«“If you are healthy, it’s almost impossible for you to be killed by an infectious disease in modern times,” Kennedy falsely told Fox News’s Marc Siegel in an interview last week. He’d had “a very, very emotional and long conversation” with the family of the child who had died, he said; and later added that “malnutrition may have been an issue in her death.”»
What a shit. Sorry for my bad language, but it fits.
«The death of his daughter, Peter told me, was God’s will. God created measles. God allowed the disease to take his daughter’s life. “Everybody has to die,” he said. Peter’s eyes closed, and he struggled to continue talking. “It’s very hard, very hard,” he said at last. “It’s a big hole.” His voice quavered and trailed off.»
Ok. I’m really sorry for their loss, but God gave us brains and free will.
«After lunch, I made the six-hour drive back to Austin, where I live, past the pumpjacks slowly bobbing for oil and the towering wind farms. There’s nothing I heard in Seminole that I haven’t also heard from crunchy liberal friends at home who choose not to vaccinate their kids because they believe that vaccines contain toxins that cause autism or that childhood diseases bolster the immune system. [Emphasis mine. – John.] (For the record, the 1998 paper that purported to show a link between vaccines and autism has been retracted, and research indicates that contracting measles can degrade your body’s ability to fight other infections.) Nor are Peter’s views that unusual in conservative corners of the country. A recent poll found that nearly one-third of all Republican and Republican-leaning voters, for instance, think that routine inoculations are “more dangerous than the diseases they are designed to prevent.” That’s the gist of what I heard from multiple Mennonites I interviewed. They are far from alone.»
…
«At one point in the parking lot, Peter had asked me why his daughter matters to the rest of the country. I’d struggled in the moment to come up with an answer.»
