“Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything.
“Are you feeling all right?” I asked her.
“I feel all sleepy,” she said.
In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.
The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her.
On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles. I was unable to do that for Olivia in 1962 because in those days a reliable measles vaccine had not been discovered. Today a good and safe vaccine is available to every family and all you have to do is to ask your doctor to administer it.”
I’d encourage everyone to read Dahl’s full letter about losing his daughter to measles, but especially the people who are considering listening to grifters who failed 10th grade biology.
What is so strange to me is the people who won't vaccinate don’t¡t hesitate to take meds that would save their lives, why prevention is considered worse than the cure is a mystery to me
I’m very obviously pro vaccination, so please don’t mistake my speculation about the reasoning for endorsement of said reasoning. But I see three main culprits:
preparedness paradox. All the vaccinations seem like overkill BECAUSE they work. We don’t see much of the truly horrific diseases anymore, so the prevention seems like overkill.
loss aversion. If I’m healthy now, I could lose something getting a vaccine! If I roll the dice, odds are low I’ll contract something. Therefore, it makes sense to avoid anything to disrupt the status quo, even if the low risks are getting higher as more and more people forgo vaccination, and the risks of a vaccine are usually significantly lower and less severe than getting the illness they prevent.
no atheists in foxholes (hate that saying btw, but it’s the best I have to summarize my point). Once you’re confronted with the reality of the illness, you’ll take whatever is available to you. Any port in a storm. If a vaccine worked after the fact I bet these guys would try it too, it’s just a day late and a buck short.
I've never liked the formulation of the "Preparedness Paradox." Even at measles' worst, most people never knew anyone who died from the disease. Total public acceptance, which maintained for 30 years after measles deaths were nearly eradicated, was accomplished through extensive media coverage and public health messaging.
People stopped caring about measles because those messages disappeared, which there's nothing paradoxical about. No individual is capable of making risk assessments based on observing their private lives. Those risk assessments are internalized from public discussion.
I remember health care professionals telling stories of bewildered covid patients unable to comprehend that even if they're now open to getting the vaccine, it won't do anything for you when you're about to be intubated.
All you need is a glass of raw milk and a cold plunge with your jeans still on and you, too, could be RFK Jr’s picture of health! You know, that famously pink-toned former heroin addict who talks like an ancient wizard turned his vocal cords into jumper cables?
I'll add one to this. I don't know if there's a name for it. But as a parent you don't want to be responsible for directly causing something to happen to your child (like giving them a vaccine and they experience a side effect). When a wave of illness sweeps through your town, you think - oh, it was fate. Or, it was nature. Or, it was God. I think when people get all this information about "vaccine side effects," they think - "Well, I won't do anything. And if something does happen, it will be (fate/Nature/God's) fault, not mine." I honestly understand this impulse, because I can feel it in myself. Fortunately, I had enough basic math and science in school that I can get past it.
It sounds so dumb but I think there's a fourth reason... Needles. Needles make people uncomfortable. If you form your ideology around your areas of unresolved discomfort, it's easy to start believing that the needle is in fact a danger. Pills just don't raise people's defenses in the same way.
A lot of anti-vax rhetoric really leans into the upsetting image of sticking a child with a needle.
In trying to understand their own logic, I’ve thought about a few possible reasons:
They have difficulty watching their child’s discomfort and pain when getting a shot. I know you’re thinking “but the pain of the disease is far worse”. Yes but it’s not concrete to them and it’s not guaranteed, so to them it’s not real. The shots feel overdone and unnecessary because the only thing they personally experience is their child’s pain (maybe also remembering how much they hated it themselves as a kid). Only their subjective experience matters. They don’t understand anything else.
They have a general complex around both doctors’ intellectualism (elitism) and authority (telling them what to do). This goes along with their conspiracy minded thinking. They feel powerless in the face of healthcare choices that they don’t understand and they feel are being made for them. Unfortunately that power gap is filled with pseudoscience and grifters. No amount of explaining the mechanism behind vaccines will make them understand. They are either intellectually incapable of understanding, psychologically unwilling to learn, or both. They do not have open minds on the topic, even if their kid dies.
Control and seeing their children as ‘theirs’ is also a major piece of it. The kid is theirs and theirs alone, how dare anyone else tell them what to do. I’m an epidemiology student. I’d get barred from Reddit if I said what I’d like to do to these parents.
Idk, what’s insane to me is that those parents are what? Probably millennials, right? So very likely THEY were vaccinated themselves.
And if they were not then they were protected by the herd immunity they are now denying to other kids who cannot be vaccinated because of actual reasons, not just parental whim.
There are plenty of these types of people who are against curative medicine as well unfortunately. There’s a whole industry of “natural” cures for cancer patients who refuse chemo/radiation/surgery
It’s easy to have someone else die or become extremely sick for your beliefs. I think the worst part of anti-vax parents they will not be suffering from their consequences personally. The same immunity they’re undermining is literally shielding them from the consequences of their actions affecting their health. A lot of anti-vax parents double down even when their child dies.
It’s disgusting but I think they literally can’t admit they should have vaccinated their kid, because if they admitted that, they’d be admitting they killed or permanently disabled their child. Their brains won’t let them.
She doesn't even take responsibility - she says it just happens to be God choosing to take him at this time (and as opposed to just happening to not "take" her other three vaccinated kids).
I dunno how all the doctors and nurses who saw this child when she took him in didn't outright tell the dumb, selfish woman off. They are true professionals.
Likely these nurses and doctors are true professionals who hope that they can earn enough trust from this woman that she will vaccinate going forward. As a pediatrician once explained to me, the parents who don't vaccinate are often very conscientious parents in many respects. They often feed their children a very healthy diet, make sure they get enough sleep and exercise, support them in school and activities and give them attention and love. If they didn't care about their kids, there wouldn't be much there to work with. It sounds like in this case this mom was just so mistrustful of medical system, while being extremely responsive to her child's distress, that she was reluctant to take any medical advice. I wonder if the outcome would have been better if they could have convinced her to keep her son in the first hospital. This poor, poor kid. Dammit.
I bet the parents are vaccinated. Playing with their child’s life like this should be grounds for removal of the child, not a celebration of liberties by the right. How dare they.
I also bet RFK jr is vaccinated given his age. The guy literally makes his money wit frivolous lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies over vaccines. He doesn’t care if Americans die as long as he can rake in his millions.
It makes me so angry how these parent are basically signing up their kids to die for their beliefs. Meanwhile, the vaccines they took as a child are shielding them from the consequences of their actions from harming their health. It’s cruel irony.
It shouldn't be legal to do this to your kid. If instead of refusing to vaccinate this child, his parents had slammed his head into a wall, they'd be arrested, and their children would be taken away from them. But they remain free, so they can continue to abuse or even kill these kids -- and they can produce more children to abuse or even kill, with zero legal repercussions.
It gets worse. In addition to not vaccinating him, they checked him out of the hospital where he was being treated for measles complications and brought him home, against medical advice. That's when his condition worsened.
And their GoFundMe has raised 18k, proving that there are at least hundreds of people who think this family did nothing wrong.
For some odd reason, I just recalled how female serial killers differ from men in a key aspect: While male serial killers tend to kill total strangers (prostitutes, hitchhikers, etc.), females tend to kill people they know well, often spouses, children, or both.
It's completely expected, actually. The reason measles is roaring back and not diphtheria or polio is because measles is one of the most contagious illnesses known to humanity. One person sick with measles can infect 12-16 other susceptible people. In contrast, one person sick with influenza can infect 2-3 others. Honestly it's more surprising that all four kids weren't infected.
To clarify: I meant more like you would hope after one child (like a 2 year old!!) got measles, you’d start to reconsider things.
Obviously that’s a pointless comment to make since one of their kids is on death’s door and they’re still not reconsidering their positions. It’s just fucking crazy
Even worse, they KNEW he was likely to get sick, because his two siblings showed symptoms a full WEEK before him.
Had they taken him to the doctor the instant they realized the other two had measles, they would still have had time to do some amount of prophylactic treatment.
But the parents instead chose their own ego every single step of the way.
I strongly believe that when parents demonstrate no remorse for harmful behavior, there should be meaningful consequences. In the legal system, lack of remorse often influences sentencing, and I think similar accountability should apply here.
>“With my own eyes, I have seen the damage it does to kids who are perfectly normal, and then once they get it, they're not the same anymore"
I wish we could track this down better to understand what comments like this are talking about. Do they genuinely know multiple people who have vaccine injuries? Or even one? That is very unlikely, but I wonder what the people they're referring to actually experienced or if people like her have made it up completely in their head as confirmation bias.
It is also nonsensical to me that people like this will have conviction to still be anti-vaccine but will receive other medical treatment. What "stuff" is in the vaccine that is so scary that isn't in the antibiotics, plasma exchange, IVs, and MRI?
Kids start showing autism spectrum disorder around the time they’re supposed to get vaccines. It’s people fundamentally refusing to understand that correlation is not causation.
I mean, think about your own experience. Have you ever seen a “vaccine injured” child? I have never met anyone like that, never spoken to a parent who thought their kid was harmed by vaccines, never met a doctor who said they’ve seen a “vaccine injury” or any result of vaccines that changed a kid’s personality, and my two best friends are both family doctors.
There is a huge amount of misinformation out there, including faked photos of “vaccine injured”kids. There is a whole ecosystem feeding on the ignorant and uninformed. These people are both perpetrators and victims.
As someone with a husband from the rural deep south, I firmly believe there is no more dishonest person than rural conservative Christians.
I live in one of the most vaccinated areas in the country. I work in healthcare in which we are all required to be vaccinated, our schools/camps/pre schools all require kids to be vaccinated. I have worked with thousands of vaccinated patients. I have never even heard second hand of a vaccine injury more severe than someone getting a week's worth of migraines after their first Covid shot.
Yet somehow these anti vaxxers who live in rural areas with the lowest vaccination rates and have a social circle of like 25 people always know "so many people" who have died or been seriously injured.
And it is like that for everything. They all know a woman who was raped and she kept the baby and the baby grew up to be a wealthy doctor and the best thing that ever happened to her. They all know a kindergartner whose teacher tried to convince them they were trans and explained anal sex to them. They all know Europeans whose lives were ruined by socialized medicine. Literally any subject they are ever arguing on, they will always claim a personal anecdote that proves their point perfectly. And you even see this at every level up to and including Congress. Some Democrat will make a huge report filled with charts and graphs and evidence, and then a Republican will stand up and say, "Well I know a woman who was married at 12 years old and she is the happiest married woman I have ever met and specifically told me that if she had had to wait to 18 it would have ruined her life, so child marriage should be legal!"
It also is why MLMs appeal to them so much and fit in so well with their culture. They have so much experience in all their relationships being transactional and based on dishonesty.
Hey now. I will have you know that I have met many urban folk in my southern city who do exactly this but are Erudite and Learned enough to say it only of the COVID vaccine because it was "rushed to market."
My husband (who is young and otherwise healthy) had a rare adverse reaction to the Moderna COVID vaccine that gave him a condition called MCAS, which requires him to take like 4 different medications to keep it under control. But even he still advocates that other people get vaccinated. Because COVID killed millions of people, and vaccine injuries are extremely rare.
Usually it’s glossed over that the disease itself can cause horrible health conditions too. I lost my hearing and smell partially from Covid. It’s awful and I’m still learning how to manage years later. I am so sorry for your husband but I am so relieved to see a measured take from him (and you) on risks vs benefits. Humans just don’t seem to be able to understand these things anymore but this gives me hope.
I'm so sorry for your husband's medical issues and really appreciate his continuing to advocate for vaccines. People sometimes get injured from seatbelts, but I would never drive my car without buckling mine on!
I always think of a story Dr Offit shared on a podcast once. He and his wife are pediatricians, and he also did incredible work in developing the Rotavirus vaccine. His wife was walking into a normal, 4 month well visit when the infant started having a seizure. They quickly stabilized, began treatment and diagnosis. Had the seizure began 20 minutes later, it would’ve absolutely been blamed on the routine 4 month shots. There are so many changes in those first few years of life that coincidental timing can look like it’s tied to vaccines.
Don't let them off that easy. Yes, there is a one in a million case where someone's kid had became seriously ill at almost the exact same time they got vaccinated, causing their parents to become anti vaccine.
But the overwhelming vast majority of them are just liars and have never even seen something that even would appear on the surface to be a vaccine injury.
They couldnt tell you why, they couldnt name the person bc theyre made up, they dont understand medicine or science. Theyve been brainwashed and arent interested in educating themselves.
They do personally know kids who seem odd/autistic/disabled, and for whom:
the parents of those kids have told them that they blame one or more vaccines for this, OR
without talking to the parents, they presume that vaccines were the cause.
We all know kids like that, right? And from across the room/down the street, we can speculate on what we think caused the problem. Some parents will anecdotally support our hypothesis (and other won't, but we can write them off as being in denial 🙄)
So it's VERY EASY for her to say that she has "seen the damage"---from afar---and that she has diagnosed all of the world's problems as being due to vaccines. 🤦♀️
If you *already believe* that vaccines regularly cause injury, then you're more likely to attribute any bad thing that happens after a child receives a vaccine (be it an hour or a month after the shot) to "vaccine injury."
It’s usually some bullshit like they think the light goes out in kids’ eyes after vaccines or that they blame vaccines for things that happened within some months of it. There was some “mother” who murdered her baby by positional asphyxiation after drinking and she tried hard to make people believe that her baby’s death was caused by vaccines.
My father's best friend from college has a child with autism and some additional physical delays. The child is now an adult but is unable to live independently because of their disabilities. His marriage also broke up partially because the mother couldn't handle the difficulty of becoming a full time caregiver. He is so far as I know a good father who is devoted to his child. Unfortunately he blames vaccines for the kids issues and has become an antivax nutter. I think it's a coping mechanism for grief and lack of understanding. People want something or someone to blame when things go wrong.
I think they probably do meet people whose kids are neurodivergent or have developmental disabilities. Some of the parents may believe vaccines are the reason. So if you start ascribing every case of ASD and developmental disability to vaccines, then in your mind you've met kids with vaccine injuries.
this one always gets me- no trust in the science of the vaccine, but willing to trust the science of the methods/systems/tools/professionals they seek treatment from
They trust these medical teams to save their sons life and see them working in good faith, but wouldn’t trust their recommendation to vaccinate even if it was the exact same people telling them. Suddenly it’s the Medical Establishment out for money and torture .
In the middle of all of this negativity, there is hope. My baby boy is part of a pneumococcus vaccine study. It was offered to kids born in August or September in Finland. During the second appointment we had to re-sign all the consent forms becsuse the number of participants had changed. So many families were interested in enrolling their babies in the study that they eventually raised the number of participants. ❤️
“Still, despite Ethan’s ordeal, his mom stands by their decision. “We’re not blaming God for this,” said 35-year-old Kristina Moran Lopez. “Yes, it hurts, of course, it hurts. But God has chosen Ethan for a reason. God is doing something, and we're gonna glorify his name regardless.”
I wondered why they might still stand behind their decision, and there it is: mental illness.
It’s crazy to me how upbeat she’s trying to be. From the gofundme: Doctors have given a devastating prognosis that Ethan may never walk, talk, or eat on his own again.
Edit: The faces of the siblings in the gofundme are haunting. They seem to be the only ones that see the gravity of the situation.
Instead of doubling down on her ignorance the mom could show some contrition and use this as an opportunity to encourage other parents to get their kids vaccinated.
She can still walk, talk, and eat. She’s fine. It’s easy to be upbeat when you’re not the one being physically impacted. Her tune may change once she’s responsible for caring for him instead of the nurses in the hospital though.
My mother is part of a high demand religion where suffering is just a part of this life. For her, any extra suffering isn’t a consequence of her poor choices, it’s just tests from God that will be repaid in heaven. She transmutes suffering into holiness.
Christopher Hitchens did a hit piece on Mother Teresa. She didn't withhold pain medication from people in her hospices. For all or most of her career, palliative care wasn't even a thing in India. Dying people couldn't be prescribed opioids just to ease their suffering.
You are both strawmanning the criticisms of Mother Teresa and somewhat incorrect: they generally ran a piss poor facility, though they were incredibly well funded. Dirty needles, unquarantined tuberculosis patients. And: there are many drugs that can ease pain besides opiates and those were also withheld.
Generally her concerns were spiritual in nature and not with the life and wellness of the people in her care.
Anyway, the idea that suffering has a greater meaning is part of what draws people to religion. That belief is a source of comfort and resilience. It just shouldn't be used to justify the kind of thing these parents did to their child.
Sure. And religious leaders who use this belief to welcome and even increase suffering, and who are then lauded for it globally, should actually be seen as what they are (or were): monsters.
If you ever take a gander at the r/prolife subreddit, the women on there practically cream themselves imagining having a profoundly sick, disabled child whose every waking moment is nothing but pain and misery, and how they wouldn't have an abortion even knowing in utero their child's life would be nothing but suffering. In anti-euthanasia/abortion rants even in the cases of profound suffering with no chance of cure, they brag about going to hospitals to visit sick relatives and seeing terminally ill people in agony and saying that they still did not want them to die and wanted them to cling to life for as long as possible.
It's sadism dressed up as compassion, and it's sick.
Yeah, she must have been vaccinated as a child. I assume her and her husband were, since only the kids got it. I guess they can't connect the dots here. I blame the mom and dad here.
Encephalitis is known to be one of the most intensely painful diseases too. It is like your brain being on fire while having the worst headache of your life, and yet you’re usually paralyzed and unable to ask for help. These parents are gleeful about inflicting intractable pain upon their child. I would struggle to be sane if I were in the room with this woman alone.
And they never admit that they turned to modern medicine to save him when their way didn’t work out so great. That is cognitive dissonance. Happened with covid too. People dying in the ICU while screaming at the hospital staff that covid was a hoax…their last words on earth.
Either God is in charge and you accept natural consequences of disease or you trust modern medicine to help you. You should not be able to have it both ways but they always do this. They run to modern medicine when their bullshit hits the fan.
I am in SC. I have an evangelical relative who has a child with a brian injury (freak accident). They are also upbeat about the prognosis. “We’re trusting in God” etc. At least they vaccinate their kids, because smh, I’ll never understand it.
If the child recovers this person should not be permitted custody.
How did Ethan to get God’s permission for this extraordinarily expensive medical treatment? Shouldn’t God be consistent in what man can do to save a child?
There’s also this: they’re forced with the choice to evaluate their actions and realize they caused their child to suffer and possibly die, or they can double down that they did the right thing and this was unavoidable.
Its actually this probably more than anything. The truth is they made a monstrously bad choice and its hard to personally accept that. Easier for the psyche to double down and plow on than accept that. Take the story of Cateline Clobes. She messed up by not putting her kid in a cradle, had a cocktail, then rolled on top of her baby, and simply could not accept the failure was her's, so she blames the vaccines from a checkup a couple days earlier.
I hadn’t heard of this case before. That article made me sick with rage. Instead of using her daughter’s death as a catalyst to promote safe sleep practices (which could actually save lives), the mother instead is using her story to promote anti-vax positions? I understand to some degree the psychological need to blame something other than her poor decision making around sleep practices for her daughter’s tragic death, but it’s abhorrent to cling to and spread untrue, unscientific, and dangerous rhetoric that will harm more children and families to appease her own guilt.
God did do something - God gave us brains, God created people who want to study science, medicine, etc. God enabled those people to research, to learn, to think, to become medical doctors and researchers who then can develop vaccines that eradicate such horrible diseases. So why didn’t these parents place their trust in God and get their child vaccinated????????????????????????????
I would argue that the cognitive weirdness that manifests as "denial as a protection mechanism" is something hardwired into most of us, but usually in more subtle ways (rather than a symptom of an illness). I would agree that this is a dysfunctional
extreme of denial though.
You know who is going to blame Kristina Moran Lopez? Her son, for destroying his childhood and his body. When a free and safe vaccine would have prevented all of this.
I was thinking about this while reading the article. There are going to be a number of kids who weren’t vaccinated in this most recent generation, and the ones who suffer life-altering injury as a result of preventable illnesses will eventually have to reckon with what their parents did to them. I wish them the best in that journey. It won’t be easy
do you ever think about how many deeply mentally ill people (who believe in delusional supernatural forces, who have totally psychotic brain patterns of connecting the dots via "signs from heaven") are just never diagnosed or treated in the US because of this?
the country is failing because of the same reason it was founded: religious freedom. freedom to be as absolutely fucking stupid as you want, even in the age of information.
I mean, sure? Do you ever think about how many people believe they are cats but don’t get the help they need because they don’t have access to medical care?
Do you see my point? Your argument is a logical fallacy based on an assumption and it really doesn’t seem like you work in the field.
A culturally competent mental health provider knows how to differentiate between religious and spiritual beliefs which are a normal part of the human condition and religious and spiritual delusions which are mental illness.
Reminds me the “joke” that people ask God to send a message, to do something, to provide a miracle.
And when a person dies even though there were entirely preventable measures in place, the God responds that they did send a sign, they did send a miracle. Vaccine IS the miracle, is the measure. So many people in poorer countries who still struggle to get people vaccinated at every happy that their kids won’t die.
Because they have to make an active choice to get vaccines but if he gets measles that’s just gods will. But mostly they just don’t think it will happen to them and are willing to risk the lives of immunocompromised people.
i submit that they may think refusing the vaccine is their "active choice". vaccinations are The Way It's Done for damn good reason, of course. but "breaking the mold" feels bold and different and like you are taking action for your family against all the corruption you are encouraged to associate with the broader society and its medical science.
people will do absolutely any fool thing to feel like they have power or control in their lives. not to have it but to feel like they have it.
What an incredibly frustrating read. Parents gambling their son's life on hope and a prayer and doubling down on their decisions as he withers away in a hospital.
Of course she’s not going to admit that she would act differently; that would be tantamount to admitting that it’s her fault. Cognitive dissonance is a hell of a drug. Deep down we all know that if time travel was real and she had the option, she’d surely take it.
I don't know that I believe she would. Deliberate and stubborn ignorance is like a drug for some folks. There can be so much pride and ego wrapped up in it that they can't make themselves let go of it for love nor common sense.
Their child will need lifelong medicaid coverage and special needs public schools, and those budgets are being decimated by the politicians they voted for.
The parents should go to prison for this. They CHOSE to let their children suffer and potentially die or have life long complications because they wanted to think their dumbasses were smarter than doctors.
It's part of the grift- by publishing their story, more people will visit their Go Fund Me. Their Go Fund Me isn't just for medical bills, it's for the father's lost wages, and a new HVAC and water heater for their house.
These people are fucking hopeless. I can’t imagine seeing my child in a dire medical emergency and not think ‘oh my god, if only I had vaccinated him.’
I wonder if there is insurance would it pay for the bills that are incurred because the child wasn’t vaccinated? Do those of us who follow all the vac rules have to pay higher insurance rates due to those who willfully choose to not vaccinate?
Facebook is quickly overtaking Fox News as the most destabilizing misinformation black hole in the country. Endless slop stories with zero moderations that push insane ideas like anti-vaccine propaganda. Then there’s fifty comments agreeing with the article to build consensus. Then there’s no fact checking or curation like a proper newsroom. It’s how you get already gullible (religiosity noted) people like this mom to believe shit she never would have pre-Facebook. May she continue to reap what she sows. And hopefully stops procreating this level of stupidity.
It’s turned into such a morality/persecution complex. If you are able to resist the medical community into having a natural birth, not vaccinate, treat things with essential oils then you are so strong and brave and smarter than everyone. I am in a mom group and so many people ask about drs who won’t make them vaccinate their kids under the guise of “respecting parents choice”
People have children for many different reasons. Sometimes those reasons are wanting someone to hurt the way they were hurt and sometimes it's to feel powerful by having someone to control. Sometimes those reasons coincide.
And "just looking into it"- the doctors have prescribed it, but they aren't so sure. Why start trusting doctors now? They are asking strangers online who've had plasma treatment to let them know what they think.
The pure stupidity of some people astounds me. Their children should be taken away, they are risking the children's lives just as surely as if they had beaten them to a pulp.
I hate how it’s assumed god gave this kid measles to “use him.” Maybe it’s to show everyone else what could happen to your kid if you don’t get them vaccinated but they’d never consider that.
I’m surprised they even did this article because it seems like a cautionary tale but once I saw the go fund me I’m sure it’s because they want other anti vax people to put their money where their mouth is
Also, why the hell would you worship a god that is so incompetent and uncaring? A god who, despite being all powerful, can't come up with a better way to solve a given problem or teach a given lesson than permanently and devastatingly disable your own small child.
"'Why do we need to add so much to our children’s bodies?' she asked."
Oh yes, I'm sure super mom here fed her family only whole, unprocessed foods that she cooked from scratch. I mean, that's their argument against a single dose of a life-saving vaccine, when the ingredient lists on most of the foods we eat, all day every day, are as long as they are?
These parents' willful myopia and obtuseness is infuriating. They are bad parents, bordering on bad people. OP, I sincerely respect you for getting through the interview. I'm not sure I'd have been able to.
I just cannot get into these people's heads. I've got a kid about the same age and wanted to go scorched earth when I found out he was picked last for dodgeball.
But being more pragmatic, the cost/benefit doesn't make sense.
Vaccination:
"With my own eyes, I have seen the damage it does to kids who are perfectly normal, and then once they get it, they're not the same anymore"
That's the mom's perspective, no real clinical data
No Vaccination:
Brain swelling
Antibiotics
Spinal tap (at least 2)
MIR (at least 2)
Temporary paralysis
Can no longer walk
I realize it's an ideological argument, not a logical one, but what's that "not the same" stuff again?
Jesus that was painful and rage-inducing. I am a parent and a grandparent, and I have always been reluctant to opine on other parents choices, but I want to scream in the faces of these catastrophically moronic shit-fer-brains child-abusing asshats.
I would happily pay for birth control for these twatwaffles, if they could demonstrate that they know how it works.
How is this better than autism??? My adult son is on the spectrum. He's the most brilliant, moral, and driven person I've ever met. He's a scientist who does actual medical research, not an e-searcher who read an article and thinks she's an expert. Vaccines didn't give my son autism -- he'd be the first to tell you that (and he can explain it with a depth of understanding that took YEARS of intense study to obtain).
As one of the few people in the US who has seen SSPE from measles, it is quite horrendous. The fact that she shows no contrition demonstrates that she is likely a psychopath and sees children the way Smithfield foods sees pigs: a sack of meat that’s easily replaced.
I still have nightmares from that case. To be see if this lady does, too.
Religious leaders really need to step up and speak out and support vaccinations. But that would involve doing what is right just because it is right. Something lacking in leadership nowadays
Fermifighter | 5 hours ago
“Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything.
“Are you feeling all right?” I asked her.
“I feel all sleepy,” she said.
In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.
The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her.
On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles. I was unable to do that for Olivia in 1962 because in those days a reliable measles vaccine had not been discovered. Today a good and safe vaccine is available to every family and all you have to do is to ask your doctor to administer it.”
I’d encourage everyone to read Dahl’s full letter about losing his daughter to measles, but especially the people who are considering listening to grifters who failed 10th grade biology.
Excellent_Walk7821 | 4 hours ago
What is so strange to me is the people who won't vaccinate don’t¡t hesitate to take meds that would save their lives, why prevention is considered worse than the cure is a mystery to me
Fermifighter | 4 hours ago
I’m very obviously pro vaccination, so please don’t mistake my speculation about the reasoning for endorsement of said reasoning. But I see three main culprits:
preparedness paradox. All the vaccinations seem like overkill BECAUSE they work. We don’t see much of the truly horrific diseases anymore, so the prevention seems like overkill.
loss aversion. If I’m healthy now, I could lose something getting a vaccine! If I roll the dice, odds are low I’ll contract something. Therefore, it makes sense to avoid anything to disrupt the status quo, even if the low risks are getting higher as more and more people forgo vaccination, and the risks of a vaccine are usually significantly lower and less severe than getting the illness they prevent.
no atheists in foxholes (hate that saying btw, but it’s the best I have to summarize my point). Once you’re confronted with the reality of the illness, you’ll take whatever is available to you. Any port in a storm. If a vaccine worked after the fact I bet these guys would try it too, it’s just a day late and a buck short.
asentientgrape | 3 hours ago
I've never liked the formulation of the "Preparedness Paradox." Even at measles' worst, most people never knew anyone who died from the disease. Total public acceptance, which maintained for 30 years after measles deaths were nearly eradicated, was accomplished through extensive media coverage and public health messaging.
People stopped caring about measles because those messages disappeared, which there's nothing paradoxical about. No individual is capable of making risk assessments based on observing their private lives. Those risk assessments are internalized from public discussion.
OutAndDown27 | 2 hours ago
I remember health care professionals telling stories of bewildered covid patients unable to comprehend that even if they're now open to getting the vaccine, it won't do anything for you when you're about to be intubated.
CommonSensei8 | 3 hours ago
The answer is Republicans destroyed education
luella27 | 3 hours ago
All you need is a glass of raw milk and a cold plunge with your jeans still on and you, too, could be RFK Jr’s picture of health! You know, that famously pink-toned former heroin addict who talks like an ancient wizard turned his vocal cords into jumper cables?
floofienewfie | 2 hours ago
That, too.
euclydia4 | an hour ago
I'll add one to this. I don't know if there's a name for it. But as a parent you don't want to be responsible for directly causing something to happen to your child (like giving them a vaccine and they experience a side effect). When a wave of illness sweeps through your town, you think - oh, it was fate. Or, it was nature. Or, it was God. I think when people get all this information about "vaccine side effects," they think - "Well, I won't do anything. And if something does happen, it will be (fate/Nature/God's) fault, not mine." I honestly understand this impulse, because I can feel it in myself. Fortunately, I had enough basic math and science in school that I can get past it.
_eliot_ | an hour ago
It sounds so dumb but I think there's a fourth reason... Needles. Needles make people uncomfortable. If you form your ideology around your areas of unresolved discomfort, it's easy to start believing that the needle is in fact a danger. Pills just don't raise people's defenses in the same way.
A lot of anti-vax rhetoric really leans into the upsetting image of sticking a child with a needle.
pepperpavlov | 4 hours ago
In trying to understand their own logic, I’ve thought about a few possible reasons:
They have difficulty watching their child’s discomfort and pain when getting a shot. I know you’re thinking “but the pain of the disease is far worse”. Yes but it’s not concrete to them and it’s not guaranteed, so to them it’s not real. The shots feel overdone and unnecessary because the only thing they personally experience is their child’s pain (maybe also remembering how much they hated it themselves as a kid). Only their subjective experience matters. They don’t understand anything else.
They have a general complex around both doctors’ intellectualism (elitism) and authority (telling them what to do). This goes along with their conspiracy minded thinking. They feel powerless in the face of healthcare choices that they don’t understand and they feel are being made for them. Unfortunately that power gap is filled with pseudoscience and grifters. No amount of explaining the mechanism behind vaccines will make them understand. They are either intellectually incapable of understanding, psychologically unwilling to learn, or both. They do not have open minds on the topic, even if their kid dies.
Queen-of-everything1 | 3 hours ago
Control and seeing their children as ‘theirs’ is also a major piece of it. The kid is theirs and theirs alone, how dare anyone else tell them what to do. I’m an epidemiology student. I’d get barred from Reddit if I said what I’d like to do to these parents.
ocava8 | 2 hours ago
Totally agree - power and control.
goddamnitwhalen | 2 hours ago
#2 is a deadly, deadly threat to the US (and the world) and I’m surprised more people don’t recognize it.
NightSalut | 3 hours ago
Idk, what’s insane to me is that those parents are what? Probably millennials, right? So very likely THEY were vaccinated themselves.
And if they were not then they were protected by the herd immunity they are now denying to other kids who cannot be vaccinated because of actual reasons, not just parental whim.
lkb33 | 3 hours ago
There are plenty of these types of people who are against curative medicine as well unfortunately. There’s a whole industry of “natural” cures for cancer patients who refuse chemo/radiation/surgery
GinAndDumbBitchJuice | 5 hours ago
I can't imagine gambling with a child's life like this.
Glass-Indication-276 | 5 hours ago
Shouldn’t be allowed!!! It’s neglect!!
GinAndDumbBitchJuice | 5 hours ago
Agreed.
algbop | 4 hours ago
It’s abuse
Daxori473 | 3 hours ago
It’s easy to have someone else die or become extremely sick for your beliefs. I think the worst part of anti-vax parents they will not be suffering from their consequences personally. The same immunity they’re undermining is literally shielding them from the consequences of their actions affecting their health. A lot of anti-vax parents double down even when their child dies.
YesterdayGold7075 | 2 hours ago
It’s disgusting but I think they literally can’t admit they should have vaccinated their kid, because if they admitted that, they’d be admitting they killed or permanently disabled their child. Their brains won’t let them.
ThatPhatKid_CanDraw | 2 hours ago
She doesn't even take responsibility - she says it just happens to be God choosing to take him at this time (and as opposed to just happening to not "take" her other three vaccinated kids).
I dunno how all the doctors and nurses who saw this child when she took him in didn't outright tell the dumb, selfish woman off. They are true professionals.
euclydia4 | an hour ago
Likely these nurses and doctors are true professionals who hope that they can earn enough trust from this woman that she will vaccinate going forward. As a pediatrician once explained to me, the parents who don't vaccinate are often very conscientious parents in many respects. They often feed their children a very healthy diet, make sure they get enough sleep and exercise, support them in school and activities and give them attention and love. If they didn't care about their kids, there wouldn't be much there to work with. It sounds like in this case this mom was just so mistrustful of medical system, while being extremely responsive to her child's distress, that she was reluctant to take any medical advice. I wonder if the outcome would have been better if they could have convinced her to keep her son in the first hospital. This poor, poor kid. Dammit.
old_namewasnt_best | 4 hours ago
That's because you care and are probably a decent person.
arianrhodd | an hour ago
And she said she'd do it again! 🤮
YesterdayGold7075 | 5 hours ago
“Ethan’s mom believes there will be a miracle.”
The vaccine was the miracle.
BookishHobbit | an hour ago
It’s the Parable of the Drowning Man all over again.
ClumsyZebra80 | 6 hours ago
I bet the parents are vaccinated. Playing with their child’s life like this should be grounds for removal of the child, not a celebration of liberties by the right. How dare they.
Easy-Concentrate2636 | 4 hours ago
I also bet RFK jr is vaccinated given his age. The guy literally makes his money wit frivolous lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies over vaccines. He doesn’t care if Americans die as long as he can rake in his millions.
ClumsyZebra80 | 4 hours ago
He is and so are his children!
Daxori473 | 3 hours ago
It makes me so angry how these parent are basically signing up their kids to die for their beliefs. Meanwhile, the vaccines they took as a child are shielding them from the consequences of their actions from harming their health. It’s cruel irony.
arrarium | 6 hours ago
These parents should go to prison. I don't say that lightly.
rotervogel1231 | 5 hours ago
It shouldn't be legal to do this to your kid. If instead of refusing to vaccinate this child, his parents had slammed his head into a wall, they'd be arrested, and their children would be taken away from them. But they remain free, so they can continue to abuse or even kill these kids -- and they can produce more children to abuse or even kill, with zero legal repercussions.
Ischomachus | 5 hours ago
It gets worse. In addition to not vaccinating him, they checked him out of the hospital where he was being treated for measles complications and brought him home, against medical advice. That's when his condition worsened.
And their GoFundMe has raised 18k, proving that there are at least hundreds of people who think this family did nothing wrong.
RepulsedCucumber | 4 hours ago
Their child should have been removed from the home for medical neglect.
CryIntelligent3705 | 4 hours ago
18k that never should have needed to be raised in the first place
flowerzzz1 | 4 hours ago
Wait what!?
rotervogel1231 | 3 hours ago
For some odd reason, I just recalled how female serial killers differ from men in a key aspect: While male serial killers tend to kill total strangers (prostitutes, hitchhikers, etc.), females tend to kill people they know well, often spouses, children, or both.
You can do with that information what you will.
Kookerpea | 2 hours ago
What can we do with irrelevant info?
hce692 | 5 hours ago
And any other family who contracts measles because of families like this should be able to sue the shit out of them
treegrowsinbrooklyn1 | 5 hours ago
3 out of their 4 kids got measles. Thats insanity
retroverted-uterus | 4 hours ago
It's completely expected, actually. The reason measles is roaring back and not diphtheria or polio is because measles is one of the most contagious illnesses known to humanity. One person sick with measles can infect 12-16 other susceptible people. In contrast, one person sick with influenza can infect 2-3 others. Honestly it's more surprising that all four kids weren't infected.
treegrowsinbrooklyn1 | 4 hours ago
To clarify: I meant more like you would hope after one child (like a 2 year old!!) got measles, you’d start to reconsider things.
Obviously that’s a pointless comment to make since one of their kids is on death’s door and they’re still not reconsidering their positions. It’s just fucking crazy
flyfightwinMIL | 4 hours ago
Even worse, they KNEW he was likely to get sick, because his two siblings showed symptoms a full WEEK before him.
Had they taken him to the doctor the instant they realized the other two had measles, they would still have had time to do some amount of prophylactic treatment.
But the parents instead chose their own ego every single step of the way.
CryIntelligent3705 | 4 hours ago
Also the other 3 had the vaccine which I don’t get why they left him out?!?
treegrowsinbrooklyn1 | 4 hours ago
The way that’s phrased is a bit confusing but I think the author meant that Ethan, like his 3 brothers, did not get vaccinated
hodie6404 | 4 hours ago
yes, that was worded weird but I finally figured out that none were vaccinated.
CryIntelligent3705 | 4 hours ago
OH! Thank you going back to take a look At how I misread
Diarygirl | 5 hours ago
They should but since the federal government is anti-vaccine and they live in a red state, nothing will happen to them.
SlowerThanTurtleInPB | 5 hours ago
I strongly believe that when parents demonstrate no remorse for harmful behavior, there should be meaningful consequences. In the legal system, lack of remorse often influences sentencing, and I think similar accountability should apply here.
flowerzzz1 | 4 hours ago
I completely agree.
arianrhodd | an hour ago
The docs said to take the kid to a bigger hospital with more resources. And they took him home where his condition worsened.
spiritussima | 5 hours ago
>“With my own eyes, I have seen the damage it does to kids who are perfectly normal, and then once they get it, they're not the same anymore"
I wish we could track this down better to understand what comments like this are talking about. Do they genuinely know multiple people who have vaccine injuries? Or even one? That is very unlikely, but I wonder what the people they're referring to actually experienced or if people like her have made it up completely in their head as confirmation bias.
It is also nonsensical to me that people like this will have conviction to still be anti-vaccine but will receive other medical treatment. What "stuff" is in the vaccine that is so scary that isn't in the antibiotics, plasma exchange, IVs, and MRI?
alf0nz0 | 5 hours ago
Kids start showing autism spectrum disorder around the time they’re supposed to get vaccines. It’s people fundamentally refusing to understand that correlation is not causation.
NATOrocket | 2 hours ago
The use of "perfectly normal" instead of "healthy" is very telling, I think.
YesterdayGold7075 | 5 hours ago
I mean, think about your own experience. Have you ever seen a “vaccine injured” child? I have never met anyone like that, never spoken to a parent who thought their kid was harmed by vaccines, never met a doctor who said they’ve seen a “vaccine injury” or any result of vaccines that changed a kid’s personality, and my two best friends are both family doctors.
There is a huge amount of misinformation out there, including faked photos of “vaccine injured”kids. There is a whole ecosystem feeding on the ignorant and uninformed. These people are both perpetrators and victims.
BostonBlackCat | 5 hours ago
As someone with a husband from the rural deep south, I firmly believe there is no more dishonest person than rural conservative Christians.
I live in one of the most vaccinated areas in the country. I work in healthcare in which we are all required to be vaccinated, our schools/camps/pre schools all require kids to be vaccinated. I have worked with thousands of vaccinated patients. I have never even heard second hand of a vaccine injury more severe than someone getting a week's worth of migraines after their first Covid shot.
Yet somehow these anti vaxxers who live in rural areas with the lowest vaccination rates and have a social circle of like 25 people always know "so many people" who have died or been seriously injured.
And it is like that for everything. They all know a woman who was raped and she kept the baby and the baby grew up to be a wealthy doctor and the best thing that ever happened to her. They all know a kindergartner whose teacher tried to convince them they were trans and explained anal sex to them. They all know Europeans whose lives were ruined by socialized medicine. Literally any subject they are ever arguing on, they will always claim a personal anecdote that proves their point perfectly. And you even see this at every level up to and including Congress. Some Democrat will make a huge report filled with charts and graphs and evidence, and then a Republican will stand up and say, "Well I know a woman who was married at 12 years old and she is the happiest married woman I have ever met and specifically told me that if she had had to wait to 18 it would have ruined her life, so child marriage should be legal!"
YesterdayGold7075 | 5 hours ago
I would upvote this a thousand times if I could!
socialmediaignorant | 4 hours ago
This. This. This. Yes! 🙌🏼
flyfightwinMIL | 4 hours ago
As someone who has lived in the rural Deep South most of my life (as a leftist, to be clear) you are 100% correct.
These folks are conditioned to lie from the moment they’re born. It becomes pathological at a certain point.
zeitgeistincognito | 3 hours ago
Well said. Ugh, it's so disturbing.
BostonBlackCat | 4 hours ago
It also is why MLMs appeal to them so much and fit in so well with their culture. They have so much experience in all their relationships being transactional and based on dishonesty.
zeitgeistincognito | 3 hours ago
So true. So sad for our culture.
spiritussima | 4 hours ago
Hey now. I will have you know that I have met many urban folk in my southern city who do exactly this but are Erudite and Learned enough to say it only of the COVID vaccine because it was "rushed to market."
hypatiaspasia | 4 hours ago
My husband (who is young and otherwise healthy) had a rare adverse reaction to the Moderna COVID vaccine that gave him a condition called MCAS, which requires him to take like 4 different medications to keep it under control. But even he still advocates that other people get vaccinated. Because COVID killed millions of people, and vaccine injuries are extremely rare.
socialmediaignorant | 4 hours ago
Usually it’s glossed over that the disease itself can cause horrible health conditions too. I lost my hearing and smell partially from Covid. It’s awful and I’m still learning how to manage years later. I am so sorry for your husband but I am so relieved to see a measured take from him (and you) on risks vs benefits. Humans just don’t seem to be able to understand these things anymore but this gives me hope.
Infamous-Round-1898 | 4 hours ago
I'm so sorry for your husband's medical issues and really appreciate his continuing to advocate for vaccines. People sometimes get injured from seatbelts, but I would never drive my car without buckling mine on!
AdJolly5321 | 5 hours ago
I always think of a story Dr Offit shared on a podcast once. He and his wife are pediatricians, and he also did incredible work in developing the Rotavirus vaccine. His wife was walking into a normal, 4 month well visit when the infant started having a seizure. They quickly stabilized, began treatment and diagnosis. Had the seizure began 20 minutes later, it would’ve absolutely been blamed on the routine 4 month shots. There are so many changes in those first few years of life that coincidental timing can look like it’s tied to vaccines.
BostonBlackCat | 5 hours ago
Don't let them off that easy. Yes, there is a one in a million case where someone's kid had became seriously ill at almost the exact same time they got vaccinated, causing their parents to become anti vaccine.
But the overwhelming vast majority of them are just liars and have never even seen something that even would appear on the surface to be a vaccine injury.
carolina822 | 5 hours ago
[ Removed by Reddit ]
GrayHairLikeClaire | 4 hours ago
I remember that! I think about that interview all the time.
Kikikididi | 5 hours ago
They saw a Facebook post
ChiefCuckaFuck | 5 hours ago
They couldnt tell you why, they couldnt name the person bc theyre made up, they dont understand medicine or science. Theyve been brainwashed and arent interested in educating themselves.
SmartyPantlesss | 5 hours ago
They do personally know kids who seem odd/autistic/disabled, and for whom:
We all know kids like that, right? And from across the room/down the street, we can speculate on what we think caused the problem. Some parents will anecdotally support our hypothesis (and other won't, but we can write them off as being in denial 🙄)
They also have plenty of internet-meme children whose parents have subscribed to the same theories. Many parents would rather blame vaccines than grapple with the real reasons they have been offered by science.
So it's VERY EASY for her to say that she has "seen the damage"---from afar---and that she has diagnosed all of the world's problems as being due to vaccines. 🤦♀️
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house_shape | 5 hours ago
If you *already believe* that vaccines regularly cause injury, then you're more likely to attribute any bad thing that happens after a child receives a vaccine (be it an hour or a month after the shot) to "vaccine injury."
DeeperEnd84 | 5 hours ago
As others have said, literally anything is labeled a vaccine injury. Asthma? Vaccine injury. Poor eye sight? Vaccine injury. Behavioral problems? Vaccine injury.
This is how you end up with the belief that vaccine injuries happen constantly.
JellyfishSolid2216 | 4 hours ago
It’s usually some bullshit like they think the light goes out in kids’ eyes after vaccines or that they blame vaccines for things that happened within some months of it. There was some “mother” who murdered her baby by positional asphyxiation after drinking and she tried hard to make people believe that her baby’s death was caused by vaccines.
I-Love-Toads | 4 hours ago
My father's best friend from college has a child with autism and some additional physical delays. The child is now an adult but is unable to live independently because of their disabilities. His marriage also broke up partially because the mother couldn't handle the difficulty of becoming a full time caregiver. He is so far as I know a good father who is devoted to his child. Unfortunately he blames vaccines for the kids issues and has become an antivax nutter. I think it's a coping mechanism for grief and lack of understanding. People want something or someone to blame when things go wrong.
euclydia4 | an hour ago
I think they probably do meet people whose kids are neurodivergent or have developmental disabilities. Some of the parents may believe vaccines are the reason. So if you start ascribing every case of ASD and developmental disability to vaccines, then in your mind you've met kids with vaccine injuries.
SaltandLillacs | 5 hours ago
Won’t get their child vaccinated because chemicals but will is fine with all the extremely invasive medical procedures.
I’m glad they took him to hospital EVENTUALLY. I am just curious how they pick and choose what medical procedures are okay.
lofixlover | 5 hours ago
this one always gets me- no trust in the science of the vaccine, but willing to trust the science of the methods/systems/tools/professionals they seek treatment from
Western_Command_385 | 4 hours ago
Right!? Or like can the parents connect they didn't get sick bc they were likely vaccinated? Any critical thinking here?
Own-Emergency2166 | 2 hours ago
They trust these medical teams to save their sons life and see them working in good faith, but wouldn’t trust their recommendation to vaccinate even if it was the exact same people telling them. Suddenly it’s the Medical Establishment out for money and torture .
DeeperEnd84 | 5 hours ago
In the middle of all of this negativity, there is hope. My baby boy is part of a pneumococcus vaccine study. It was offered to kids born in August or September in Finland. During the second appointment we had to re-sign all the consent forms becsuse the number of participants had changed. So many families were interested in enrolling their babies in the study that they eventually raised the number of participants. ❤️
terriblemuriel | 2 hours ago
When he is old enough to understand, please thank him for me and the rest of us, for being a hero to help save children all around the world!
maybetomorrow98 | 5 hours ago
“Still, despite Ethan’s ordeal, his mom stands by their decision. “We’re not blaming God for this,” said 35-year-old Kristina Moran Lopez. “Yes, it hurts, of course, it hurts. But God has chosen Ethan for a reason. God is doing something, and we're gonna glorify his name regardless.”
I wondered why they might still stand behind their decision, and there it is: mental illness.
eurasianpersuasian | 5 hours ago
It’s crazy to me how upbeat she’s trying to be. From the gofundme: Doctors have given a devastating prognosis that Ethan may never walk, talk, or eat on his own again.
Edit: The faces of the siblings in the gofundme are haunting. They seem to be the only ones that see the gravity of the situation.
Instead of doubling down on her ignorance the mom could show some contrition and use this as an opportunity to encourage other parents to get their kids vaccinated.
eraserhead__baby | 5 hours ago
She can still walk, talk, and eat. She’s fine. It’s easy to be upbeat when you’re not the one being physically impacted. Her tune may change once she’s responsible for caring for him instead of the nurses in the hospital though.
HicDomusDei | 5 hours ago
She's also in denial.
Part of her understands 100% that she turned her son into a vegetable for basically no reason. But she can't accept that yet (if ever).
corvus_cornix | 4 hours ago
My mother is part of a high demand religion where suffering is just a part of this life. For her, any extra suffering isn’t a consequence of her poor choices, it’s just tests from God that will be repaid in heaven. She transmutes suffering into holiness.
HicDomusDei | 4 hours ago
I believe this is very similar to what Mother Teresa believed, too. Sick shit.
krebstar4ever | 3 hours ago
Christopher Hitchens did a hit piece on Mother Teresa. She didn't withhold pain medication from people in her hospices. For all or most of her career, palliative care wasn't even a thing in India. Dying people couldn't be prescribed opioids just to ease their suffering.
ladylondonderry | 37 minutes ago
You are both strawmanning the criticisms of Mother Teresa and somewhat incorrect: they generally ran a piss poor facility, though they were incredibly well funded. Dirty needles, unquarantined tuberculosis patients. And: there are many drugs that can ease pain besides opiates and those were also withheld.
Generally her concerns were spiritual in nature and not with the life and wellness of the people in her care.
krebstar4ever | 3 hours ago
Anyway, the idea that suffering has a greater meaning is part of what draws people to religion. That belief is a source of comfort and resilience. It just shouldn't be used to justify the kind of thing these parents did to their child.
HicDomusDei | 3 hours ago
Sure. And religious leaders who use this belief to welcome and even increase suffering, and who are then lauded for it globally, should actually be seen as what they are (or were): monsters.
idkcat23 | 4 hours ago
Yep. It’s a psychological coping mechanism. Your brain is trying to protect you from a reality that is so devastating that it breaks you.
theplantita | 5 hours ago
This!
HallWild5495 | 5 hours ago
she's thrilled to be getting community points in her church as a martyr. met plenty of women like her.
BostonBlackCat | 4 hours ago
If you ever take a gander at the r/prolife subreddit, the women on there practically cream themselves imagining having a profoundly sick, disabled child whose every waking moment is nothing but pain and misery, and how they wouldn't have an abortion even knowing in utero their child's life would be nothing but suffering. In anti-euthanasia/abortion rants even in the cases of profound suffering with no chance of cure, they brag about going to hospitals to visit sick relatives and seeing terminally ill people in agony and saying that they still did not want them to die and wanted them to cling to life for as long as possible.
It's sadism dressed up as compassion, and it's sick.
Taraxian | 3 hours ago
This is, in fact, the logical conclusion of the doctrine that "suffering brings us closer to Christ" (look up the discourse over Mother Theresa)
socialmediaignorant | 4 hours ago
And cash. Don’t forget the cash grab for maiming her child.
Western_Command_385 | 4 hours ago
Yeah, she must have been vaccinated as a child. I assume her and her husband were, since only the kids got it. I guess they can't connect the dots here. I blame the mom and dad here.
socialmediaignorant | 4 hours ago
Encephalitis is known to be one of the most intensely painful diseases too. It is like your brain being on fire while having the worst headache of your life, and yet you’re usually paralyzed and unable to ask for help. These parents are gleeful about inflicting intractable pain upon their child. I would struggle to be sane if I were in the room with this woman alone.
socialmediaignorant | 4 hours ago
And they never admit that they turned to modern medicine to save him when their way didn’t work out so great. That is cognitive dissonance. Happened with covid too. People dying in the ICU while screaming at the hospital staff that covid was a hoax…their last words on earth.
Either God is in charge and you accept natural consequences of disease or you trust modern medicine to help you. You should not be able to have it both ways but they always do this. They run to modern medicine when their bullshit hits the fan.
spacey-cornmuffin | an hour ago
I am in SC. I have an evangelical relative who has a child with a brian injury (freak accident). They are also upbeat about the prognosis. “We’re trusting in God” etc. At least they vaccinate their kids, because smh, I’ll never understand it.
Boxofmagnets | 5 hours ago
If the child recovers this person should not be permitted custody.
How did Ethan to get God’s permission for this extraordinarily expensive medical treatment? Shouldn’t God be consistent in what man can do to save a child?
I truly want to understand this line of thought
Fermifighter | 5 hours ago
There’s also this: they’re forced with the choice to evaluate their actions and realize they caused their child to suffer and possibly die, or they can double down that they did the right thing and this was unavoidable.
FloridaMan_69 | 4 hours ago
Its actually this probably more than anything. The truth is they made a monstrously bad choice and its hard to personally accept that. Easier for the psyche to double down and plow on than accept that. Take the story of Cateline Clobes. She messed up by not putting her kid in a cradle, had a cocktail, then rolled on top of her baby, and simply could not accept the failure was her's, so she blames the vaccines from a checkup a couple days earlier.
PeachGrenade14 | 4 hours ago
I hadn’t heard of this case before. That article made me sick with rage. Instead of using her daughter’s death as a catalyst to promote safe sleep practices (which could actually save lives), the mother instead is using her story to promote anti-vax positions? I understand to some degree the psychological need to blame something other than her poor decision making around sleep practices for her daughter’s tragic death, but it’s abhorrent to cling to and spread untrue, unscientific, and dangerous rhetoric that will harm more children and families to appease her own guilt.
carnivorousdentist | 5 hours ago
This is just religious psychosis!!! Why isn't this classified as parental neglect and ending in a charge? It's insane
Imaginary-Garden-475 | 5 hours ago
God did do something - God gave us brains, God created people who want to study science, medicine, etc. God enabled those people to research, to learn, to think, to become medical doctors and researchers who then can develop vaccines that eradicate such horrible diseases. So why didn’t these parents place their trust in God and get their child vaccinated????????????????????????????
ErsatzHaderach | an hour ago
bucking conventional wisdom like this makes people feel like they are Decision Makers with agency and control in a world that offers them very little.
External-Praline-451 | 5 hours ago
Narcississism. Refusing to admit you were wrong because it's too painful for your inflated ego.
lofixlover | 5 hours ago
I would argue that the cognitive weirdness that manifests as "denial as a protection mechanism" is something hardwired into most of us, but usually in more subtle ways (rather than a symptom of an illness). I would agree that this is a dysfunctional extreme of denial though.
eurasianpersuasian | 3 hours ago
“We’re not blaming God for this,” said 35-year-old Kristina Moran Lopez”
Well good, because God didn’t do this; you did.
GhostOrchid22 | 3 hours ago
You know who is going to blame Kristina Moran Lopez? Her son, for destroying his childhood and his body. When a free and safe vaccine would have prevented all of this.
maybetomorrow98 | 3 hours ago
I was thinking about this while reading the article. There are going to be a number of kids who weren’t vaccinated in this most recent generation, and the ones who suffer life-altering injury as a result of preventable illnesses will eventually have to reckon with what their parents did to them. I wish them the best in that journey. It won’t be easy
rowenaaaaa1 | 5 hours ago
I think you mean religious zealotry
maybetomorrow98 | 5 hours ago
I consider it a mental illness.
clevercalamity | 5 hours ago
Ugh, please don’t lump mental illness in w/ that crap please - signed someone who works in the mental health field.
Mental illness is not a choice, religious zealotry is.
HallWild5495 | 5 hours ago
do you ever think about how many deeply mentally ill people (who believe in delusional supernatural forces, who have totally psychotic brain patterns of connecting the dots via "signs from heaven") are just never diagnosed or treated in the US because of this?
the country is failing because of the same reason it was founded: religious freedom. freedom to be as absolutely fucking stupid as you want, even in the age of information.
clevercalamity | 4 hours ago
I mean, sure? Do you ever think about how many people believe they are cats but don’t get the help they need because they don’t have access to medical care?
Do you see my point? Your argument is a logical fallacy based on an assumption and it really doesn’t seem like you work in the field.
A culturally competent mental health provider knows how to differentiate between religious and spiritual beliefs which are a normal part of the human condition and religious and spiritual delusions which are mental illness.
Being part of a cult isn’t mental illness.
NightSalut | 3 hours ago
Reminds me the “joke” that people ask God to send a message, to do something, to provide a miracle. And when a person dies even though there were entirely preventable measures in place, the God responds that they did send a sign, they did send a miracle. Vaccine IS the miracle, is the measure. So many people in poorer countries who still struggle to get people vaccinated at every happy that their kids won’t die.
techaaron | 4 hours ago
Belief in supernatural is pretty widespread across humanity over thousands of centuries and to this day across the globe.
Hard to categorize it as a mental illness unless you're going to write off half the population.
Their beliefs aren't the problem, it's the imposition of a death sentence for their child.
AlamutJones | 5 hours ago
How could the vaccine possibly do him more harm than what he’s experiencing without it?
Poor kid
Rrmack | 4 hours ago
Because they have to make an active choice to get vaccines but if he gets measles that’s just gods will. But mostly they just don’t think it will happen to them and are willing to risk the lives of immunocompromised people.
ErsatzHaderach | an hour ago
i submit that they may think refusing the vaccine is their "active choice". vaccinations are The Way It's Done for damn good reason, of course. but "breaking the mold" feels bold and different and like you are taking action for your family against all the corruption you are encouraged to associate with the broader society and its medical science.
people will do absolutely any fool thing to feel like they have power or control in their lives. not to have it but to feel like they have it.
TheHerodotusMachine | 5 hours ago
What an incredibly frustrating read. Parents gambling their son's life on hope and a prayer and doubling down on their decisions as he withers away in a hospital.
OceanLemur | 5 hours ago
Of course she’s not going to admit that she would act differently; that would be tantamount to admitting that it’s her fault. Cognitive dissonance is a hell of a drug. Deep down we all know that if time travel was real and she had the option, she’d surely take it.
zeitgeistincognito | 3 hours ago
I don't know that I believe she would. Deliberate and stubborn ignorance is like a drug for some folks. There can be so much pride and ego wrapped up in it that they can't make themselves let go of it for love nor common sense.
DanoPinyon | 5 hours ago
👆👆👆👆👆
slainascully | 5 hours ago
Their child’s health is in God’s hands, but their ability to pay bills is apparently up to strangers
GhostOrchid22 | 3 hours ago
You just know they voted for Trump as well.
Their child will need lifelong medicaid coverage and special needs public schools, and those budgets are being decimated by the politicians they voted for.
JellyfishSolid2216 | 4 hours ago
The parents should go to prison for this. They CHOSE to let their children suffer and potentially die or have life long complications because they wanted to think their dumbasses were smarter than doctors.
treegrowsinbrooklyn1 | 4 hours ago
>“The parents said that they hope sharing their son’s story might help other families going through a similar ordeal”
Uhm… how?
GhostOrchid22 | 3 hours ago
It's part of the grift- by publishing their story, more people will visit their Go Fund Me. Their Go Fund Me isn't just for medical bills, it's for the father's lost wages, and a new HVAC and water heater for their house.
Leather-Confection70 | 4 hours ago
Seriously! How does them yapping about god and miracles help anyone else? Unless it’s someone smart to read it as a what not to do to your kids.
ClumsyZebra80 | 4 hours ago
So parents know to set up a go fund me immediately of course.
Kytyngurl2 | 2 hours ago
By reassuring others your kid almost dying is nbd presumably
bubbles_24601 | 5 hours ago
These people are fucking hopeless. I can’t imagine seeing my child in a dire medical emergency and not think ‘oh my god, if only I had vaccinated him.’
OpheliaLives7 | 5 hours ago
So…parents being investigated for negligence and or child abuse when?
Imaginary-Garden-475 | 5 hours ago
I wonder if there is insurance would it pay for the bills that are incurred because the child wasn’t vaccinated? Do those of us who follow all the vac rules have to pay higher insurance rates due to those who willfully choose to not vaccinate?
TigerBelmont | 5 hours ago
We all pay for the unvaccinated, smokers, drinkers and the obese.
The parents are horrible but we can’t police what people do
obeseoprah | 5 hours ago
Facebook is quickly overtaking Fox News as the most destabilizing misinformation black hole in the country. Endless slop stories with zero moderations that push insane ideas like anti-vaccine propaganda. Then there’s fifty comments agreeing with the article to build consensus. Then there’s no fact checking or curation like a proper newsroom. It’s how you get already gullible (religiosity noted) people like this mom to believe shit she never would have pre-Facebook. May she continue to reap what she sows. And hopefully stops procreating this level of stupidity.
Rrmack | 4 hours ago
It’s turned into such a morality/persecution complex. If you are able to resist the medical community into having a natural birth, not vaccinate, treat things with essential oils then you are so strong and brave and smarter than everyone. I am in a mom group and so many people ask about drs who won’t make them vaccinate their kids under the guise of “respecting parents choice”
ErsatzHaderach | an hour ago
yep. you can just go right ahead and append "...to abuse" whenever there's some "parents' rights" or "parents' choice" movement being talked about.
RainyDayWeather | 4 hours ago
People have children for many different reasons. Sometimes those reasons are wanting someone to hurt the way they were hurt and sometimes it's to feel powerful by having someone to control. Sometimes those reasons coincide.
OutsideCheetah | 4 hours ago
Sorry - this is child abuse.
Western_Command_385 | 4 hours ago
So parents are looking into plasma treatment but couldn't just get the vaccine. I mean, I can't.
GhostOrchid22 | 3 hours ago
And "just looking into it"- the doctors have prescribed it, but they aren't so sure. Why start trusting doctors now? They are asking strangers online who've had plasma treatment to let them know what they think.
BeanstheRogue | 5 hours ago
We need children’s rights now
ChiefCuckaFuck | 5 hours ago
The party of family values, folks.
DyllCallihan3333 | 5 hours ago
The pure stupidity of some people astounds me. Their children should be taken away, they are risking the children's lives just as surely as if they had beaten them to a pulp.
Rrmack | 4 hours ago
I hate how it’s assumed god gave this kid measles to “use him.” Maybe it’s to show everyone else what could happen to your kid if you don’t get them vaccinated but they’d never consider that.
I’m surprised they even did this article because it seems like a cautionary tale but once I saw the go fund me I’m sure it’s because they want other anti vax people to put their money where their mouth is
BostonBlackCat | 2 hours ago
Also, why the hell would you worship a god that is so incompetent and uncaring? A god who, despite being all powerful, can't come up with a better way to solve a given problem or teach a given lesson than permanently and devastatingly disable your own small child.
mudpupster | 4 hours ago
"'Why do we need to add so much to our children’s bodies?' she asked."
Oh yes, I'm sure super mom here fed her family only whole, unprocessed foods that she cooked from scratch. I mean, that's their argument against a single dose of a life-saving vaccine, when the ingredient lists on most of the foods we eat, all day every day, are as long as they are?
These parents' willful myopia and obtuseness is infuriating. They are bad parents, bordering on bad people. OP, I sincerely respect you for getting through the interview. I'm not sure I'd have been able to.
Mintch0colate | 6 hours ago
Thanks for sharing, this is horrific. The poor kid :(
Not_today_nibs | an hour ago
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it a million times again: no one is less pro life than pro-lifers
Kayge | 4 hours ago
I just cannot get into these people's heads. I've got a kid about the same age and wanted to go scorched earth when I found out he was picked last for dodgeball.
But being more pragmatic, the cost/benefit doesn't make sense.
Vaccination:
That's the mom's perspective, no real clinical data
No Vaccination:
I realize it's an ideological argument, not a logical one, but what's that "not the same" stuff again?
elkab0ng | 4 hours ago
Jesus that was painful and rage-inducing. I am a parent and a grandparent, and I have always been reluctant to opine on other parents choices, but I want to scream in the faces of these catastrophically moronic shit-fer-brains child-abusing asshats.
I would happily pay for birth control for these twatwaffles, if they could demonstrate that they know how it works.
Sarabean77 | 4 hours ago
There is no word for these types of parents. Despicable.
ErsatzHaderach | 2 hours ago
"My ego will not allow me to admit a grievous failure even if it kills my loved ones" is a cancer destroying America
DeadWishUpon | 5 hours ago
Poor kid.
vylliki | 4 hours ago
Vile human beings so proud of participating in the unecessary torture & injury of their own child. Maga scum.
meh762 | 3 hours ago
How is this better than autism??? My adult son is on the spectrum. He's the most brilliant, moral, and driven person I've ever met. He's a scientist who does actual medical research, not an e-searcher who read an article and thinks she's an expert. Vaccines didn't give my son autism -- he'd be the first to tell you that (and he can explain it with a depth of understanding that took YEARS of intense study to obtain).
Grace_Omega | 3 hours ago
An admission like that should get your children taken away from you. These idiots aren’t fit to be parents.
beautbird | 2 hours ago
What vaccine injury could possibly be worse than this??
Actual-Outcome3955 | 2 hours ago
As one of the few people in the US who has seen SSPE from measles, it is quite horrendous. The fact that she shows no contrition demonstrates that she is likely a psychopath and sees children the way Smithfield foods sees pigs: a sack of meat that’s easily replaced.
I still have nightmares from that case. To be see if this lady does, too.
Mydogisbestdoggy | 5 hours ago
What a proud, cold hearted bitch of a mother.
alex2374 | 4 hours ago
There's nothing interesting about these people. We learn nothing we didn't already know from this. It's just clickbait.
NWGreenQueen | 3 hours ago
This is child abuse
vanessasarah13 | 3 hours ago
Jesus this is fucking bleak
petertompolicy | 3 hours ago
Should be treated like manslaughter.
sirgawain2 | 3 hours ago
That’s really sad.
spacey-cornmuffin | 3 hours ago
I am in SC. I cannot for the life of me understand these people.
Kytyngurl2 | 2 hours ago
He’s not even my child and I can’t stand to see him suffering like that and would do anything to prevent it. What’s wrong with these people?
Radiant-Target5758 | an hour ago
Religious leaders really need to step up and speak out and support vaccinations. But that would involve doing what is right just because it is right. Something lacking in leadership nowadays
HuaMana | an hour ago
Effing child abuse 😡
slendermanismydad | 47 minutes ago
She needs to go to jail. I don't care what her whiny excuses are for this. At some point, we need to put children first.
AzuleEyes | 3 hours ago
Never thought I'd say this but maybe we ought to bring back mandatory sterilization.