America doesn’t just do this domestically. They have interfered in other nations public health perceptions as well. The CIA undermined polio vaccination in Pakistan and Afghanistan when global eradication actually seemed possible.
Comment on Being afraid of vaccines is literally childish behavior.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study#Pub…
There’s been a systematic undermining of public trust in health and safety instructions going on for decades.
Some of this distrust is earned as with Tuskegee, the bungled Anthrax vaccine, the Reagan Era response to the AIDS epidemic, scandals with weight loss drugs like Fen-phen and Redux, Oxycodone, etc.
Some of it is purely manufactured, with the CIA-sponsored agitation against the Chinese COVID vaccine being a major font of modern day anti-vax Truther Lore.
But to no-sell skepticism as just “you’re a little baby who is scared of needles” really under plays the shift in attitude nationally. We used to be a country that whole heartedly embraced a preservation for small pox, polio, and influenza. Now we’re more terrified of kids getting the shot that gives you bad grades in school than getting measels.
shawn1122@sh.itjust.works 10 hours ago
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
America doesn’t just do this domestically.
They do. It’s just tied up in the private sector. Tons of quackery on American TV and in news journals. Everything from “Head On, Apply Directly to The Forehead” to Dr Oz shilling ginseng as a panacea to the social media conspiracies about MedBeds that Trump himself retweeted.
The CIA undermined polio vaccination programs in Pakistan when global eradication actually seemed possible.
Can’t let the wrong kind of people benefit
tomiant@piefed.social 20 hours ago
A lot of it perpetrated by the very industries themselves. It’s the natural consequence of letting every facet of societal motivation be dictated by profit maximization.
Like I said in another comment, I think what the antivaxers are incapable of understanding and expressing is that they are not actually questioning the science, they are questioning the health care industry and the systems meant to keep them honest. And in that I would agree with them, if only they were able to articulate it.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
A lot of the opposition to vaccination reads like fad diets and self-help trends from 20 or 30 years ago. You can prevent autism by fumbles around playing Motzart to your baby in utero? Meditating during Yoga? Eating chocolate? Pick your Oprah-sponsored poison.
But, like, why are we seeing a fixation on a proven medical treatment and not some generic “don’t let your kids eat jelly beans” or “do headstands to get the blood flowing to the brain” hookum?
I think that’s where you get to people really running afoul of an increasingly dysfunctional health media ecosystem. One whose reputation is bloated with empty promises about The Perfect Cancer / Alzheimer’s Cure or Living Forever With Blood Transfusions. And then it’s colliding with an actual system that just seems to throw enormous bills at you for pain killers and palliative care.