Kids can't protect themselves. They don't have the ability to make their own informed choices. Please don't destroy the evidence-based protections we have that keep them from dying, being crippled, having to get a machine to breathe for them permanently, etc. We have decades of data and it's overwhelmingly clear: vaccines save lives and do so incredibly safely.

Every time a child is seriously harmed because a parent ignored vaccine guidelines the parents should be charged with criminal neglect. It's ~~no different~~ not different enough than if you fed your children say, mercury, and then claimed you believed it was helpful because of Facebook gurus or similarly unaccredited sources. In both situations a child is being permanently harmed due to choices they have no ability to understand, resist or protest and thus we need laws to protect them.

Also, not only are the anti-vaxxer parents endangering their own children, but also everyone else's by increasing risk of their kids becoming vectors/reservoirs for infection and potential mutation into new strains that could evade current vaccines. "High mutation rate is an important characteristic of viruses that can enable them to evade immune responses and propagate infection." So not only are anti-vaxxers making choices for their own kids, but potentially also others' kids. It's not guaranteed but it's rolling some high-stakes dice.

"Nobody gets these diseases anymore, so we shouldn't worry about requiring vaccines against them" /s

So pretty much all the people who lived their lives in iron lungs thanks to polio are dead now and the Republicans want to drop the vaccine requirement? Do these guys have a warehouse full of old iron lungs they're hoping to profit off of?

Never forget...

Let's not forget that it was President Eisenhower, a Republican, who directed a Republican House and Senate to pass Dr. Salk's Polio Vaccine into immediate use in 1955.

You'd think these anti-vax nutjobs would let that one side on that fact alone. People are stupid to even consider letting that crap come back and potentially paralyze children.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Announcement_of_polio_vaccine_success

Before criticizing the GOP for this, let's not forget the kind of degenerate that Salk was: not only did he not seek profit for the polio vaccine, but he also worked on AIDS vaccine research.

So I think the GOP should be lauded for their consistency here! Surely the work of someone who wanted healthcare for all (regardless of means) and who supported efforts towards a disease which was at the time synonymous with certain "lifestyle choices" cannot be trusted.

(Big fat /s, but I really hope that's obvious.)

Live Free or Die should be changed to replace the “or” with an “and.”

My father’s parents were told he would die when he had polio and was hospitalized. I wouldn’t be here if the doctors were right. My mother was a little girl when the vaccine was new. Antivaxxers piss me off.

They will always persist with anti-logic. The “grand ol’ party” is a continuation of the confederacy. They’re here to act as persistent trolls.

I would not be surprised if many of the same lawmakers do in fact vaccinate their own children.

The windmills they tilt at are embarrassingly stupid.

Like a spoiled child who won't go to bed, conservatives continue to throw a tantrum against the inevitability of progress.

They won't rest until they've reset us to 1945.

polio is a horrifying disease

Just when you think the regressives cannot stoop any lower...

Fascinating compared COVID to polio and these guys were like, "Holy shit, we need to get on that!"

🤦