Anti-vax conspirators are committing child neglect & abuse
In the mid to late 1940s, my aunt Bea and her husband lived on an army base where my uncle was stationed. During Bea’s pregnancy, she developed a rash over her body. Her physician diagnosed her symptoms as an allergic reaction to having eaten strawberries. Within the next six months, several other people on the base developed similar symptoms, most of whom had not consumed strawberries, or for that matter, any type of berries. The consensus from the medical staff at the base was that the outbreak was rubella, a form of measles. Related Gay candidate smeared in text message campaign that says he has HIV Bea’s child, my cousin Barbara, was born deaf and blind with serious intellectual impairments. Bea’s husband sued for divorce shortly following the birth, and Bea and Barbara lived the remainder of their lives with Bea’s parents, my grandparents Abraham and Dorothy. Bea refused to permit her daughter to attend a residential or day school for children with severe disabilities. Barbara subsequently never learned methods of communication and skills for daily life, and she remained dependent on others into her senior years. Dive deeper every day Join our newsletter for thought-provoking commentary that goes beyond the surface of LGBTQ+ issues Subscribe to our Newsletter today In those mid-century years, no safe and reliable vaccines were yet available to prevent the many childhood diseases. My sister and I suffered from measles in 1954, and later chickenpox (which I thought one contracted by playing around a box filled with chicken parts and feathers), and my mother thought it was highly unusual that we both developed cases of mumps in two separate years. I was thankful to have never contracted whooping cough, which on top of my asthma would have been devastating. The pain, the fevers, and for the mumps, the swelling was almost unbearable. Some of my peers have experienced lifelong negative side effects from these childhood diseases. In my 70s, due to having been exposed earlier to the chickenpox virus, I developed a serious and extended case of shingles. I wish I had known beforehand that a preventative vaccine was available. My parents grew up in the 1920s through the 1940s also suffering from all these childhood diseases, from which my father lost all hearing in his left ear. In addition, my mother agonized over a severe case of diphtheria, from which she almost did not recover. When a letter from my elementary school principal arrived at our home in 1955 asking if they would allow me to take part in the first mass inoculations of the newly approved Salk Polio vaccine, they literally jumped with joy at the chance. They had seen their friends contracting Polio, some losing their ability to breathe on their own, some losing movement in their legs or arms, some succumbing. They had seen their hero, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, suffering the effects of this terrible virus. Anything they could do to prevent me and my younger sister from this, they were willing to do. I wish the array of vaccines available today had been around when I was a young child. If they had been, I would not have been at risk for the pain, the loss of schooling and socialization with my peers, and most importantly, the reduction in my chances for a higher quality of life that others were denied due to disabling conditions. I have often imagined what my cousin Barbara’s life could have been like if she had not been exposed to rubella in utero, as well as the numerous students under my care when I served as a teacher in the 1970s and early 1980s at Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts. How might their lives have been positively different if these vaccines had been available earlier? Science now can eliminate most of the major viral infections that have plagued humanity for millennia. Unfortunately, fear, misinformation, and the vast array of conspiracy theories have stood in the way of reaching this objective. “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe!” These words attributed to Albert Einstein come to mind when I think of all the people in the United States and other richer nations that refuse to vaccinate themselves, not because they lack availability, but, rather, because they lack critical thinking faculties to separate facts from lies, science from conspiracies. These alleged theories, though, are too incredible and too numerous even begin to enumerate, but they cover a range: from including spying chips devised by billionaires to monitor one’s movements, to being rendered severely and profoundly autistic, to surreptitiously having one’s body polluted with risky experimental drugs to guard against a virus that does not exist because it is a hoax. | Shutterstock The concoctors of these conspiracy theories dangle the promise of “freedom” in the face of their followers: freedom from masking, freedom from toxifying the body, freedom from being led down the deadly path as are the vaccinated sheep to slaughter. And they promise them their individuality, that essential vital quality that forever separates them from the crowd, from the conformists (whom they are taught to believe have sacrificed their freedom long ago for some deceitfully guaranteed sense of security). Oh sure, some communities, specifically communities of color, have a certain degree of vaccine hesitancy in which an inherently racist medical system historically conducted inhumane and deadly experiments on Black and brown bodies and other bodies (such as Jews) who were constructed in the public imagination as “other” or as subaltern. But we must assure one another that the parallels of those times and those criminal offenses do not hold up here today. Rather, current criminality belongs solely to the peddlers of unfounded and tragic conspiracies. They have turned the pandemic with their promotion of lies into a political weapon for their own gratification in their lust for power and control. They have polluted the body politic, which places everyone, including themselves in serious jeopardy. So, how much “freedom” does any of us really have when people around us fail to heed the warnings to vaccinate? The days of Wild West rugged individualism are over. Either we as a nation change our style of living to consider more about the common good, or else we will certainly and very quickly increase our chances of dying individually, as a democracy, and as a nation. The “Social Contract” The theory of a “Social Contract” developed as far back as ancient Greece. Though iterated, reiterated, and reformed by numerous philosophers and public figures, the foundations of this social contract stand on the premise that people live together in community with the agreement that establishes moral, ethical, and overarching political rules of behavior between individuals, groups, and their government in the formation of a civil society. A violation by any of the signatories – individuals, groups, communities, governments – jeopardizes the very stability of that fully civil society. We witness politically conservative figures either refusing to sign this contract, or for those who may have previously etched their names, reneging on the terms and stipulations. For them, they abide by the motto: “That government is best that governs least.” If these conservative politicians, anti-vaxxers, and the disgraced twice impeached former malignant narcissist in the White House don’t care about or trust scientists and the current residents in the White House who are taking decisive counter measure to inhibit the spread of the virus, if they don’t care about their own health and that of their loved ones and neighbors, they should at least care about and trust the frontline workers – police officers, firefighters, members of the National Guard, medical professionals, caretakers, and essential services workers who are risking their lives to save ours, and yes, to save the lives of the protesters in this war against an invisible enemy. I will not debunk the myths that are circulating about vaccines, for members of scientific public health communities do this so much better. I ask, though, that everyone who is eligible, please accept the science and take the vaccines. By doing so, you will be supporting yourself, your children, your communities, and your world. But I leave those who believe that “freedom” is going against the advice of science to remember singer songwriter, Kris Kristofferson, words from “Me and Bobby McGee”: “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” And I would add, including your life. Therefore, let us take politics out of the equation. Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.
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