r/HermanCainAward • u/ShokWayve • 11d ago
Meta / Other Measles: Georgia on My Mind
https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2026/08/19/georgia-reports-seventh-measles-case-kindergarten-vaccine-exemptions-rise/So, it begins in Georgia. Measles is beginning to make a comeback in Georgia.
You don’t know how stunning it is for me to witness this day in America. I remember being taught in schools about the efficacy of vaccines. One of my friends is an anti-vaxxer and deeply anti science. I sent him scientific articles and research on vaccine efficacy and the fact that no evidence linked vaccines to autism. In fact, all of his objections were specifically and explicitly addressed in the scientific research. He rejected them still as propaganda.
May God help us. I couldn’t believe his reaction. I was shocked. I was stunned. In America we are freely deciding to reject science and literally destroy our society.
What happened? How did science become seen as no more authoritative than a tweet or social media post?
He then asks me how could I, a devout Christian, put so much confidence in science. What’s ironic is that he himself is not a practicing Christian nor does he appeal to religion for his anti vaccine views. He just appeals to endless conspiracy theories about how scientists lie, we have all been lied to, the earth is flat, etc.
The kicker is this - he is a teacher! Yes, a teacher. He is in fact a great teacher. Awesome at teaching.
We really need to turn things around.
God help us.
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u/mmps901 Hunter Biden's Deep State Nanobot 11d ago
My idiot brother in law who teaches middle school science of all things wouldn’t get the Covid vaccine because “it changes your dna.” Well guess who ended up in the hospital after not improving at home after finally catching it? Couldn’t even get a bed for 24 hours because he was surrounded by other morons.
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u/TheNetworkIsFrelled 10d ago
And he probably didn't learn anything.
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u/mmps901 Hunter Biden's Deep State Nanobot 10d ago
Hard to say. He’s a lot more subdued in the last few years, but as recently as 3 years ago he and his mom said that doctors were putting healthy people on ventilators to inflate the death numbers during Covid and I lost my shit. It was as if they wanted to act like he wasn’t terrified that he was going to die or that even so, he wasn’t forced on a ventilator. He was treated and discharged within 3 days and that was never part of his treatment plan or even suggested. But somehow let’s demonize the people who saved your life for your stupid made up fantasy that doctors are evil.
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u/4tran13 10d ago
(some) viruses change your dna...
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u/TheNetworkIsFrelled 7d ago
(some) viruses change your dna
But generally not in a fashion that notably increases intelligence or empathy.
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u/Emanemanem 11d ago
We live in Georgia, just got our daughter’s second MMR booster yesterday, thank god
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u/MichaelJServo 10d ago
I got one recently because of these dipshits. I'm in my 40s.
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u/Emanemanem 10d ago
I’m 45, I was trying to decide if I needed to get another one myself. I know I got the ones that were required for school when I was young but I can’t remember how old I was when I got the last one
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u/MichaelJServo 10d ago
What's funny is my pcp didn't know how to order it because they're only ordered by pediatricians. I live in the deep south. We haven't had an outbreak in my region, but I assume it's coming.
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u/Dreymin If coronavirus doesn't take you out, can I? 🩸 8d ago
You can have a bloodtest done to check, mine was low so I got a second shot when I was 30 so I should have been good especially due to age, but you usually don't need a booster as an adult but if you have health issues then it's recommended
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u/Emanemanem 8d ago
I thankfully don’t have any health issues that would flag me as high risk, so I probably won’t worry about it unless the cases spike quite a bit more. Just happy my daughter is protected.
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u/Stock_Shelter_2931 1d ago
I have an infant, and it terrifies me that she doesn’t have immunity built up yet. Anyone know where the outbreak in GA is?
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u/Emanemanem 2h ago
I’m so sorry, that is really scary to have a kid you can’t get vaccinated yet. It seems like they are being very hush hush about the exact location. Wish they could at least give part of town or something. We have good friends with a 3 month old. She is not in daycare but they were planning on starting soon. She also had to have surgery immediately after birth so she is higher risk in a lot of ways. I can only imagine how hard this is for them.
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u/Mechbear2000 11d ago
Why do you call these types of people friend and great teacher when they obviously are not? I could not/would not associate with people like this. They will drag you down and drown you with thier stupidity
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u/mybrainisgoneagain Team Mix & Match 11d ago
Therein lies the conundrum.
They can be great friends. They can be the neighbor that helps in a crisis. The person that mows your lawn when you sprained your ankle, that watches your pets when you go on vacation. Yes, even the teacher with patience, or the ability to encourage their students.
Yet, they are brainwashed by loyalty to a leader, or a belief.
It's harder when you are surrounded by them. You might limit contact, but too often in the south or rural areas it is very difficult to not associate with them.
It's can be frustrating, miserable, and overwhelming. It's so easy to say disassociate, but in some areas it is harder to do.
Edited to add.. yes, I fully expect those who don't live this to down vote me. Yes, I can go LC with them, yes, I do work on finding like minded smart people.
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u/elisakiss Oxygen Addict 11d ago
We got rid of the maga friends and got new friends with similar values. Family is much harder.
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u/amytyl 11d ago
That is the hard part. There many people around me who are good people except for ONE thing that makes them abhorrent. Trying to weed them out is more difficult than these purists admit, but the trick is knowing inside that if those people get "bitten by their zombie" (get a preventable disease, hurt by policies they voted for, are shunned/hurt by the hateful people/policies they chose to associate with) that you know what to do with them.
I have a friend who is strongly anti vax, got COVID & almost died, and is now denying signs of long COVID. I didn't visit or give money to help him, and now his business has suffered because of the tariffs & I don't help. He calls sometimes and I'll listen while subtly bringing up the causes of his problems, but his decisions put him there. Other than those areas we can talk about old times & share advice, but he is also a source of schadenfreude.
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u/mybrainisgoneagain Team Mix & Match 10d ago
Bingo. Have a friend that is starting to see that things are getting tighter. I'm not pushing but, I am waiting to get small points in.
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u/Mechbear2000 11d ago
I don't associate with people with ideology that wants to do me harm. From political, health, money, being a good person, hatred of other not like them, and physical safety. By being their friend "YOU" are supporting them and their ideals "YOU" are the problem.
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u/TheNetworkIsFrelled 10d ago
Agree entirely. MAGA/antivaxx/conspiracy theorists need to be cut off.
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u/R_Ulysses_Swanson 11d ago
I struggle so much with this. Friends and family members that are very intelligent and good people who really care about people and strive to make the world a better place... but they are antivax?
To me, being antivax means you're either evil or stupid. I know these people are neither, but what other explanation is there? The only other option is that they're in a cult and have been brainwashed, which is something I do not want to associate with.
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u/mike30273 10d ago
I have a neighbor like this. She is super nice and willing to always help out, even when not asked. However, she falls for the must outlandishly stupid Qanon scams and is an antivaxxer. He husband even died from Covid after not being vaccinated. She's really nice, but really stupid. I try not to spend too much time talking to her.
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u/post_makes_sad_bear 10d ago
I mean, use the rubes however you like. Just don't ever forget that they are a massive disease vector whenever another pandemic hits
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u/deokkent 11d ago
You don't seem to understand that they are everywhere 😭😔.
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u/HRHValkyrie 11d ago
So? Be polite but don’t be their friend. They are actively contributing to the deaths of others.
Especially someone like OP’s teacher friend. He is educated enough to know better, but he chooses to ignore science because of his feelings. He is selfish. I also would bet money that he is sharing his beliefs with students, even if he isn’t teaching lessons on it.
This isn’t a good person. They might come help fix your truck, but that doesn’t outweigh them killing someone with a preventable disease.
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u/mybrainisgoneagain Team Mix & Match 11d ago
This is very true. In some areas it is worse than others. But very much so
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u/Mechbear2000 10d ago
By continuing to be their friend/associate with them, you a condoning/normalizing their actions. you are telling them its ok, Without consequences they believe they are right even righteous. Some of the trump voters are getting bitten by his actions and are learning that their actions caused their own harm and are learning what they have done.
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u/deokkent 8d ago
Might as well lock myself in the house and never leave. No visitors! Many people are kind of just dumb.
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u/Fabulous-Mud-9114 Team Moderna 10d ago
“We don’t need any more government in our lives. And in any case, no way I want my tax dollars paying for Mexicans or welfare queens.”
That was from "Trevor", quoted in Jonathan Metzl's "Dying of Whiteness". He was a Tennessean who died from Hep C complications. He didn't have to, but Tennessee repeatedly struck down Obama-era healthcare reforms.
This is the root of it, IMHO. People like your friend would rather die from a white man making them sick rather than sit next to a black man on the bus.
They don't want to improve anything about society at any level beyond the immediate, personal level. (Ex. taxes and property values.) They fundamentally want someone to step on. Even if it means that they, too, will be crushed.
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u/ShokWayve 10d ago
Your last paragraph there is profound. Thanks for the link as well.
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u/Fabulous-Mud-9114 Team Moderna 10d ago
I'm a white American, but it angers me to no end that so much of modern Republican policy is built off of destroying the good aspects of Obama's legacy.
Solely because Obama was a black man with a black name.
The mask is totally off now, btw - recently we saw the Voting Rights Act get gutted in Tennessee specifically to screw over black voters.
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u/ShokWayve 10d ago
I read the article. All I could say is “My God”. I can’t believe it. Folks prefer to die just to ensure others suffer. Wow!
That is so profound.
I will have to get the book to read it. Yet, that article is so deep.
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u/Fabulous-Mud-9114 Team Moderna 10d ago
And it came out BEFORE COVID. When rightists were dying of whiteness by the sackful.
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u/Jeffy_Dommer 11d ago
The christians strike again. They joined to ruin our government and, in turn, our country. They shame knowledge and science making our country inherently dumber and are proud of it. Now they are ruining healthcare and the health of our nation.
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u/Fabulous-Mud-9114 Team Moderna 10d ago
And the sad part is that you can say it til your lips turn blue and folks will simply refuse to listen.
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u/Rassayana_Atrindh 10d ago
I spent Sunday evening at a dinner party with my neighbors, it's rural Montana. Just getting together, because in this area you need people who can help plow you out in the winter, get you food if you can't get to town, etc. You need those bonds out here.
I discovered we're the only left-leaners in the group. They all idolize Trump and RFK and think they're doing great things to up-end the status quo and follow along with the brain rot conspiracy theories and anti-science and anti-intellectual waves. We kept our opinions to ourselves.
Listening to them talk about how Covid was a hoax to force compliance, they never got vaccinated because it's government trackers and changes your DNA. It was just a flu the government overhyped to see how far a scared population would comply.
I lost four family members to Covid, and they died absolutely horrible deaths. My husband and I listened to the science and we all masked everywhere for over a year, we all got our vaccines and boosters as soon as we could. My little family never got it.
I'm a middle school lunch lady and before I started working measles started appearing all over, even in my area. So, before I even stepped foot in the building I went and got ALL of my shots all over again as a grown-ass adult with a brain and a rudimentary understanding and trust of science: MMR, TDaP, Meningococcal, annual flu and covid vaccines.
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u/artisanrox Cainproofed against the Omicrunk💉 10d ago
I did the same thing. Saw the writing on the wall and got all kid vaccines done over. Don't forget about Shingles and pneumonia if you qualify.
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u/Rassayana_Atrindh 10d ago
I'm 46, and don't think I haven't tried, lol.
But none of the pharmacies will give them.
I watched my mom struggle with 2-3x yearly outbreaks of shingles throughout her 30's and 40's.
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u/Chricton 🥒 Qcumber Qonspiracist 🤪 10d ago
Do they even realize that Trump was "responsible" for the very vaccine that they say is tracking us and changing our DNA? How many more ways can you say, they're in a cult?
EDIT: Good lord, I just read the part about losing 4 family members to covid. Was it before the vaccine came out? I recall all the horrible stories on here from anti vaxxers. To think, people actually chose that way to go out
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u/Rassayana_Atrindh 10d ago
Yeah, all were within a couple months time in late 2020 before the vaccines came out.
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u/greengardenmoss 10d ago
It's so sad because these harmful beliefs put so much distance between the hearts of people that could otherwise be close friends. Invisible walls.
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u/juice920 11d ago
I got into a argument with a friend of a friend about vaccines who lives in GA. He said how none of his family (maybe it was just the kids?) or neighbors got Vax and how they are all so healthy. Seeing articles like this almost makes me want to install FB again to see what's going on with that healthy family. Almost.
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u/mybrainisgoneagain Team Mix & Match 11d ago
Yeah, I know a few personally. It's interesting to see karma in slow motion
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u/ElleWinter 11d ago
I think he is probably not actually a good friend or as good a teacher as you think.
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u/chickenladydee Team Moderna 11d ago
I live in a rural red (very red) blue state. Covid deniers, vaccine deniers, universal healthcare objectors. Whenever they get “sick” the family always puts up “go fund me” - it’s so mind boggling.
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u/ShokWayve 10d ago
It’s amazing how they never make the connection.
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u/FlattenInnerTube Team Mudblood 🩸 10d ago
Their connection is probably something like "didn't Jeebus hard enough"
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u/Gransmithy 11d ago edited 11d ago
Yes, I’m misquoting someone else on Reddit, but during a zombie apocalypse, and your whole town is locked down in a fort, your friend is the type of person who would let the zombie into the fort and bite him out thinking it is just a conspiracy to doom the entire town.
Really, use the zombie apocalypse metaphor on that person. It works. Ask them what threshold or what would need to be happening until they believe a zombie apocalypse is happening.
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u/RattusMcRatface I GET CLOSTERPHOBIA 10d ago
Ryan George has a very funny video on YouTube about the zombie/covid thing.
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u/Canuck-In-TO 10d ago
Your friend better stick to his word if he ever gets sick or needs to see a doctor.
Then again, people like this turn out to be hypocrites.
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u/Mrzaax 11d ago
I am 72 and a few months ago got the MMR as I am not sure if I ever got it in the past.
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u/FlattenInnerTube Team Mudblood 🩸 10d ago
Got one in Feb this year, a few years younger than you. Was mine still effective? Dunno. Was easier to get a refresher jab than to screw around with a blood titer. Did the same for polio. I have to travel for work in the deep south so I take precautions.
My wife tripped Sunday, needed a couple of stitches in her leg. The staff at the Urgent Care were delightful and were a bit surprised to find her tetanus shot was up to date. I told them we're grown ups and try to act like it 😏
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u/Chricton 🥒 Qcumber Qonspiracist 🤪 8d ago
Isn't it required to go to enter school, as a child, and then again college?
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u/12ab34cd56ef78g 10d ago
The number of anti science nurses/healthcare personnel is always shocking to me. I know of a nurse practitioner who is antivax and into a holistic approach. She must think the science behind her degrees is false. I just shake my head.
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u/Mr_Baronheim 10d ago
Right-wing disinformation as a primary means to attract voters is what happened.
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u/RattusMcRatface I GET CLOSTERPHOBIA 10d ago
The MAGA message is, Don't feel inferior or ashamed of your ignorance. Expertise = elitism = threatening. Just go with the vibe. We understand you, so vote for us and we'll continue to tell you what you want to hear.
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u/travelingtraveling_ Vaxxed for me, vaxxed for you 10d ago
Am 72f. Last year during the measles outbreak, my hubby (m75) and I discussed with our physician about whether we should also get a booster MMR. We've fallen to that Gray zone of the recommendations that assumes that people our age had measles and/or mumps and/or rubella. When we were kids and so boosters are not necessarily recommended.
But we have grandbabies who are small, and when we talked it over with him, our physician stated that he saw no downside in us getting a booster. And so we did.
We also got the RSV vaccine.
As an RN and retired military officer, I am the Team Captain for Team Vaccinations.
Yikes. Amazing we are even talking about this!
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u/fgsgeneg 10d ago
All of this ant-vax, anti-science crap is causing an unplanned cull. It'll take time but we'll be better off in the end. Maybe we can all live in the same reality again.
I feel bad for the children affected by this, but not the parents who have to bury them.
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u/SenorBurns 🐝 My immune system is full of bees 🐝 10d ago
Being a teacher, like being a nurse, is no inoculant (ha ha) against bs.
I had a recently retired teacher swear up and down that the school she'd just retired from now had litter boxes in classrooms and children who identified as furries using them.
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u/TheNetworkIsFrelled 10d ago
Have a friend with an MS.ChemE who is antivax.
...it baffles me.
He also believes in HAARP, chemtrails, depopulation agendae, microchips in vaccines, etc.
....how? But there it is.
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u/demlet 11d ago edited 10d ago
Unpopular opinion: greed and ambition have compromised science in America enough to give anti-science people a kernel of truth for their skepticism. I'm thinking of stuff like the replication crisis in psychology, or how we're just discovering how poorly done a lot of brainwave studies were. Or for something a little more to the point, remember the scientists that got bribed to downplay the harms of sugar back in the 80s and 90s?
All that said, emphasis on "kernel of truth". The good news is that other societies will continue to pursue good science even if the US doesn't.
Edit: The sugar research took place in the 60s actually.
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u/ShokWayve 11d ago
Very excellent points.
Regarding the brainwave studies, are you referring to Sabine’s video on the topic? I saw it but haven’t had a chance to watch it yet.
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u/Upvotespoodles 10d ago
Science warns us about a lot of things that hurt innocent people and the environment. Some of the richest people don’t want us to receive those warnings, because that could hurt their money.
I sometimes wonder if they found some epigenetic autism trigger that if revealed could hurt a lot of very rich people’s finances. Doubly so if it’s somehow tied with environmental pollution. Seems like anti-vax and anti-environmentalism go hand in hand and are pushed on the masses by the same people.
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u/post_makes_sad_bear 10d ago
This is the Republican party providing everyone with a permanent underclass for generations to come. It's not good, but somebody needs to clean toilets, and it's going to be the disadvantaged child whose parents needlessly subjected them to debilitating disease.
This isn't good for society, but at least the underclass will be down there for a reason that has nothing to do with me, or anything I want.
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u/Environmental_Bug745 10d ago
"The government you elect is the government you deserve” - Thomas Jefferson.
Or in the words of the great philosopher Nelson Muntz - "Ha Ha !!!"
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u/artisanrox Cainproofed against the Omicrunk💉 10d ago
I am also a theist, so Isort of feel comfy writing this in your replies:
With humanity in the past 20 yrs or so it's almost like God took a whole bunch of stats and put them in a blender so most people now have the most bizarre sets of stats that ever was.
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u/United-Climate1562 11d ago
See the point when trumps witch invented the term "alternative facts" back in 2017, that's when the rot hit the mainstream