September 21, 2021

The wife of a top Trump official just called for “bringing back” deadly childhood diseases

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One of the stranger and more dangerous trends of the “post-fact” era we seem to be living through is the anti-vaccine movement. For those unfamiliar with the issue, there is a notable demographic of imbecilic parents out there who have convinced themselves that — despite all the scientific evidence to the contrary — vaccines are dangerous and can even cause autism. Seizing on this myth, they refuse to vaccinate their children, and in doing so have caused a resurgence in diseases that were on the verge of eradication.

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The anti-vaxxer movement directly endangers children and sometimes results in their deaths. Frankly, it’s reaching the point where serious thought needs to be given to government intervention. If parents were flinging their children out of windows the government would step in and put a stop to it. In some ways, anti-vaccination sentiments are even more dangerous than that because they affect the children of these anti-science loons directly, but also endanger anyone who the children come into contact with. Put simply, vaccination should be mandatory.

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Things have gotten so moronic and dire that as the world witnesses a resurgence of measles, some children are actually sneaking behind their parents’ backs to get themselves vaccinated. It’s a sad state of affairs and one that is exacerbated by the fact that Donald Trump has flirted with anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories in the past.

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Granted, those tweets are several years old, but a new tweet from Darla Shine, wife of White House Deputy Chief of Staff for CommunicationsBill Shine, has raised the possibility that anti-vaxxer sympathies still riddle the white house. Shine took to Twitter to call the recent measles outbreak by CNN “fake” and dismissed it as “hysteria.”

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She then kicked her crazy dial up to eleven and insisted that the Baby Boomer generation all had measles as kids and that we should “bring back” childhood diseases because they “keep you healthy” and “fight cancer.” Both claims are objectively false, and in reality, measles is extremely dangerous.

“The thing that keeps me up at night is having a death, you know, a child die from this,” Dr. Alan Melnick, Director of the Clark County, Washington Health Department told CNN, adding that measles kills about 2 of every 1,000 children infected

For Darla Shine, someone with tangential influence in the White House, to state that measles is anything less than a pressing health problem is deeply disturbing and incredibly irresponsible. Measles kills children, it doesn’t keep them healthy. Vaccines are what keep children healthy. It’s imperative that the White House condemn Darla Shine’s insane tweet immediately before more lives are put in danger.

Backlash was swift, but rather than back down Shine decided to double down on her idiocy.

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Natalie Dickinson

Natalie is a staff writer for the Washington Press. She graduated from Oberlin College in 2010 and has been freelance blogging and writing for progressive outlets ever since.

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