The antivaxx movement tearing at the fabric of society
How the case of a little baby in need of heart surgery and its parents refusal to allow vaccinated blood to be used, could be the harbinger of much bigger things to follow.
Currently, a judge at New Zealand’s high court has reserved judgment on a case of a 4 month old baby with congenital heart defects in need of open heart surgery. The case has been brought to the court by parents concerned about the effects of vaccinated blood from NZ blood services used in the operation. The case is being defended by the lawyer Sue Grey, a controversial figure prominent in the anti-immunisation movement in this country. The terminology being employed by this case is highlighting a worrying trend amongst this community of referring to blood from people vaccinated against covid 19 as “tainted” or “impure” and on the flipside referring to their own “unvaccinated blood” as “pure.”
As ridiculous as this court case really is in the eyes of science, seeing the parents of the baby having already consented to the use of vaccinated blood in prior surgical procedures of this baby. Listening to the at times unhinged interviews given by Sue Grey, it becomes apparent that all she really wants is to centre the debate around the safety and efficacy of the vaccine itself, a debate that has become moot by now seeing that over 11 billion doses have been administered worldwide. The other dangerous part of this case, is the legal precedent it sets moving forward, whereby laypeople with a rudimentary understanding of the science, will be able to claim a similar medical exemption as certain groups, such as the Jehovah’s Witness, have had historically due to religious reasons. And this is where the real elephant in the room becomes manifest.
The antivax community has grown in numbers since the pandemic and their movement is increasingly resembling religious zealotry. Because, let’s face it, if science does not back up their claims, then what leg do they have to stand on but the religious, faith based one?
Of Nazis and men
This brings me to the rhetoric employed and the general philosophical tenets upon which this movement has been built. They are very reminiscent of a previous movement in Europe which ended up affecting the whole world 80 years ago, namely the Nazi movement. The antivax community has been transfixed by that time, often equating their plight in the face of the vaccine mandates to that of Jewish people in Nazi Germany with many of them at protests wearing the Star of David on the sleeve of their jackets as a sign of how persecuted they feel. They also feel the need to invoke the Nuremburg laws in reference to the “crimes” committed by the government, often painting senior political figures as Nazis in their placards.
The irony of all of this, is that many of the people holding these antivax sentiments come from the hippie community. That exact community that sees astrology as truth, crystals as panacea and vaccines as some nefarious global initiative to weaken the species. Well, the nazi movement shared that same obsession with star gazing, astrology, crystals, ancient mythology and the like and guess what, they did not like vaccines either!
Terms such as “pure blood” and “dirty blood” were routinely employed by nazis when referring to descendants of aryans and Jewish people respectively. If the reality weren’t so tragic, this whole ordeal would be satire of the most epic proportions.
And at the heart of this whole thing at the moment we have an innocent baby with pulmonary valve stenosis in desperate need of surgery, parents completely misguided by their own ignorant peers, seemingly confident enough in the field of medicine to sanction the surgery for their child but doubting other aspects of empirically reviewed science, particularly in regards to the safety of the covid 19 vaccine. If their doubts and questions would linger around the 10 day mark post immunisation I would have some sympathy for their concerns, but seeing this baby will be getting blood from someone who had the vaccine over a year ago, to even remotely herald the fact that some of this vaccine is still in the bloodstream is completely ridiculous. mRNA once read by the cell gets denatured very quickly, so that all that is left in the body is the white blood cell’s reaction to the vaccine - which in light of a global pandemic can only be a good thing.
My fear is that giving this court case any significance will further embolden the movement, giving it some form of official legitimacy, which it does not deserve. We can already see in the legislator’s initial choice to reserve judgment yesterday, a mini win for the antivax community. As of the time of writing this article, reporting on the legal case has gone around the world with major news outlets from the New York Times(USA,) The Guardian (UK) and the FAZ (Germany) already running large editorial pieces about it.
Pulling at the taught fabric of society
Society was already quite fractured pre-pandemic, now with increasing antivax sentiments getting way more air time than they should, the future of scientific discourse in the public eye is at threat, with everyone suddenly becoming an expert or knowing an expert. Refusing basic medical services because of your own philosophical outlook is one thing, but refusing life saving intervention during a global pandemic that puts more people at risk is not only dangerous for your own health, but also a criminal act. Now that Elon’s Twitter has lifted the ban on covid-19 misinformation, we could see a massive surge in these voices gaining momentum and swaying large parts of the uninformed populace.
Coupled together with legal cases like the one lying in front of the high court in Auckland this week, there could be some serious damage done to society as a whole. Just as with the burgeoning of the nazi movement in Germany 90 years, a movement that started small and grew over time to be one of the greatest threats to the survival of our species, this antivax movement that shares many similar values as the nazis did, poses as great, if not more, of an existential risk to us. Rather than this risk being physical as it was for Jewish people in Germany back then, this movement has the potential to unravel the very fabric that holds society together.
If we cannot agree on what “truth” is, then modern civilisation stands no chance but will instead pave the way backwards, to some type of unraveled, unhinged, superstitious, non-connected world where snake oil salesmen travel on horseback to hypnotise the unassuming masses with Bach flower remedies and homeopathy water.
Crazed wolves at the door?
Insane people are always sure that they are fine. It is only the sane people who are willing to admit that they are crazy.
We are at a major precipice here and we need to think of how to curtail the possible chaos that follows. To me deep down, I want to understand what drives these seemingly intelligent people to embrace these beliefs. Is it hubris, is it ignorance, is it a belief in being “initiated” into certain esoteric knowledge that others aren’t privy to, as so many conspiracy theorists believe themselves to be or is it something else? I read an article in the New Scientist recently about leadership in wolves and the role that certain parasites play in this.
We’ve all heard of the studies of how leaders and CEOs are often labeled as potential psychopaths or narcissists, well what if there was a microbiological explanation. In these wolves, they discovered that the pack leader was often infected with toxoplasmosis and that their “leadership ambitions” only began after a lengthy infection with this parasite. The most popular domesticated animal on earth is the house cat, it is also happens to be the one animal with the highest level of toxoplasmosis on earth, many of you will have heard of the “crazy cat lady” and seen this linked with a toxoplasmosis infection of the brain, well it also really beggars the question:
How many anti vaxxers own cats?
Again, thanks for reading and let me know your predictions below in the comments.
Of course I am skeptical of many things, within reason. I don’t think we should blindly trust or follow anyone - EXCEPT consensus that is created by objective experimentation and peer reviewed. Science questions itself non-stop, it doesn’t need laypeople to this for it!
Thanks for reading again!
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