As the Guardian notes in a mail this morning:
Before a vaccine for measles was created, there were regular epidemics that caused approximately 2.6 million deaths worldwide each year. In England, the year before the vaccine was introduced in 1968, there were 460,000 cases of measles – by the 1980s that number had dropped to about 10,000 suspected cases a year.
To drive home the importance of getting protected from this highly contagious infection, the government implemented a national vaccination campaign in 1994 – the impact was immediately felt. There have been no measles epidemics since 1995 and in 2017, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared England measles-free. So, how, in just seven years, is measles back at the top of the health agenda?
I offer three reasons.
First, the memory of measles has been lost.
Second, people are totally selfish and think it's for others to provide immunity, not them.
And third, since 2017 we have had governments that have sided with the totally selfish. We have only had to see their attitude to Covid, which is now one of outright denial and refusal to accept the need for vaccines to appreciate that.
Neoliberalism kills. It's as simple as that.
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Agreed.
I see how Neo-liberalism’d ‘faith based’ ideology works in other policy areas.
Last night I watched C4 news with a segment about what is going on outside places where abortions are taking place.
Some of the anti-abortionists they interviewed were extremely scary people. It was a toehold into a very dark world where opinion trumps fact.
Cunning trumps reason seemingly every time, turbo charged by emotion. It’s like talking to a brick wall.
It’s a heady brew.
I would add the rise of anti vac conspiracy theories spread by social media and exacerbated by Covid. So a % of unvaccinated are the stupid and gullible.
I remember the MMR vaccine furore back at the turn of the century, which surely is involved in this instance. The people influenced by that were wrong, but they weren’t stupid and gullible. (There was even a TV play about it with Wakefield portrayed – by all round nice guy Hugh Bonneville – as a wronged hero.) All sorts of things are believed by all sorts of people who have high functioning intellects and are generally well-meaning, sadly. It is very easy to construct a lie that will be believed fervently by many, if the right buttons are pushed. The internet has turbocharged this.
When Wakefield was peddling his rubbish, my ex-wife (medical) did some background checking etc, and rapidly concluded he was a charlatan. She had some big disagreements at the time with ‘healthy lifestyle’ acquaintances. However, he should and could’ve been exposed very rapidly but for the British media doing their usual “spout lies, mess up lives, move on” routine.
Are they conspiracy theories? Really? Were/are the Covid jabs vaccines in any traditional sense? Many informed folk would passionately dispute both, and perhaps as a consequence, vaccines in general have now got a bad rap despite the traditional version having become the traditional version precisely because of their efficacy. Perhaps too it’s because the authorities in both UK & USA are such obvious & appalling liars a general wariness of following their instruction together with a disregard for authority in general has spread throughout both populations.
Bill
A warning.
Covid vaccine denial is sufficient to qualify as trolling here.
Don’t do it again. I will not tolerate such gross stupidity from anyone. You are hanging on by the skin of your teeth.
Richard
Did not realize that the UK had just as many anti-vaxxer idiots as the USA.
It is nice to know the USA is not alone in having so many wacko denier idiots and their cousins the anti-vaxxers.
I think that there is a strong argument in favour of making childhood vaccinations compulsory.
My children are vaccinated so the children who cant be vaccinated benefit from the ‘herd immunity’ however the pardon the saying Middle Class (insert profanity of choice) parents who dont want their kids vaccinated also benefit from it while mine have had to have an injection and the associated side effects.
Then of course there are questions about the welfare of the children whose parents cant get it together to get them vaccinated.
That’s before I get started on the home schooled!
What’s your problem with the home schooled, John?
Home schooling can be wonderful, both for the children and the parents. But it is completely unregulated so can be a front for child neglect and abuse. It needs a degree of regulation, for safeguarding issues.
So can normal schooling, Cyndy.
Home schooling is not completely unregulated. Parents should have a connection to a local school. Anyway, when you look at those who rule this country, Their schools are not a good recommendation, are they?
“I think that there is a strong argument in favour of making childhood vaccinations compulsory.”
When I started primary school, back in the dark ages, childhood vaccinations compulsory.
With most government schools systems (public school is the USA) childhood vaccinations are still compulsory but it has become much easier to get a wavier.
When I vaccinated against TB, the school nurses from the county health department came to my elementary school and systemically vaccinated everyone (500 students) over a two day period.
I recall that here
I guess there must have been ways out, but I think exceptions were rare.
And the cost to individuals and the community isn’t just the direct risks from measles itself. There’s the added risks of catching all sorts of other things after you’ve had it.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20211112-the-people-with-immune-amnesia
@Andy Linton
Thanks for the link; but as someone who had measles as a kid, you could’ve been a bit gentler with your lead-in!
I went from a Fazeresque [I’m] “doomed”, to “that’s okay” upon reading it. It certainly explains why I seemed to be prone to childhood illnesses though.
Well, we can add this to the list.
Crumbling schools plagued by leaks and cold, BBC finds.
Just last week, temperatures in the “sheds” dropped below 7C – even with all the heaters on. Workplace regulations say classrooms should be at least 16C.
“I’m really cold. I have to wear gloves and it’s really hard to use a pencil or a pen when you’ve got your gloves on,” said Sebastian, who is eight.
Hettie, 10, said: “When it’s so, so cold, you start shivering, so your writing goes really wobbly when you’re actually writing it because our hands are shaking so much.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68021766
Unforgiveble.
Agreed
UK – along with some other countries seems to have compromised its supposedly independent public health institutions with politics .
Some senior professionals dependent on govt money and preferment have gone along with gaslighting of covid infections and current WHO advice on clean air and vaccination, masking in health care settings etc.
Even the head of UKSHA Jenny Harries put out several downright misleading statements. She seems to see herself as a mere conduit for govt ‘its over’ ‘get back to school’ ‘get back to work’ mantra. Ignoring that school kids are ill and previously at work adult sick.
She rightyl argues for measles vaccine – after a few hundred cases – but wont mention covid vaccine even though one or two million infected and still hundreds a week in hospital or dying and long term consequences for damage to other organs and immune system.
Unbelievable and scary in a supposedly informed democracy .
Dame Jenny Harries is a great servant of the Tory party but not of the public.
As with the economy, society and everything else, this government’s attitude to health increasingly resembles the British government during the Irish potato famine.
Remedies were available but the government claimed that nothing could be done that would affect the holy-writ of Laissez Faire markets, the supposed solution to all problems. As a result millions died, had their lives ruined or were forced to emigrate.
More generally, the current fad for neo-liberalism appears to be increasingly resolving itself into a form of neo-colonialism with the country and its people being stripped of all their assets for the benefit of a small class of exploiters who live entirely separate lives.
Agreed
But there was no famine as a result. It should be called a starvation, because that is what it was.
Thank you and well said, Paul and Richard.
If, like I do often and will this evening, you meet some of the people driving such policies, not just Tory / blue Tory, you notice the lack of empathy and, frankly, ignorance outside their micro economy. It’s as if they want people to suffer, so that they don’t have time to think and raise their heads and even challenge. They want people to fight daily for survival. However, and I heard this from Cameron, his type want more leisure and time to think for themselves, almost as if running a country should be for gentlemen amateurs doing it for the love of the sport, country etc. This is also why experts like Richard and Sir Michael Marmot are excluded from policymaking, if not the airwaves by the MSM.
In 2010, when I first met Cameron, Osborne and Clarke, heard of their plans and thought of its impact, I thought of the stories from my father and great grandmother, both living in a former colony, about that daily battle for just one meal. I live comfortably, thanks to their sacrifices, and can pass as at ease in these circles, but do not forget what others have to put up with and what my ancestors had to put up with.
My ancestors were Irish. No doubt they lived through 1848.
They were not the poorest Irish – it seems many were schoolteachers – but that does not say much
And I still remember the poverty my granny lived in until saved from it, relatively speaking, by my parents in the 60s.
History and memories matter.
“I will never understand those who might disagree. Why do they hate those without the means to meet basic needs so much?”
I will never understand those who advocate providing funding to people heedless of conduct or desert – it’s overt encouragement of psychopathic behaviour, and usually it’s advocated by people who aren’t on the hook for it – and are usually in receipt of pensions (potentially) which cannot be obtained in the Private Sector. Why do they hate hard working people who conduct themselves in a law abiding fashion and try and ensure they aren’t a burden on the state so much?
I am going to let others comment on this crass stupidity.
I will note that my university pension is vastly less than my state old age pension.
Mr Fuller has clearly not read my CV, or understand a great deal else, including the ature of in-work p-ensions and the impossibility of living on minimum wage.
I will never understand those who advocate allowing people to die because they cannot afford to live, when they can be helped. Just basic selfishness and a complete lack of ethics and morality. I hope, Barry Fuller, that you never fall on hard times and need help to live. I hope that even though I despise you and those who think like you.
Mr Fuller,
Clearly you believe there is an important distinction between the “deserving” and “undeserving poor”; or perhaps you are whole-hog self-righteous and believe there are no deserving poor. Either way, I will not therefore presume you may be open to the proposition that there is wisdom in a little reflection: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone’.
Let me try to find the measure of your self righteousness. You may be prepared to cast the first stone; but if nothing else moves you it may be advised to reflect on the fact that the recipient will quite probably endeavour to take evasive action. They may indeed believe their only way out is to start throwing a few stones of their own; perhaps some may come your way. in higher taxes, overwhelmed policing; collapsing social services and all the other miseries and social squalor that have brought us to the state we are now in.
It seems, Mr Fuller you and your fellow travellers have now managed merely to produce the inevitable, expensive, failed outcomes from the unforgiving society you have all called into life. Allow me to speculate that you will protest that even if you voted for the Governments that have followed your prescriptions, you aill answer; not enough. They weren’t self-righteous enough.
Then you will be offering everyone the road to perdition, Mr Fuller. I hazard fewer and fewer electors will be prepared to follow.
Hey Baz
No one is on the hook for anyone else really.
Your taxes are for dealing with inflation these days. They are not needed to provide services.
Your taxes were not even used to bail out the private banks in 2008.
You do need to get out more and find out what is really going on.
The Tory party is about to use all the tax it has collected from the exploitation of inflation to bribe voters to vote for them?
So tell me – what sort of hook would you call that?
Well said
“Neoliberalism kills” indeed. I offer as an exhibit:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/21/mental-health-trust-deaths
Norfolk and Suffolk NHS foundation trust (or NSFT), sees to mental health provision across two large English counties.
Average death rate (mental patients under NSFT care) per day 7 over 3.5 years. Is this a success in neoliberalism terms?
(source: Grant Thornton report commissioned by the NSFT. Grant Thornton report noted: the trust’s record-keeping was so chaotic that in about three-quarters of cases, it did not know the specifics of how or why the people concerned had died.
One thing for sure, the coroners will be busy.
Tory neolib Britain eh! a green and pleasant land where it is inadvisable to get ill, pysically or mentally (unless you are…….rich!)..
If neoliberalism doesn’t kill you, it still isn’t going to live with electoral failure; at least in its Conservative incarnation. the Chair of the Electoral Commission has warned that the new voter ID rules are so ‘tight’ they open the Conservative Party to accusations of bias in elections. That seems a very big statement for the Electoral commission to make; and not before time somebody said something. Do we have any politicians out there; or is Parliament full of tumbleweed, blowing in the wind?
The Voter Identification Regulations 2022 are listed by the government website as draft legislation; but the text is headed ‘draft statutory instrument’. I am not clear about the legislative standing of voter ID. Is this back door legalised gerrymandering; that seems to me the core of the question. Statutory Instruments are not primary legislation (I suspect they could be considered Government held Crown prerogative powers).
‘Brave’, was my reaction to that.
Followed by ‘true’.
Didn’t they get through Physician Associates and Anaesthetic Associates last week, using statutory instruments?
I’m not sure how it was in the rest of the UK, but in Scotland the winter boosters were only offered to those deemed vulnerable. I ended up catching something (I was never had a chance to figure out if it was flu or covid) and it floored me for days.
Every time I walked past the vaccination centre, it never seemed especially busy and I would love to see if there were any statistics on how many vaccines were ordered and delivered vs. expired and wasted (I imagine there were a fair few people who would have been eligible who turned it down). I would have loved to get a booster vaccine last autumn for Covid or even flu. I may be young and healthy right now, but who knows what the knock-on effects of repeated infection will end up being.
I’m a total believer in vaccination and staunch advocate of vacc programs having had the simplest to some of the most horrendous in my life. Including a particularly odiously sold/distributed dodgy polio vacc. But vaccines DO save lives.
Some of the minority of bad outcomes from the covid MMR vaccs I’ve observed though have put a dent in my belief in the integrity of big pharma and the shared profit/influence motives of some but not all researchers.
There were and are traditional vacc tech vaccines that were and are safer. So how much value do we place on the actual life or quality of life of that minority who react adversely to profit driven vaccines and conversely what value do we place on saving lives with fast tracked vaccines. Both concepts are high value, both necessary.
Covid corruption entered into it all with active suppression of a safer vaccine available in all EU states but not here in U.K. until allowed use was forced of that lower cost traditional vaccine that adverse reaction vulnerable people would have welcomed and probably have been safer with. Why? Read in detail the minutes of the MHRA and JCVI over the entire covid period, if they are not behind some pay wall now, and compare the research connections and cast back over the political shenanigans. Some of it all is absolutely reassuring in the detail and some is acutely alarming with intolerant bias. We need better truly independent more compassionate oversight that includes not just ivory towers and political opportunism. My opinion anyway.
What do you mean by “Some of the minority of bad outcomes from the covid MMR vaccs I’ve observed though have put a dent in my belief in the integrity of big pharma”. What is covid MMR vaccs? Are you suggesting that the long established MMR vaccines are related to the covid vaccs?
“Covid corruption entered into it all with active suppression of a safer vaccine available in all EU states but not here in U.K. until allowed use was forced of that lower cost traditional vaccine ” What safer vaccine was available in all EU states byt nit in the UK? How was use of the ‘lower cost traditional vaccine” forced?