once they get diptheria, wooping cough, measles, mumps, rubella, as adults they will be even more scared. also you dont want chickenpox as an adult either.
those blood test needles are the real scary shit
I’m only scared of vaccines because they’re delivered via a needle. At this point I really shouldn’t be acted of needles any more after injecting myself every week for ages, but for some reason I am 🤷♀️
I’m also a needle-weenie. I tell a different nurse each time and we joke about it – despite getting like 9 shots in one day in Basic. Then I wince a bit as I get the shot, put my stereotypically plaid coat back on and off I go.
What I really dislike is the parents who refuse to vaccinate their children, because big pharma/nature best/other insane arguments, but then take them to an ER when they inevitably get that preventable disease. For fuck’s sake, stay consistent. If you don’t vaccinate, do not go to the hospital later.
Devil’s Advocate: Being sick is an immediately visible problem; vaccinations… viruses are invisible and you don’t see symtoms till its too late
Which is why we have decades of medical science that has gone to great lengths to discover these things. They can’t be seen by the naked eye but they can be seen with a strong enough microscope. We know they exist and we know what they cause. We know how to prevent that from happening.
Yet these mouth breathing troglodytes have been conned into distrusting science on a fundamental level.
my brother is a 45 , socially he acts like a 8 year old all the time. Of course he worships trumps and refuses to get vaccinated ( even telling my elderly mom to not get the flu and covid shot) . This is why I only see him one day out of the year, and that will turn to Zero days of any time when my mom dies and he has no reason to come over for one day a year.
Being afraid of needles is fine though, right?
My mother has become, in her later years, a “well idk if they definitely cause autism but I did vaccinate all of you and I do have a kid with autism…” which like. whatever. I’ve been over talking to them for a while now anyway.
But when I was younger and getting vaccinated she always said,“you’re gonna look at the wall in the other direction, it’s gonna hurt for a few seconds then it’ll be over and there’s an ice cream place next door.” And I have almost 0 medical anxiety, like I’ll let new grads I’m precepting practice on me before I let them stick a real patient.
vs I remember when I was a swimming instructor in my early 20s sometimes a kid would start crying and their parent would come over to scream at them to behave and then it would take waaay longer to get their body to relax enough to float.
So while I’m sure it doesn’t make or break every fear of needles or medical anxiety, I do think a LOT of it comes down to how the parent handles and ideally normalizes routine medical care.
I hope so. Irrational fears are really hard to control.
There is reasons to be afraid of needles. Courage is not having no fear, its facing your fear.
I remember the nurses just belittling me when I was like 10 and like I was scared of needles…
Something something “boys need to be brave” or something
What I think antivaxers can’t articulate is that what they don’t actually trust is the health care industry, not the science behind vaccines themselves.
Which would be a valid concern, but that is not what they are saying.
You can trust medical science yet don’t trust the providers, history is rife with examples of big business endangering the public for higher profit margins.
They know that American healthcare providers in the past experimented on blacks and other PoC without telling them and they don’t want it done to them now that we’ve pushed to make everyone equal under the law.
This is why they’re so scared of equality as well - we’re all game for the unethical experimentation and exploitation of some of us aren’t in the protected class.
To really break the programming we need to get through that those lines are drawn on class, not on race as they appear, and that no class of divine human exists.
Yep, this, my mom doesn’t trust doctors. Apparantly, according to her, doctors in PRC was corrupt and always try to extort as much money as possible by doing “unnecessary ‘treatments’”, according to her.
She told me that both my older brother and I were both C-Section and like she doubted if it was even necessary, she believed that the doctors were just trying to make extra money because surgery costed more… but she had no choice but go along with it… because she had no idea if the fetus (aka: me and my older brother) were at risk.
As for vaccines… government policy… I guess both the collectivist society and pressure from government
US Government definitely required vaccination records before giving us immigration visas…
Its kinda funny, does the currnt admin allow immigrants without vaccinations? Or make it stricter to make immigration harder?
[Insert 2 red button meme here]
Most people don’t understand vaccines and being afraid of what you don’t understand is completely reasonable.
When you have influencers feeding on that fear and making it grow then it becomes an issue.
Na a bunch of them are actually afraid of the pointy needle.
Gear of medical debt comes up for some too, but since the covid vaccines were free they had to pretend they weren’t afraid of the needles instead.
“Being afraid of what you don’t understand is completely reasonable”
No it isn’t… It’s common, but not reasonable, and it’s a big factor in so much bad about humanity. We need to teach people to specifically NOT be afraid of stuff they don’t understand and instead learn more about that those things, and to never have strong opinions (which includes fear) about things they know nothing or little about.
Add to that we’re constantly being lied to it’s hard to know what the truth is and what isn’t unless you deeply research a topic, and honestly:
Most vaccine hesitant people use Facebook or YouTube to research which compounds the problem.
This is why people using biased AI to ask questions terrifies me.
Maybe the AI will be less salty than the foreign actors. If I had to chose, Id go with AI. AI is a product that needs to be reliable if it is to succeed. Foreign actors hate my guts for exsisting.
AI is programmed by foreign actors. And on top of that it trains you not to think for yourself and believe what you read. It shuts down critical thought and makes you even easier to manipulate.
AI isn’t programmed its trained. Just look at all the trouble Elon is having trying to red pill grok.
And they can choose what data to use to train it. It trains you to rely on it instead of thinking for yourself. Once you rely on it they enshittify and subvert it. It’s dangerous to rely on a source of information solely controlled by a billionaire with ulterior motives.
Look at what Google has become. Or the news/media industry. Get your information from trustworthy sources. AI is not.
AI is a product that needs to be reliable if it is to succeed.
They’re doing a shit poor job of making it reliable so far.
Meh, its an emerging technology
It’s a way of using mass amounts of power to make billionaires richer I don’t think it’ll ever be reliable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study#Public_trust
There’s been a systematic undermining of public trust in health and safety instructions going on for decades.
Some of this distrust is earned as with Tuskegee, the bungled Anthrax vaccine, the Reagan Era response to the AIDS epidemic, scandals with weight loss drugs like Fen-phen and Redux, Oxycodone, etc.
Some of it is purely manufactured, with the CIA-sponsored agitation against the Chinese COVID vaccine being a major font of modern day anti-vax Truther Lore.
But to no-sell skepticism as just “you’re a little baby who is scared of needles” really under plays the shift in attitude nationally. We used to be a country that whole heartedly embraced a preventative for small pox, polio, and influenza. Now we’re more terrified of kids getting the shot that gives you bad grades in school than getting measels.
America doesn’t just do this domestically. They have interfered in other nations public health perceptions as well. The CIA undermined polio vaccination programs in Pakistan when global eradication actually seemed possible.
There’s been a systematic undermining of public trust in health and safety instructions going on for decades.
A lot of it perpetrated by those very industries themselves. It’s the natural consequence of letting every facet of societal motivation be dictated by profit maximization.
Like I said in another comment, I think what the antivaxers are incapable of understanding and expressing is that they are not actually questioning the science, they are questioning the health care industry and the systems meant to keep them honest. And in that I would agree with them, if only they were able to articulate it.
I think what the antivaxers are incapable of understanding and expressing is that they are not actually questioning the science, they are questioning the health care industry and the systems meant to keep them honest.
A lot of the opposition to vaccination reads like fad diets and self-help trends from 20 or 30 years ago. You can prevent autism by fumbles around playing Motzart to your baby in utero? Meditating during Yoga? Eating chocolate? Pick your Oprah-sponsored poison.
But, like, why are we seeing a fixation on a proven medical treatment and not some generic “don’t let your kids eat jelly beans” or “do headstands to get the blood flowing to the brain” hookum?
I think that’s where you get to people really running afoul of an increasingly dysfunctional health media ecosystem. One whose reputation is bloated with empty promises about The Perfect Cancer / Alzheimer’s Cure or Living Forever With Blood Transfusions. And then it’s colliding with an actual system that just seems to throw enormous bills at you for pain killers and palliative care.
On the one end, there’s supposed to be a recipe for perfect health if you have enough money. On the other, I can get a flu shot and still get the flu? How unfair.
If you’re an American, having deep seated mistrust and skepticism of the medical establishment, pharma, and government is 1000% justifiable. Every one of these institutions has exploited, abused, abandoned, and murdered people, all in the name of public health.
As a person who grew up in poverty, the idea of trusting doctors and medical authorities is just as ridiculous as trusting the police.
Assuming that social problems are the sum of individuals making dumb choices is an easy shortcut that not only eliminates the discomfort of thinking about the issue, but has the added benefit to implying that you’re superior.
this is why we need to educate people. it does require a certain level of trust in the system to accept a shot will prevent your kid from dying of measles or whooping cough. a system that also conducted the heinous Tuskegee Syphilis Study, then never held those same criminals or the decision makers accountable for their crimes.
governments do thousands of things; not every single one is predicated on evil intentions, many, probably most, are for the good of their people. think running water and sewage. think power and roads.
sometimes they go fuckbrained. which is why we need whistleblowers, accountability, CONSEQUENCES, etc.
I don’t think kids are afraid of vaccines per se, it more so a:
poke-y sharp metal object that OW IT HURTS!
sort of thing
Taking blood is even scarier… aaahhhh
THEY’RE STEALING MY BLOOOD AAAAHHH HALP MOM
seriously tho. I was told that an adult human has like 2.5 liters of blood kids have 1.5 liters (from memory, no google)
so I got scared they took too much and I was afraid I’d drop dead if I didn’t have enough blood… lmfao
I was like… idk 8-12 I think…
i dont have a problem with vaccines, theyre great and im glad they help people
but, recieving one is absolutely terrifying to be, due to some needle related trauma, and generally causes me to pass out or vomit :/
Sounds like you may have a vasovagal reaction? My dad gets that too.
I’ve had some really bad experiences in the past as well including passing out and nausea. Luckily at least for smaller needles like vaccines/dental work I no longer suffer from that. I still lay down if blood is being drawn.
It took a long time, but I think the dentist giving me some sedatives for the needles helped me get more comfortable with it since I knew they helped, and eventually, I was able to try without and it was hard but it did help, and it just got easier from there.
It still sucks, but it’s manageable now.
If you struggle at the dentist like I did, maybe that’s an option if you need work done and a path forward.
It’s a shame that’s not an option typically offered for other needles. I bet it could help people get vaccines if it was offered.
never had to at the dentist and luckily the doctors said i need no more vaccines (unless we get another covid kinda deal or i travel to a country with foreign illnesses) so its not something i have to worry about for a while
thinking about it makes me feel a little light headed though, and normally i enjoy having phantom sense for stuff like asmr and vr but its also a curse when i think about needles and i can feel one in my arm where they do the vaccines. not fun
I think its worth pointing out that needing a vaccine is different than getting and benefiting from a vaccine.
Seasonal Flu and Covid vaccines are still beneficial, so while you don’t need any, if there is a way to beat the phobia, you can still benefit.
It’s not likely that anyone is going to offer you something like Xanax or Ativan for a yearly flu shot, but maybe your Dr would knowing your circumstances, and that could be a slow process to maybe beating it by getting some successful years behind you using that method?
do people like, know their doctors like that? its always just been get a letter saying get vaccinated, we book, and its some random NHS place and a doctor ive never seen
Some people have relationships like that with their longtime family Dr, I never have though, nor do I even have one right now.
I think the correct term for adults who are afraid of them is ‘bitch baby’
I’ve found the best way to deal with a fear of needles is to scream slurs
There are risks involved with vaccines. These are usually low and can be mitigated or decreased severely. E.g. don’t run a marathon the same day you get a COVID-19 shot.
Small world. A cousin of mine had a negative reaction soon after getting the 2nd dose of Pfizer. Got rushed to the hospital in the middle of the night from what I heard, spent long time in ICU, got their parents worried, they were talking about it on the wechat group. Sent a wave of panic throught the entire friend circle.
Imagine having one of the people you know IRL having a bad reaction to the vaccine.
(not anti-vax btw, just sharing anecdotes)
did he get GBS, guillan barre syndrome.
Yeah because people afraid of vaccines never grow up…
It’s a lack of education. I mean, sure, there do be a lot of fucking morons around, but even morons can learn if there is a proper and easily accessible means of doing so. Just having the Internet is not enough, you have to be taught how to learn, and what, and that still requires humans laying it out for you over time, over a long long time.
