID", he is usually lying. In time this "skepticism" will slide into being against even the common vaccines and it can be seen now. My favorite blog Respectful Insolence had a good post about the so-called "medical freedom":

"Health freedom” and “medical freedom” have become a rallying cry for libertarians, far right wingers, and even outright fascists. Indeed, the Republican Party has become a bastion of antivaccine and anti-public health hostility, a process that actually predates the pandemic by at least several years. “Health freedom” and “medical freedom” have always been code words for dismantling public health infrastructure, anything resembling a vaccine mandate (even in schools), and dismantling the FDA.

[–] jayrhacker@kbin.social 10 points 11 months ago

Same strategy as "School Choice" or "Parent's Rights", the first was created to suck money out of the public school infrastructure and put an end to quality free public schooling, the second to basically make children property again.

[–] Zink@programming.dev 6 points 11 months ago

Yeah, many are against only COVID because it’s gotten all the attention. But whatever leaps in logic, conspiracy theories, and blog-eurekas have them being against the COVID vaccine will apply to all the others as well. There are people in my family who don’t get their flu shot for the same reasons as the COVID one.

[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 32 points 11 months ago (5 children)

What religions are against vaccines??

[–] AceFuzzLord@lemm.ee 28 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I don't recall any of the major accepted religions saying that anything like a vaccine is bad. But these are the types of people who will probably use religion as a way to get out of anything they don't like or they think it challenges "God's plan", even if it lets them live longer.

[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 17 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yeah but this is exactly the kind of thing that should be rejected as it is not "a sincerely held religious belief". You can't claim it's a religious belief when your religion does not hold that belief, only you do.

[–] bluGill@kbin.social 11 points 11 months ago (3 children)

The US has religious freedom in the extreme. Anything you make up to worship religiously is considered a religion by default. It takes very strong evidence to prove otherwise.

There are pros and cons to that, this is one of the cons.

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[–] AbidanYre@lemmy.world 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Christ Scientists and Jehovah's Witnesses are the only two I can think of that might, and even them I'm not sure about.

[–] Saganaki@lemmy.one 9 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Christian Scientists are indeed against them. Jehovahs do vaccinations but not blood transfusions.

Blood transfusions honestly are not a problem most of the time, though. I’ve heard many stories about doctors just overriding the parents wishes due to emergency and the parents generally sigh with relief.

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[–] foggy@lemmy.world 30 points 11 months ago (10 children)

Get me out of this godforsaken shithole country.

Why are our least educated people trying to act like they know things about stuff? Who empowered these ass clowns?

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[–] EmpathicVagrant@lemmy.world 26 points 11 months ago

We want the freedom to have our own day in medical practice performed on our bodies!

But also ban all abortion care and all HRT and send people to prison for disagreeing!

[–] Rapidcreek@reddthat.com 22 points 11 months ago (1 children)

We were real close to eradicating the measles virus worldwide. Then this stuff happened.

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[–] BigMacHole@lemm.ee 18 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Parents with autoimmune children will teach their children to take more precautions in life but with a stronger sense of love. Republican Parents will kill their children and their bloodline.

If Republicans are so hellbent on Killing Children let's at least look at the bright side and note it'll only last a generation or two.

[–] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 27 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Bullshit, and this is the same fucked up defeatist logic people used to avoid a covid vaccine mandate.

Anti-vaxxers are not just hurting themselves, and they are not hurting themselves more than the rest of us, and they are not hurting themselves anywhere close to fast enough to kill themselves off. If you were right, this wouldn't be a problem at all. Anti-vaxxers don't die at a high enough rate to counter the spread of their stupidity. Covid, Pertussis, Measles, Mumps, Rubella, these diseases kill the sick, the elderly, the young, and the immunocompromised. The people who suffer most are the ones who would get vaccines if they could. It's dangerous to act like they are hurting themselves.

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[–] theluddite@lemmy.ml 17 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (14 children)

Parahprasing greatly here, but in her recent book, Naomi Klein pointed out that most Americans are pilled as fuck on neoliberalism, and because the pandemic is a naturally occurring and obvious contradiction to its fundamental tenets (individualism, meritocracy, competiton, etc.), the only way to square that circle was to go insane.

I find that framework very useful. These so called activists are pilled as hell on this fundamentally individualist concept of freedom that inundates us Americans from birth. It's an almost entirely empty conception of freedom. Basically, we can say whatever we want while owning guns and generally being selfish. No one is entitled to be free of childhood disease though. That's not freedom because it encroaches on others being selfish. If you genuinely believe in individual liberty above all, as Americans are taught from birth, then childhood vaccinations are wrong.

Unfortunately it's a really fucking stupid way to run a society.

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[–] fossilesque@mander.xyz 14 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I was on one of the vaccine trials. Had a cab driver on the way back from one of my checkups go on a COVID rant. It was awkward after I told him why I was there. Lmao. I'd do it again, felt great being protected asap, plus money.

[–] uphillbothways@kbin.social 12 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (4 children)

The first concept of vaccination was invented in 1796. It was an unknown idea before this. Which religion has an opinion on this and how exactly does that work when there was no concept of the thing in question when any of these religions were formed? It's such utter bullshit on its face. There's no grounds for this. It's made up crap on top of made up crap, as a grounds to shirk a simple procedure that saves lives.

But, also, this headline is dumb. Religious medical freedom advocates have been about this for ages. The only thing new is they got one dumb judge to make a bad ruling.

[–] glomag@kbin.social 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I don't have any evidence for this but it seems like the vaccine pushback is at least partially a desire to avoid responsibility. If they choose to vaccinate and their kid is in the 0.000001% who experience adverse effects then it would be their fault the kid was hurt but if they don't vaccinate and their kid just happens to die of measles or whatever then it was all part of god's plan and they didn't do anything wrong.

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[–] PugJesus@kbin.social 12 points 11 months ago (1 children)

God, I hate these cretins.

[–] cmbabul@lemmy.world 11 points 11 months ago

I’m just tired of my life being affected by fictional belief systems

[–] Norgur@kbin.social 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Hey, fundamentalist smoothbrains, since "thinking" isn't something you all like to do all that often, let me translate your pseudo biblical gibberish into plain English:

"I'd rather have some young person who had to fight for their life already loose that fight than allow my healthy child to get a little pinch and feel kind of down for three days"

"I'd rather have another parent stand at the grave of their little joy than allow my child to have a little ouchie on an arm"

"I'd rather cite Christianity as the reason why I act in a way Jesus would have turned away in disgust from than be a Christian and care for the most defenseless, helpless in our society this one little bit"

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[–] Wahots@pawb.social 9 points 11 months ago

God, I miss the 70s when everyone got their shots at school and anyone who ran out of line was called a pussy and was dragged back to get their shots so they didn't kill grandparents and babies.

When did we become so weak and scared? These idiots are gonna be the ones that bring back polio and measles.

[–] kite@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago

We may not see many repercussions from this now, but when the unvaccinated grow up and the viruses have had a generation's worth of time to spread - just wait till a pregnant woman gets mumps and has a profoundly deaf baby. Or their toddler gets polio and ends up spending potentially years in a hospital, only to be released with lifetime disabilities. I know 2 people with polio, and one who is deaf due their mother having mumps (pre-vaccine days). Their lives, and the lives of their families, was/is hard. I wonder what grandma and grampa, safely vaccinated, will say when their grandkids start falling ill.

[–] SuddenlyBlowGreen@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

The people of "the party of pro-life", trying to spread plague.

You can't make this shit up.

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