How Vaccine Skeptics Took Over the Republican Party HEAD TOPICS
How Vaccine Skeptics Took Over the Republican Party
10/21/2022 3:21:00 PM A case study in the party s dysfunction
Source New York Magazine
The Republican Party is turning so heavily against vaccines that soon it may be impossible for any Republican with national aspirations to say a good word about them. jonathanchait writes A case study in the party s dysfunction emerged as a marginal tendency on the right. But what the vaccine skeptics lacked in evidence, they more than made up for in fervor. Advocates of sanity proved unwilling or unable to push back, and now the party is turning so heavily against vaccines that soon it may be impossible for any Republican with national aspirations to say a good word about them. Tuesday morning, a Fox News contributor tweeted a very short clip of a CDC meeting which purported to show that the agency had voted to require COVID vaccinations for schoolchildren. The alleged mandate was repeated by conservatives likeMegyn Kellyand Tucker Carlson. Read more:
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Study: Chemical hair straightener may increase risk of uterine cancerA new study found women who frequently use chemicals to straighten their hair may be at higher risk for developing uterine cancer. vaccine skepticism emerged as a marginal tendency on the right.The Jackbox Party Pack series went from a fun party series to an institution almost overnight."We need to acknowledge our role in creating these inequities and hopefully move forward and be part of the change," Thomas Cascino, study author and cardiologist at the University of Michigan Health Frankel Cardiovascular Center, told Axios.Follow Us. But what the vaccine skeptics lacked in evidence, they more than made up for in fervor. Advocates of sanity proved unwilling or unable to push back, and now the party is turning so heavily against vaccines that soon it may be impossible for any Republican with national aspirations to say a good word about them. It became a much bigger phenomenon in the isolation phase of the COVID-19 pandemic though, as it proved it could keep friends, family, and co-workers united even from afar. Tuesday morning, a Fox News contributor tweeted a very short clip of a CDC meeting which purported to show that the agency had voted to require COVID vaccinations for schoolchildren. What they found: Researchers studied 377 patients receiving treatment for heart failure at 21 medical centers, who were enrolled in an NIH-funded clinical trial that follows heart failure patients' trajectories. The alleged mandate was repeated by conservatives like Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson. Like clockwork, The Jackbox Party Pack 9 continues that streak. This was false. The CDC did not and cannot mandate this. The games range in complexity, with some involving multiple phases and lots of creativity. Axios on facebook. The meeting in question was to add COVID vaccines to the Vaccines for Children program, which offers shots to kids whose parents can’t afford them. It is not a mandate. Keeping it simple Of the five minigames featured, two particularly stand out. “This is an all new level of dangerous misinformation,” former Trump administration surgeon general Jerome M. Adams to the Washington Post . Here, players are split into two teams and must compete in a sorting competition. “It could both harm kids (by derailing the VFC program, which helps disadvantaged children access vaccines) and endanger health officials (due to angry misinformed parents).” And yet, the next day, Ron DeSantis gave a speech saying, “There’s been a lot of questions” about this and promising he would stop it in the “free state” of Florida. Once selected, teams are given a clear prompt that’ll require them to place different words and phrases in the correct order. DeSantis was not directly calling the rumor true, but he was treating it as if it were — much the way he has treated the “questions” Republicans have about the legitimacy of the 2020 election. Pro-vaccine conservatives have fervently defended DeSantis’s position on this issue by insisting that he merely opposes vaccination mandates, not the COVID vaccine itself. For instance, one team might get Roman numerals as a category, asking them to sort numbers on a timeline from one to 1,000. This defense is implausible on its face if you consider DeSantis’s general approach, which is hardly libertarian. DeSantis wants to put the government in the face of a long, long list of people and institutions — from colleges that wish to teach critical-race theory, to businesses that oppose his restrictions on gender instruction, to migrants fleeing left-wing tyranny in Venezuela. The categories can get much more absurd though. Of course, it would be theoretically possible for DeSantis to take an idiosyncratically libertarian stance on this one issue. An opponent of vaccine mandates who didn’t necessarily oppose the vaccine itself would limit his criticism to the requirement that people take the shot. Quixort seems like one of those “no longer fun once you know the answers” games, but its simple concept, mixed with a blend of trivia and comedy, make it great for newcomers. But DeSantis has instead repeatedly taken steps to cast doubt on the efficacy of the COVID vaccine itself. He refused to say if he was getting a booster and stood next to vaccine skeptics who denounced the jab at a press conference. The game revolves around a scale that goes from 0% to 100% or one to 10. DeSantis recruited Joseph Ladapo, an idiosyncratic vaccine skeptic, and made Florida the only state not to recommend the COVID vaccine for children. That is not an expression of opposition to mandates. For instance, a player may be asked to draw a robot disguising itself as a human — but their costume is only 30% effective. It is an expression of opposition to the vaccine. He officially declared that the state “recommends against males aged 18 to 39 receiving mRNA COVID-19 vaccines” on the grounds that it is allegedly unsafe. Nonsensory definitely has the most room for creative comedy here. That is an anti-vaccine stance, not an anti-mandate stance. It is a stance that runs contrary to the overwhelming consensus of . Other games are a bit more complicated, which may make this pack a mixed bag in casual settings.