Del Bigtree Is Panicking About Our Measles Case Counts
How can you tell Del Bigtree is panicking about our measles case counts?
He is bringing out his big guns!
He is talking about the Brady Bunch measles episode…
Del Bigtree Is Panicking About Our Measles Case Counts
Why is Del Bigtree talking about the Brady Bunch measles episode?
Like other anti-vaccine influencers, Del Bigtree thinks that since they laughed their way through measles on the Brady Bunch, then that proves that measles has always been a mild disease.
What is he missing?
Del Bigtree is missing that by the time the Brady Bunch measles episode aired, measles deaths were already down nearly 97%!
Why?
Of course, it is because the measles vaccine had already been available for six years!
Now, if you want to see how TV shows depicted measles in the pre-vaccine era, you have to watch Lassie.
During The Crisis, Timmy gets measles and Lassie has to save him by getting help after they run out of gas trying to get to a doctor.
What Else Does Del Bigtree Get Wrong?
Of course, talking about the Brady Bunch is not the only thing Del Bigtree gets wrong about measles.
Del Bigtree says that:
measles is coming through the same cycles it always has.
Do the record high measles cases of the last few years look like the same cycles we have been seeing since the endemic spread of measles had been eliminated in 2000? Of does something look different? the last foundational pillar of herd immunity is disappearing - he’s referring to folks who have natural immunity to measles… Now if people with natural immunity could serve as a “foundational pillar of herd immunity,” then why did so many people get sick and die before we had a measles vaccine?
There was no natural herd immunity to measles before we had a vaccine. all we have is this weak pathetic immunity that’s given by vaccines that doesn’t last long enough. Then why are nearly all of the measles cases in folks who are intentionally unvaccinated?
your vaccine program didn’t work/you failed. Even with the three tragic measles deaths last year, including two unvaccinated children in Texas, measles deaths are down 99.6% since their record highs in the pre-vaccine era! Vaccines work. At least they do when they are used. The only thing our vaccine programs have failed to do is overcome vaccine hesitancy and effectively push back against anti-vaccine influencers.
It is very obvious that vaccines work! After the outbreaks in 1990, we started to give a second dose of MMR and the endemic spread of measles was eliminated in the United States for 25 years.
That’s a lot.
And it is all obvious anti-vaccine propaganda triggered by panic over the rising measles cases.
Why?
It’s simple.
One of the pillars of anti-vaccine propaganda is that vaccine preventable diseases, like measles, are mild.
But it gets harder to convince people that diseases are mild when they start seeing the real effects of these diseases in their communities once cases rise, as they are now.
Reality hits when friends and family members start to get sick, are hospitalized, or die with a vaccine preventable disease because they skipped or delayed getting vaccinated.
Del Bigtree understands that’s when people change the channel on anti-vaccine influencers…
He has been saying this for years so one year I actually found the episode on Amazon Prime and watched it. It’s probably been 40 years since I first watched it. So here’s what happens in the episode. All six kids get measles and the parents and the maid panic and call in two doctors to the house. So it takes five grown-ups to take care of six kids with the measles. All of them are in bed because they’re that sick and they’re all driving everyone nuts with all their requests. That does not sound mild to me. A mild illness means you stay home and you don’t need round the clock care and you certainly don’t need a doctor to make a house call. You can still eat normal food and you can probably even go to school because your illness is mild.
Just another example of how these people are crazy
Remember “Gone with the Wind”?
Remember Scarlet O’Hara’s husband Charles Hamilton dies from measles.