So, in the past week since Chris Christie and Rand Paul made their ridiculous, irresponsible, painful, and ultimately, deadly remarks about vaccines this week (which, by the way, Penn and Teller destroyed from 15 years ago on their show "Penn and Teller: Bullshit!"), I have found myself surrounded by anti-vaxxers, both in real life, around the proverbial water cooler at work and online, including on Daily Kos. I mean, I have encountered run of the mill anti-science in the past, but man have I felt inundated with absolute stupidity. Its like Christie and Paul opened up the Pandora's Box of Idiocy with their comments on the topic of vaccines. And now nutters on the right, and more surprisingly, on the left, have come out of the woodwork to express their displeasure with, lets face it, a motherfucking miracle of modern medicine and one of humanity's greatest achievements. I can handle right wing talking points, I can handle ridiculous right wing conspiracies, but throw anti-science of that level at me, and I start getting pissed.
One such piece of bullshit floating out there is this notion that we are some how some sort of magical sterile society, and THAT is what is making these illnesses disappear. On the surface, this may seem like a logical statement...we are far from the days of saying "GARDYLOO" and tossing buckets full of shit randomly on the street or sniffing handkerchiefs full of herbs and potpourri to prevent ourselves from gagging everytime we breathe in. Yes, we are far removed from those days, I will give the anti-vaxxers that. But to say that we have somehow become a "sanitary society" is fucking bullshit on its face! Oh god, it is so much bullcrap!
If we are such a "Sanitary Society", anti-vaxxers, please tell me why only 5 percent of bathroom users in the United States wash their hands correctly. Please tell me why the keyboard you are most likely typing on right now is dirtier than a motherfucking freshly shat in toilet bowl...why is that? If we are somehow paragons of sterility, kings and queens of cleanliness, why is it that diseases like norovirus (which, fun fact, spreads by the "Fecal-Oral Route", have fun with that idea next time you get the vomiting sickness), or ecoli, salmonella, influenza, rhinoviruses, and other viruses exist and infect millions and millions of people in the United States, killing many of them. If we were so sanitary, as a society, wouldn't these diseases, which can be prevented with simple personal sanitation like handwashing (which is motherfucking proven to prevent illness), be completely irradicated?
Here's the deal...from a microbiological level, we might as well be throwing shit all over the streets (did you know there is a layer of fecal matter most likely residing on your toothbrush? Here is a great huffpost article with that and some more fun facts about our amazing personal sanitization practices. Have fun.) Taking showers and pretending to handwash didn't even come close to preventing the non-deadly diseases it was intended to prevent, let alone EXTERMINATING some of humanities most deadly and debilitating diseases, and other horrible childhood type diseases such as Rubella and Chicken Pox.
Fact of the matter is, your little hypothesis about this non-existant hyper-sanitary society is destroyed. We didn't fucking wash our hands until we cured polio you fucking jackasses. There is a FUCKING REASON WHY these diseases were wiped out.
Vaccines.
Vaccines.
VACCINES YOU ASSHOLES!
I am telling you 10 minutes of google searching and two brain cells can go a long way to understanding why vaccines are absolutely one of the most amazing achievements in human history.
But, hey, anti-vaxxers...don't walk away unhappy! I am enjoying this game! Please give me another claim I can easily google search and destroy in about 10 minutes.