Is the Anti-Vaccine Movement Founded in a Fear of Needles? Or is using Prescription Drugs Off-Label a Fetish?
We all know that anti-vaxxers are stupid and/or mentally ill, and that they are a scourge on society whose self-righteous ignorance may play a role in ending civilized society and dooming us all. The anti-vaxx movement, to the extent that a wilfully ill-informed collective whose actions are the epidemiological equivalent of those of a murder-suicide cult can be called a movement, has grown its ranks throughout the covid-19 pandemic. It is thanks in part to them that the virus has spread so widely, evolved so effectively, and that it is still ongoing rather than having been stopped in its tracks over a year ago, as it could have been. What’s most perplexing is the subset of anti-vaxxers who reject vaccines outright but will eagerly latch on to any other treatment, however unproven and stupid and potentially dangerous.
It started with hydroxychloroquine, when the deranged old turd who used to get daily international coverage while molesting the nation and fucking the world brought up the anti-malarial drug at every opportunity. Others echoed the claims of the anti-parasitic drug’s effectiveness against covid-19, despite lack of testing or proof and the logical fallacy of a drug meant to treat parasites being claimed to be effective against a virus. But then these people would no doubt struggle to understand the distinction between a virus and the kind of parasite that a drug like chloroquine is meant to treat.
More recently, the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin has been all the rage among the anti-vaxxer crowd, who’d rather poison themselves with a medication used to deworm horses than try an extensively tested vaccine used in humans to prevent covid-19. While true that one may be prescribed a human-suitable dosage of ivermectin to treat parasitic intestinal worms, or sometimes topically for external parasites like head lice or skin conditions like rosacea, none of those uses have a damn thing to do with the covid-19 virus.
Strange as it is that people think these particular drugs would be an effective treatment for something that they are not meant to treat and haven’t proven effective at treating, and though from a layperson’s perspective there exists no logical connection between the diseases these drugs are meant to treat and the one they’re being falsely claimed to treat, it is also very strange that these people fully reject one drug treatment but readily embrace another. Any medication is potentially dangerous. Read the fine print or listen to the rapidly delivered list of side-effects at the end of a drug commercial. The average one will tell you how it can cause anything from diarrhea and dizziness to impotence, infertility, suicidality, and cancer, and this is something they’re trying to sell to you in between segments of Wu Tang: an American Saga on Hulu. What makes any pill for treating headaches, herpes, or multiple sclerosis that people regularly choke down, because they saw it in an ad or on an online forum, with complete ignorance of its contents and chemical effects, so different from a vaccine that can prevent horrible illness and which has the backing of every non-crazy or -exploitative doctor in the world? Is it because the vaccine is delivered by injection? Are anti-vaxxers all just a bunch of punk-ass little bitch-babies afraid of needles?
Every other batshit reason that anti-vaxxers give for not wanting the shot falls apart under questioning.
The idea that there are microchips in the vaccines is particularly ridiculous. First of all, if you own a smartphone and a credit card or ever browsed the internet, corporations know more about you than anyone would care to, so chipping people would be pretty pointless. But second, and more obviously idiotic, is the use of vaccine injections as a delivery method. Why would people think that it’s easier to inject a microchip than it is to put it into a pill for people to willingly swallow? Putting a chip within the coating of a pill would be so easy. It would allow the nefarious powers that be behind the mass chipping to circumvent the expense of making invisibly small microchips and the conniptions of trypanophobic babies. If they wanted to trick the idiot population into chipping themselves, they’d just slip the chips into acetaminophen capsules, or candy bars and cans of Bud Lite.
The idea that vaccines will change your DNA is a fear that can be put to bed as well, or broadened exponentially, because if you do a quick Google on epigenetics, you’ll find that damn near everything can change our DNA. DNA is already mutating on its own all the time, and can be changed further by anything we consume or take in passively through our environment. Whatever you eat or drink, what drugs you take, whether you exercise, the air you breathe, all of it is having an effect on your DNA, mutating it, changing it. Rather than worrying about the imaginary ways that vaccines are going to change your DNA, fret instead about the chemical industries filling the air, water, and land with harmful mutagens that will cause your offspring to be born with deformities and cause you to die shortly after from cancer because the assholes who profit from burning petroleum and putting non-stick pans into every kitchen truly don’t give a fuck about you and are happy to profit at the expense of your wretched life and early death.
As with many conspiracy theories, there is a counter conspiracy, in this case an actual one. Needle-fearing cowards who were worked into tizzies about vaccines latched onto false, and boring and lazy, conspiracy theories, and in seeking alternatives fell prey to a real conspiracy. The people who sold the lies of drugs like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin being effective treatments against covid-19 also sold those drugs and scam services for millions of dollars in profits. As often happens, gullible people were indoctrinated by an outlandish con and fell for a more obvious one.
As dumb as these people are, some of them are right about one thing: there are sinister people profiting from the pandemic. While one side of the exploitation is providing actual vaccines that actually are effective against the Covid-19 virus and the anti-vaxx con is purely criminal, no one should be allowed to profit from the suffering of the past couple years. Regardless of the “service” they’ve been providing, Pfizer, Moderna, J&J, and the other global vaccine producers who’ve extorted hundreds of millions through distribution of their vaccines should have those profits expropriated. I’m not saying to shut them down. Pay the scientists and staff fairly, reward them, but the executives and shareholders aren’t entitled to shit. Everyone, from them to the devil incarnate Amazon, who has profited from the pandemic should have their extorted gains taken and dedicated to providing subsistence food, medical care, and housing for those harmed by the pandemic.