You can't have both eradication of diseases and nationalism as things going on at the same time

[ck4829]

The former is a noble goal, it's something I support, and looking at the system of eradicating diseases, it's made me realize some things...

The eradication of diseases comes with the idea that all people; regardless of color, creed, class, gender, sexual orientation, and yes, nationality are entitled to a minimum level of freedom from sickness.

That for this to happen, there does need to be a movement of people and of medical goods and services that surpasses border concerns.

And that diseases are caused unthinking, non-sentient pathogens... not punishments from God against the sinner, not something 'the other' is stricken with, not something that justifies class or social stratification, etc.

All of these things run counter to nationalist ideas.

So it just seems odd to me, we have seen an explosion of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories and an explosion of diseases once slated for elimination and even eradication.

Nationalism rises up, so does measles.

Seems like the microbe isn't the only disease we should be worried about here.

[Liberal1982]

1. Repubs

blame the rise in diseases on the undocumented people coming in.

[tymorial]

2. And yet the anti vax nonsense is largely perpetuated by middle to upper middle class white people

[Igel]

5. Anti-vax nonsense comes from a few quarters.

Some is from middle to upper-middle class people, mostly white. Soccer moms that either swallow Jenny McCarthy or RFK Jr's intellectual swill.

Some are just from those who distrust doctors. Not all of those white upper-middle-class whites. Every little bit helps reduce herd immunity.

Some comes from those with a religious objection, whether "Jesus heals" or "the vaccines are unclean/not kosher". With the occasional "what, I'm vegan, why do I want an animal-based vaccine polluting my body?!" pitched in.

I haven't seen stats on the relative percentages, and those can change quickly.


But without exposure to the virus, you get no disease.

So the measles is imported on a number of vectors. You visit Ukraine, Israel, or the Philippines from the US, you can be exposed to the virus because they've had active outbreaks recently (or they're ongoing). Or if you're coming from those countries as a visitor or immigrant. A number of Central American countries have large pools of unvaccinated adults, and a decent number of unvaccinated kids (they've had active and largely successful vaccination programs in the last few years, but (a) far from all adults were included and (b) given poverty and other kinds of social problems not all the kids were vaccinated.

It's not just measles. There was a mumps outbreak in Houston, and some (even here) said, "Oh, so immigrants caught it from unvaccinated Americans!" before the absurdity of the claim sunk in. The Central Americans brought it with them, and it was caught when they were in what amounted to quarantine.

[bdamomma]

3. That is rather

sick thinking. But the repigs are sick.

Welcome to DU

[Caliman73]

4. I agree with most of your premise

Remember, there is also skepticism and conspiracy coming from the left because of their concerns with the large pharmaceutical corporations. Not that there aren't concerns about Big Pharma, but vaccines are not one of them.

We have a combination of problems stemming as you say, from an overall picture of nationalism but in collaboration with general ignorance of science and people who think they know better than those whose job it is to know about eradicating diseases.