People who don’t immunize their kids aren’t only putting their own offspring in danger; they’re putting everyone else in danger, too. It’s selfish and antisocial.
No immunization is 100% effective, but if everyone is immunized, a disease won’t be able to propagate. But when you have a critical mass of non-immunized folks running around, the disease gets to happily play house in them and be transmitted to those few immunized people who are still susceptible.
This strip is historically accurate. Lord Jeffrey Amherst took blankets from the beds of smallpox pateints in the hosptial in Northampton, Massachusetts, and gave them to Native Americans. The town of Amherst, MA, and Amherst College are both named after him.
Tens of millions of native American were killed the small pox brought to the Americas by the Spaniards. This was an unknown hazard at that time. Everything must be judged by the time frame it occurred in. Any attempt to blame any ethnic group for spreading smallpox at that time is pure racism.
The people that brought “old” disease to the “new world” didn’t even know how it propagated.
They didn’t have exact science on it, but through observation they had ideas about how a lot of diseases spread, and they put those sometimes-correct suppositions to work for them.
agrestic: Amherst’s action was malice aforethought. British troops during the US Revolution had been vaccinated (intentional cowpox as preventive of smallpox) and thus had a major advantage over the Revolutionaries who hadn’t. Many encampments, including Valley Forge, had smallpox outbreaks, while the British and their German units had none.
agrestic over 9 years ago
People who don’t immunize their kids aren’t only putting their own offspring in danger; they’re putting everyone else in danger, too. It’s selfish and antisocial.
No immunization is 100% effective, but if everyone is immunized, a disease won’t be able to propagate. But when you have a critical mass of non-immunized folks running around, the disease gets to happily play house in them and be transmitted to those few immunized people who are still susceptible.
leweclectic over 9 years ago
Islamic fundamentalist terrorist need only to fund the Jenny McCarthy’s of America and then sit back and let Mother Nature take her course.
m98115 over 9 years ago
This strip is historically accurate. Lord Jeffrey Amherst took blankets from the beds of smallpox pateints in the hosptial in Northampton, Massachusetts, and gave them to Native Americans. The town of Amherst, MA, and Amherst College are both named after him.
cepa over 9 years ago
Tens of millions of native American were killed the small pox brought to the Americas by the Spaniards. This was an unknown hazard at that time. Everything must be judged by the time frame it occurred in. Any attempt to blame any ethnic group for spreading smallpox at that time is pure racism.
agrestic over 9 years ago
The people that brought “old” disease to the “new world” didn’t even know how it propagated.
They didn’t have exact science on it, but through observation they had ideas about how a lot of diseases spread, and they put those sometimes-correct suppositions to work for them.
agrestic over 9 years ago
No actual argument, huh? Just disparagement? Usually a sign of a lack of anything constructive to add to the discussion.
hippogriff about 9 years ago
agrestic: Amherst’s action was malice aforethought. British troops during the US Revolution had been vaccinated (intentional cowpox as preventive of smallpox) and thus had a major advantage over the Revolutionaries who hadn’t. Many encampments, including Valley Forge, had smallpox outbreaks, while the British and their German units had none.