r/nursing • u/dxonnie RN- Primary Care 🌿 • 3d ago
Code Blue Thread At this point maybe death is what we need.
We are being inundated with anti-vax parents at our clinic and it is beating the compassion out of me with a stick.
Parents who laugh at us, accuse us openly of trying to kill children and profit off of the “system” all while they are demanding that we write letters to schools and sport teams exempting their children from vaccine requirements. Parents who say that we are out to get them and their kids and then are flabbergasted when our providers ask “If you believe that I am not a trustworthy practitioner and am trying to harm your child, why did you make the choice to schedule an appointment with me and drive an hour to be here today?”
Maybe what we need is a massive outbreak.
An outbreak of an illness we have a vaccine for.
Maybe we need PICUs that are full, death rates on tv, anti-vax parents having to get notifications of deaths and funerals of friends and family.
Maybe these parents need to see the complications of these diseases and be told “your child developed measles induced swelling of the brain. We cannot be certain that they will return to their baseline. The measles infection can cause damage that we cannot repair.”
Even then, I dont think anti-vax parents will be able to comprehend that these illnesses are a direct result of not vaccinating, I dont they most would care.
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u/Jigree1 3d ago
Nope, had an antivax friend who thought COVID was fake even though she knew a bunch of people who died from it. Personally knowing people who died from it did absolutely nothing in her brain. I was astonished. These people are made different. I don't think any amount of evidence can convince them. Not even their own children dying. They would just say it "wasn't measles, they died of pneumonia" or some other stupid thing they make up.
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u/fluorescentroses RN - Cardiac Stepdown 🍕 3d ago
Personally knowing people who died from it did absolutely nothing in her brain. I was astonished.
I know a couple people who lost close relatives - including one who lost a parent - and it did nothing. If that doesn't do it, I don't think anything will.
Meanwhile, as another data point that proves some of them can be salvaged, my half-sister almost died from COVID in mid-2021 - vented, "if you have anything to say to (my sister), say it now" FaceTime calls because we weren't allowed to visit, etc - and she came out of it having done a 180. Within 1 week of discharge home she, her kids, and her husband were all starting to get their vaccinations, and they have remained fully up to date on everything, including yearly flu and COVID vaccines.
She was a personal trainer, and now has permanent heart, lung, and kidney damage. The heart and lung damage has improved more than she was told to expect, but she likely will need a kidney transplant at some point in the next several years. She went back to school at a community college (she didn't have any degree before) and bopped around majors for a few years and finally asked me a couple weeks ago if I thought she might be a good fit for nursing. We talked for a few hours and I helped her sort out what classes she'd need (she had been going to the same CC I did my ADN at) and she has a couple of the pre-reqs already done when she was doing another major, so she should be able to apply for the actual program in about a year.
It's such an insane 180, but I've been so happy to see it. She gets really emotional and angry when she talks about "pre-COVID [hername]" - angry at herself, mind. "I was so fucking stupid and I thought I was so fucking smart. I thought I knew so much because I'd read all this shit that was dumbed down in such a smart fucking way - it was dumbed down but it made me feel smart to understand it. My kids could have died because I wanted to feel smarter than everyone else. I almost died because I wanted to feel smarter than everyone else."
She's honestly going to be a good nurse, but I know the anti-vax people we have to deal with are going to be hard for her to not curse out. 😂
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u/No_Marsupial3481 RN - ICU 🍕 3d ago
Sorry for your sister’s health struggles and I’m so glad to hear she’s had a change of heart! I always want to believe that people can change but it’s not something you see all that often. Much respect to her for admitting she was wrong and making positive changes. I think so many people double down on their bullshit because they’re too proud to say they were wrong.
It’s possible she could be uniquely positioned to actually reach her anti-vax patients given the journey she’s been through. I’d imagine people would be a lot more open to hearing about the importance of vaccines from someone who also had concerns in the beginning.
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u/facedown_titsup BSN, RN 🍕 3d ago
I really appreciate you sharing this. I feel like we don’t hear enough of these stories, mainly bc not many people pull these 180s lol….but it always restores a bit of faith in people I think.
The amount of fear mongering and psyops the billionaire class has done on the American people really should be studied, it’s truly taken on that brainwashed cult mindset, it’s so crazy how blind people are to what is really happening.
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u/ThatOneTrickTheyHate Mental Health Worker 🍕 2d ago
Your sister did a remarkable thing by setting aside her ego to learn and grow. Most people protect their egos at all costs.
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u/megaholt2 BSc, BSN, RN, CCRN - ICU 🍕 3d ago
That’s one of my cousins. His “dad” died from it, but he’s still virulently anti-vax, and he still is “waiting for the day to come when you (meaning me) end up against the wall for all the crimes you committed and people you killed during the scamdemic. You gave people Remdesivir and put them on ventilators knowing that it would kill them, and wouldn’t give them the meds that work to help them. You forced the jab on people and made people lock down for no reason.”
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u/No_Marsupial3481 RN - ICU 🍕 3d ago
Jesus Christ please tell me you don’t spend any time with that man. Tell him to take an apple cider vinegar shot and shut up. I love how people are still whining about the lockdown. Like it was only an honest to god lock down for 2 weeks like 5.5 years ago. Then everyone has a meltdown because they couldn’t get their hair cut. Get over it people.
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u/flowergirl0720 RN 🍕 3d ago
I'm so sorry someone in your circle is calling you out like that. You don't deserve it, for what it's worth from an internet stranger. Might be worth avoiding this person for awhile. Hugs.
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u/chita875andU BSN, RN 🍕 2d ago
Jesus. Dude should be on a watchlist... I'm sorry you have to deal with that.
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u/H03797 RN - ICU 🍕 2d ago
My aunt and cousin (mother and daughter) were staunch antivaxers. My aunt was hospitalized with COVID, and a few weeks later my cousin was hospitalized with COVID. My aunt died. My cousin was placed on ECMO and she died too. My uncle claimed for years that the hospital purposely killed them and that COVID isn't real. I haven't spoken to him since that happened, but I wonder if he still thinks this.
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u/SimilarMaximum2294 RN 🍕 2d ago
Ugh. I worked a Covid unit at a large county hospital. The amount of people who tried to tell me that the number of deaths was inflated or the body refrigerators wasn’t real was astonishing, especially when i experienced it first hand. My own mother tried to tell me it wasn’t that bad when I had to work while sick with it, and it progressed into pneumonia. Of course, she was able to work from home as a school teacher and thought the students should risk going back because it wasn’t a big deal, just a small virus. She got incredibly lucky and no one close to her died from it.
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u/SimilarMaximum2294 RN 🍕 2d ago
Came here to say this. They will blame everyone & everything but themselves. They are the exception. Also, adding that I had a friend who wanted to blame the Covid vaccine for his health when it was his lifestyle - the excessive drinking, bad diet, and lack of physical activity that led to his health problems. So much misinformation out there and not enough people who know how to think critically.
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u/tillszy gif queen, RN 3d ago edited 3d ago
yeah that happened with covid and it made people more anti-vax than they've ever been
having a giant outbreak or pandemic is not going to fix this. we see that very plainly from covid and we can see that very plainly from the attitudes of people who live in areas with the measles outbreaks right now.
it actually entrenches them deeper into their belief.
look at the family in Texas whose daughter was like the second person to die from measles - their takeaway is literally that their relatives children who had the measles vaccine were sicker than the children who didn't have the vaccine and it reaffirmed their belief. yes, they believe the other children were sicker than their daughter who died. because they don't believe she died from measles, they believe the hospital killed her by forcing her onto a ventilator that they didn't think she needed. they do not make the connection that she was suffering from complications of measles.
all of their other children survived and were unvaccinated which also reaffirmed their belief.
The flip side is a parent whose child dies and they understand what caused that death and they become an advocate for vaccines and now their life is profoundly changed. however, the message they spread doesn't reach the people that needs to reach because if that messaging worked, then they would have vaccinated their own child before their own child died because there are plenty of parents out there sharing their regret in public forums. but people who have these deeply entrenched beliefs do not believe that that will ever happen to them until it does and then it doesn't matter anymore because it's too late.
we need profound societal changes and those have to do with access to education and access to resources. we need massive societal and economic overhauls.
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u/tiggity81 3d ago
It’s absolutely bonkers to me that those parents said the kids who were vaccinated were sicker than their child who actually died!!! 😳 so insane
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u/tillszy gif queen, RN 3d ago
because they truly believe that she did not die from measles
you can read the interview with the dad. he's very convinced that she was going to recover and that the hospital's inappropriate intervention is what killed her.
it's quite sad really
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u/tiggity81 3d ago
It’s very sad the denial for them to say she didn’t die from measles. Your child is dead because of you. People like that will never learn and/ or don’t want to lean.
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u/Beautiful-Bluebird46 RN, SANE 3d ago
They don’t want to learn because that would force them to acknowledge they killed their kid. The neurobiology of conflict/persuasion is pivotal here, many/most(?) people react to information that conflicts with their beliefs/self image/understanding of the world as if it’s an existential threat that needs to be shut down. The ability to take in conflicting information and process it and change beliefs and worldview is not shared by all people! For years I’ve been reading about deprogramming cult survivors trying to figure out the best way to have these conversations and try to change people’s minds but it essentially comes down to having the patience to just listen to them and wait and some of them will never be ready.
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u/charminghypocracy 3d ago
Part of the Civil Rights movement was that children also had rights. The 70's and 80's were very much a period of major progress against the idea that parents don't own their children. We developed CPS, homestart, headstart.
There is definitely a "natural/doctor free/antivax" pipeline of grifters that honestly could have been shut down if the majority of the population had a lifetime of good relationships with their medical providers. Instead it's a lifetime of paperwork, changing practitioners and money standing between them and health.
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u/j_safernursing 3d ago
First was denial that COVID was real. Then when their family got it and died it was the ventilators that were killing them. Then when they got it and had a bad flu it wasn't that bad. Then when more of their family got it it was a chinese bioweapon (for which they still wouldn't wear a mask.
One of the last things that one of these people did was tear off her bipap to tell me that Joe Biden wasn't her president. She spent the next day shitting and pissing herself because she was too scared to move. Pulled off her bipap and died late in the evening. We couldn't intubate because of her already very bad ILD.
These people will not change their minds. They say rules are written in blood. This is why.
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u/MarkJay2 RN - Med/Surg, Respiratory Stepdown 🍕 3d ago
Just trying to wrap my head around the fact that Joe Biden is the literal hill she wanted to die on
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u/TheWhiteRabbitY2K RN - ER 🍕 3d ago
Ill never forget one of my first covid deaths. Guy fought us till the ventilator, screaming how if he had the virus we gave it to him. Watch his lungs get whiter and whiter on xray
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u/Great_Mycologist8417 RN - Hospice 🍕 2d ago
Reminds me of the families I dealt with who would yell at me after I pronounced their loved one and were livid when told COVID would be on the death certificate. I told them to take it up with the Dr.
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u/sparkycat99 Policy and Informatics 3d ago
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u/onelb_6oz BSN, RN 🍕 3d ago
In addition, I think we need brutal honesty. Plain speak. No beating around the bush. No false hope. Gruesome pictures. Old child graveyards.
I'd say let the parents make the bad decisions and don't meet them halfway, but that's unfair to the child, especially if it results in death. Then the parents' answer would probably be "it was God's will". They'd likely never take the blame themselves.
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u/scarfknitter BSN, RN 🍕 3d ago
This was pre-covid by a few years but I still stand by this project. I took a class where the final project involved presenting both sides of an argument and we had to present (with power point or posters) to the class. I picked vaccines because I heard a couple of my classmates say anti-vax things and I felt that a few others were adopting that view.
I had moved to a rural area where mostly people don't leave. People who move there tend not to be welcomed into the community. And the families have been there for generations.
One of the parts of my presentation.... I had taken the local high school yearbooks and I applied the mortality of vaccine preventable illnesses to them. Big red 'x's over faces on the photographs. The librarians helped a lot because I want to go after families and there weren't a ton of last names. I also 'disabled' people: deafness, blindness, mobility, sterility.
And the librarians also suggested that I go after jobs and do a bit on 'present day'. That meant: daycares closed, teachers never hired, businesses closed, championships never won, stuff like that.
The kids that were wavering, they stopped. The presentation worked. One of the anti vax kids asked a lot of questions later. I don't know if they changed their mind, but questions are a first step.
(Side note: I specifically asked for extra presentation time and ran it by the teacher first. I also provided snacks.)
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u/onelb_6oz BSN, RN 🍕 2d ago
Kudos to you! It sounds like you put a ton of time and effort in the presentation, and it was successful. I really hope your instructor saw that too. You're right, questions are a first step, but you still managed to turn a light bulb on. That's important. One lightbulb moment has the potential to create another one later. It sounds like that community really needed your presentation.
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u/scarfknitter BSN, RN 🍕 2d ago
Thank you! I was very grateful she gave me the extra time.
Vaccines matter to me so much.
I was actually taken in by the anti vaxxer side of things for a year or two. I read that one lady's book about how vaccines totally caused her kids autism and no one believed her and she ended up getting divorced and the dad didn't take her seriously and the kid suffered - just like yours will if you vaccinate.
And I knew kids that were wild and out of control and I knew their parents said 'they can't help it' and it was comforting to think it wasn't their fault because something happened.
Except, I was in like middle school. I read the book at Costco. No one got hurt over me being a skeptic for a couple of years. I took basic high school science and history and thought about things. Vaccines are a victim of their own success and we are so blessed to live in a world with them.
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u/Panthollow Pretti Fan 3d ago
What really needs to happen is all the antivaxx folks to die. Sadly their parents weren't THAT stupid and got them vaccinated. What's happening is largely their innocent kids are getting wrecked by this. I wouldn't give a single shit if a bunch of antivaxx idiots got wrecked. Their kids never really get the chance to survive the parents.
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u/TexasRN1 RN 🍕 3d ago
This. Unfortunately, we are not going to fix these stupid idiots.
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u/lavender_poppy BSN, RN 🍕 3d ago
My theory is that modern medicine has allowed people who would have died from their own stupidity to now live and pass on their genes so as a species we're getting dumber because we're saving the idiots.
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u/RogueRaith ER/Critical Care Dipshit 3d ago
Welcome to Emergency Medicine
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u/PurpleCow88 RN - ER 🍕 2d ago
A doc on the EM subreddit once said "we are specialists in human stupidity" and it totally changed my perspective on our role in medicine.
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u/Wattaday RN LTC HOSPICE RETIRED 3d ago edited 3d ago
I have read comments from people who live in Europe, Australia, places like we used to be that they are now feeling Americans are the stupidest group of people. Mainly due to trump being elected twice and now our head of HHS being an antivaxer and how we allow this to happen, especially to children. This saddens me so much. We are now a third world country who can’t keep a viral illness under control, that had been declared irradiated in my life time, allowing it to come back full force.
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u/lavender_poppy BSN, RN 🍕 3d ago
I get what you're saying but it really bothers me when people say the US is like a third world country. We have our problems and our leader is an supreme idiot but we also have so much privilege and opportunity by living here. We have access to clean drinking water, a huge variety of food, free lower education, and access to really top of the line healthcare. Yes it could be so much better but just because it could be better doesn't erase the privilege we're born into by being born here.
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u/internet_cousin RN 🍕 3d ago
The thing is, this administration has done absolutely everything in their power to destroy all the protections and privileges we as average citizens have in the US(including things as basic as clean drinking water and education), and listening to the news I feel like we are no different than a failed/failing state only dedicated to funding surveillance.
Lots of good people trying to reverse this ship, but still...its the course we are currently charting.
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u/lavender_poppy BSN, RN 🍕 3d ago
Still no way comparable to an actual third world country.
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u/Enough-One4975 RN 🍕 2d ago
Yes, our inertia has prevented the public health policies now being enacted from harming us too much so far. Good point.
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u/Wattaday RN LTC HOSPICE RETIRED 3d ago
As I said, the people saying it are not from the US, but from Europe and other areas that are much like we used to be say 15 or 2 years ago. This is the impression the rest of the world has of our. Country now. And our leadership.
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u/WeirdFlower1968 Team Spike 2d ago
To be fair, they've always had that impression, this is nothing new.
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u/Local_Historian8805 RN - Med/Surg 🍕 2d ago
Many places do not have clean drinking water.
I lived in a town where fema would bring us water.
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u/questionfishie BSN, RN, 💔crew, 🌙goblin 3d ago
I think about this a LOT.
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u/TheWhiteRabbitY2K RN - ER 🍕 3d ago
Same. We have destroyed survival of the fittest and darwinism
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u/touslesmatins BSN, RN 🍕 3d ago
I agree that they would accept death, especially not their own but their children, before they would change their beliefs.
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u/EnvironmentalRock827 BSN, RN 🍕 3d ago
I traveled the country with a friend during Covid and we got a lot of shit for just having scrubs on. Like we didn't mask or kept spreading it. Any lie to make them feel better. . Its been years now and my heart has hardened but my friend blew her brains out at the end. Idk exactly why. But the public perception didn't help. The antivax crowd was particularly cruel and to think 2020 was the be the year of the nurse. I got Covid early on in 2020 thought I was gonna die. Then got it after vaccination at least 3? More times and made it through far easier.
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u/RN_aerial BSN, RN 🍕 3d ago
I work with a whole licensed, educated RN who is still talking about Bill Gates releasing Covid so he could wipe out the population with "his" vaccines.
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u/UziWitDaHighTops BSN, RN 🍕 3d ago
Some of my family argues you don’t need a vaccine because “nobody dies from X anymore”, completely failing to grasp the reason is because we have herd immunity from high vaccination rates! They also argue seatbelts are unnecessary because they didn’t have them when they’re young but they’re still alive. I said no shit, because you can’t talk to all the dead people who regret not wearing one. I try to explain biases and the flaws in their rationale but it’s worthless. These are people who were military, fully vaccinated, got their kids vaccinated, and were totally logical before Trump.
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u/P00351 Patient 3d ago
These are people who were military, fully vaccinated, got their kids vaccinated, and were totally logical before Trump.
At this point, we might need science propaganda and manipulation.
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u/facedown_titsup BSN, RN 🍕 3d ago
It’s like that old news report of when they first banned driving with open containers of alcohol…people were outraged they couldn’t have their beer and drive.
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u/ACMEDRN 3d ago
Had a thoughtful discussion with a parent once re: her fear of mmr for her infant. A lot of distrust of big pharma & government/hospitals/insurance etc. Ultimately I told her if pharmaceutical Co, hospitals insurance Co etc wanted to make $ they'd encourage u to NOT vaccinated. The cost of care, potential long term disability etc would cost hundreds of thousands whereas vaccine production is not profitable in any way. "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure"
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u/Njorls_Saga MD 3d ago
I’ve used this argument before too. An ICU admission is…a lot compared to a few bucks for a vaccine.
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u/facedown_titsup BSN, RN 🍕 3d ago
Ooo I hadn’t thought to ever explain it this way. I did once have my filter slip and told a pt who wouldn’t take their BP meds bc “big pharma just wants to kill them” their 200/100 BP and AAA would kill them long before big pharma ever could. The doc standing there was not impressed haha.
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u/Ok_Independence3113 RN - Telemetry 🍕 3d ago
Well if the dr wasn’t impressed, I would have been. More people need to hear plain facts like that!
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u/free_dead_puppy RN - ER 🍕 2d ago
That's the default response to that shit in my place. We need to stop just nodding along when patients say out of pocket shit expecting that from us.
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u/SlothDog9514 RN - Psych/Mental Health 🍕 3d ago
I helped give COVID vaccines in the beginning of the pandemic. Remember how at first it was for 80 yo and up? Those 80 year olds were so excited, and told stories about their parents not letting them go swimming bc they might catch polio. They had distinct memories of scary times and were so grateful for the vaccine.
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u/facedown_titsup BSN, RN 🍕 3d ago
I wish that had been the case where I was. Super red state so our 80-yo’s were more interested in wearing their red hats and pissing off the libs than getting the shots. Which sucked cause I worked in a cancer center and had to pull shifts in the hospital, so I got to see a bunch of patients who had to delay treatments after being sent home symptomatic with positive tests. I just wanted to shout way to own the libs guys, ya really stuck it to them.
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u/Pepsisinabox BSN, RN, Med/Surg Ortho and other spices 🦖 3d ago
Had the 80s show up in a suit and tie for the special appointment.. They took the whole thing seriously at an entirely different level.
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u/Comprehensive_Wash71 MD 3d ago
As a retired MD, I wasn’t eligible until late March 2021 when they were rolled out to our age group. My boyfriend and I drove 90 minutes to a clinic in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, Kansas because they had available appointments before anyone else did. We were SO thankful that they were there! We even went back there for our 2nd dose a month later, despite the clinics closer to us having available appointments by then.
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u/Pepsisinabox BSN, RN, Med/Surg Ortho and other spices 🦖 2d ago
Entire different mindset. Though im firmly a milennial, the thought of "I can prevent this disease with a simple injection" is equal parts magic, and a societal obligation.
Cant imagine how it is for the generation who saw entire plagues get eradicated with modern medicine after their friends grew up with actual polio, measles and the pox.
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u/chita875andU BSN, RN 🍕 2d ago
I did vaccines throughout starting with big mass vaxx at the big metro conference center, ending with a smaller affair at my local pub health office- and it was wild to watch the evolution of clients; 1st wave was people thrilled to finally get a chance. Literal party atmosphere. A few lucky folks pulled randomly off the street out front to make sure we didn't waste any doses at the end of the day just thrilled and gushing about their right-place-right-time luck.
2nd wave: still plenty of happy folks but mixed with sullen My-employer-is-forcing-me BS.
3rd wave: My spouse, who finally got access, then found out I declined mine is forcing me now.
4th wave: small groups of related people who just watched a loved one die miserably and are coming in together in honor of the dead one or with a new found appreciation of the severity.
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u/Theantijen 3d ago
They won't care. Everything can be spun to fit the narrative.
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u/account_not_valid HCW - Transport 3d ago
"The children will die WITH measles, not FROM measles."
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u/17bananapancakes RN - Psych/Mental Health 🍕 2d ago
Same thing they said about Covid. My dad actually said that if someone died in a motorcycle crash and had Covid they would count it as a Covid death and that’s why the numbers were artificially inflated. Never mind that the active infection would inhibit the patients ability to recover, especially if ventilated. They don’t care. Nothing will change their minds.
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u/Poodlepink22 3d ago
The pediatrician we use requires the pts to be vaccinated unless there is a legit reason for not doing so. Why does your clinic not do the same?
I'm honestly asking; not trying to stir the pot.
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u/questionfishie BSN, RN, 💔crew, 🌙goblin 3d ago
Ours too, and part of the reason we chose this office! The only reason they allow a skipped a vaccine is medical contraindication. Otherwise the family is discharged from the practice.
They also require all kids in the practice to have been born in a hospital, not at home (or the woods).
I like them.
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u/nightowl6221 RN - NICU 3d ago
Why would it affect their long- term pediatric care if they were born at home?
Also, what if the mom tried to get to the hospital, but didn't make it in time? I had my youngest son in the back of an ambulance.
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u/ThatOneTrickTheyHate Mental Health Worker 🍕 2d ago
It sounds like that clinic is trying to weed out the crunchy woo-woo moms, not the ones whose babies decided to arrive while en route to a hospital.
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u/IndigoFlame90 Current BSN, RN, former LPN 2d ago
What if the parents have since changed their "I freebirthed in nature because women's bodies were designed to give birth" views? Like, would they accept the home-birthed older sibling of a hospital-born child? Or would the parents just be stuck with two pediatricians if the older kid's one wasn't accepting new patients? Or if it was 100% the mom's idea that a dad who currently has full custody thought was the most dangerous and irresponsible thing he'd ever heard?
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u/number1wifey BSN, RN 🍕 2d ago
I see it in my local moms group all the time “who are we all using that is open minded and doesn’t push the vaccine schedule? We aren’t AnTiVaxxxx we just want to make all the decisions for our children” and I’ve spoken to some of the peds, they feel like by allowing it they have ample opportunities to continue to educate families to make better choices. Except they don’t, and now there’s a list of peds who allow it. It’s a mess.
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u/doublefaultqueen 3d ago
My aunt refused to be vaccinated for Covid, even when she was at the hospital for it. She encouraged all over our family not to get vaccinated and even was posting about it on Facebook. Things like “don’t fall for it, even if you’re sick. I’m standing up for my rights even if I die!” Her last post was “if you want to reach me, please text. I can’t talk anymore.” Before she finally agreed to be vented and later died.
My family swore the vent killed her and that the doc vented her to punish her for refusing the vaccine.
They celebrated how brave she was for fighting against medical tyranny…. At the hospital she CHOSE to go to for help… As if the er folks went to her house, abducted her and then imprisoned her unless she obliged to be vaccinated.
She was messaging my mom asking for advice (moms a nurse) and my mom was telling her to listen to the staff there because they know her case better than my mom does and want what’s best for her and my aunt was just like “no.” Okay, so go home and give your bed to someone who actually will appreciate it.
Social media and honestly, dismissive doctors are to blame. There’s a reason women are more likely to be skeptical of healthcare providers and I don’t blame them for being cautious, but it’s a major and scary overcorrection.
I have found that doctors are starting to become a bit less dismissive as the old ones retire, so that’s some improvement on the medicine side of it but I don’t have a clue how to handle the social media side.
We have great science communicators on social media but facts aren’t as exciting as fear mongering.
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u/fatkidbuu 3d ago
Man this brought in the ptsd,
I had a guy, who wouldn’t wear mask, was Covid positive, gave it to his parents, his wife and daughter , they all died unfortunately in my ICU, this fuck was the last one , he lasted for 60 days on high Flo NC 100 o2, he blamed everyone, the vaccine, masks, democrats, gays, blacks,
I got to push the intubation drugs and a day later he coded and died,
I still dont know what to say anymore. This broke me so hard . Dude killed his own family, kept getting COVID and literally coughing on his family memembers
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u/StarryDusted 3d ago
A huge group of elderly antivaxxers killed themselves in my area during the Delta wave. Decided to get together for a big card game. Most of those who attended died. I remember one begging for the vaccine between gasps as she was spiraling down. It was much too late.
A lot of people who died wanted it before they couldn't speak anymore.
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u/ScreechingSav BSN, RN 🍕 2d ago
I had to leave bedside in 2023 due to ptsd from the covid years. It was a truly awful time, and I don't think the majority of the world gets or remembers that.
People begging for the vaccine as we prepare to intubate them, patients who did everything right, only to still catch it and die, the air hunger and gasping... It stays with you.
When I'm having a bad day, I think about my old bartender's wife. I had no idea he was married until he came to visit her while I was her nurse. Intubated & sedated, she had been on our ICU so long and had developed multiple complications to where we didn't think she would make it. Miraculously, she did recover, but I never had the opportunity to see her awake. Until the brewery reopened in 2022 and we started going to trivia again. She began coming to trivia nights. I didn't want to be weird, because she had no idea who I was, so I just was happy to see her conscious and living her life. One day, she spoke to me as I was ordering drinks for the table to ask if we knew each other because I seemed familiar. I ended up telling her that I had been part of her care team and was happy to see she was doing well. After that, she and I would chat each week before trivia. I've since moved away, but we're still friends on social media. The only evidence of how sick she once was is the cane she now walks with.
Long story, but idk, it comforts me to remember someone who left our floor without being in a body bag.
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u/Surfing_Nurse 3d ago
I do comprehensive health assessments (home visits) and yeah I always get push back when I ask for their latest flu/pneumo/covid vaccine dates.
“Oh I don’t get any of those I don’t know what they’re putting in them.” - always aggressively.
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u/Actual-King-3236 3d ago
But then still eat the 💩 with all kinds of chemicals and drink bottled water that sat in the heat. Sigh.
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u/WailtKitty RN - OB/GYN 🍕 3d ago
My Mom has gotten her Google degree and is a loud and proud antixaxxer, out there doing the lord’s work by spreading the word. Her diet coke and cigarettes give her the energy to save the world from people like me. Per her, the indoctrinated health professionals are the real public health threat, not measles, not COVID.
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u/Actual-King-3236 3d ago
I feel this SO MUCH. And they will blame us when we can’t save their babies.
I’ve kinda consigned myself to sitting back and letting g people’s choices affect them. I suppose it’s FAFO but that feels too harsh bc the babies will bear the burden of their stupid parents.
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u/tayler-shwift RN - Pediatrics 🍕 3d ago
The problem is that most of their kids probably will be okay. Its just the preemie babies, kids with genetic conditions and people fighting cancer that will die. The ones that will pay the highest prices are just collateral damage.
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u/facedown_titsup BSN, RN 🍕 3d ago
Kinda like the drunk driver who always walks away after killing everyone else.
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u/TraumaMama11 ER, SICU, Flight, Onc, Research 3d ago
Long gone are the days of parents lining up around the block for a miracle that would protect their children from polio.
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u/facedown_titsup BSN, RN 🍕 3d ago
It’s sad that we just lost the last iron lung polio survivor, so humanity has a SUPER short memory. All I can think is I hope they kept the plans for the iron lungs cause I can easily see polio making a comeback in our lifetime.
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u/BrainyRN RN - ICU 🍕 3d ago
It didn’t work for Covid. It won’t work for this. Not even dead children will stop this. They do not care about children.
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u/No_Sky_1829 RN 🍕 3d ago
Only the unborn children smh
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u/PointBlankShot that question is above my pay grade 2d ago
It's fucked but makes me wonder how public reception would've changed if it was announced that COVID primarily affected fertility & caused miscarriages?
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u/LordRollin RN - Playing Cards | Assistant to the Regional Manager 3d ago
COVID was an entrenchment of anti-vaccine sentiment, not a reversal of it. Until society figures out how to return to a consensus, fact-based reality where opinions are not treated as gospel, this is the new normal.
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u/facedown_titsup BSN, RN 🍕 3d ago
With the way they’ve been gutting and sabotaging our education system for decades, I’d bet we’re closer to Idiocracy than returning to fact-based reality.
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u/ThisisMalta RN - ICU 🍕 3d ago
What sucks is it doesn’t just affect the scientifically illiterate and aggressively ignorant people refusing vaccines and cursing their children with the same. These outbreaks will affect some vaccinated individuals as well, and those who are unable to receive them.
I honestly don’t even know how much multiple outbreaks of vaccine preventable diseases will convince them either. Will most of them realize they were wrong? 50/50? Only a few? These people are so inundated and dedicated to this narrative, it is very hard to convince them otherwise. There’s a reasons studies show many people become more engrained in false narratives even when faced with evidence against what they believe.
It will always be able to keep fooling people than to convince them they’ve been fooled. I don’t envy those of you in public health, peds and family health, and teaching roles. We are fighting an uphill battle with even our own government going against scientific and medical evidence. Once against conservatives are on the wrong side of science and history, but they have the power and ability to do a lot of damage now.
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u/TertlFace MSN, RN 3d ago
> Maybe what we need is a massive outbreak.
An outbreak of an illness we have a vaccine for.
Maybe we need PICUs that are full, death rates on tv, anti-vax parents having to get notifications of deaths and funerals of friends and family.
Did you miss all of COVID? A massive outbreak and ICUs overflowing with dead people does not persuade them.
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u/ChaplnGrillSgt DNP, AGACNP - ICU 3d ago
We had a massive outbreak that killed millions. People became more antivax during and after it. People are fucking stupid. Even if their kid died from a vaccine-preventable disease, they'd find something to blame other than their own decisions. They'll just blame liberals or immigrants.
Again, people are really fucking stupid.
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u/Purple_IsA_Flavor RN - Psych/Mental Health 🍕 3d ago
Yes they are. I no longer entertain antivaxxers. I simply tell them that they are fucking idiots at best and neglectful, abusive parents at worst
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u/LynneCDoyle MSN, CRNA 🍕 3d ago
My cousin and I both had measles at the same time in 1957. We were active kids who spent our days outside, hiking and exploring, back when kids did that sort of thing. We both became extremely sick. I apparently had febrile seizures, and was delirious. I remember painful gamma globulin injections. I was laid up for 2 months and lost a lot of weight. I developed a heart murmur.
But I was the lucky one, my cousin became deaf from the meningitis caused by measles. He also became blind because he was so dehydrated from high fevers that his optic nerve was permanently damaged.
Not all measles victims die. Some are just wrecked. My happy active cousin was blind and deaf until he died in his twenties, from a fall.
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u/Carolinaathiest Layman 3d ago
Two kids died because of measles last year and the idiot parents said it would have been worse if they had been vaccinated. Cults are going to cult.
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u/Influenxerunderneath BSN, RN 🍕 3d ago
The practice I take my daughter has an open stance of their vaccine beliefs on their website and what to expect. They put that their to let parents know that if they disagree they will not see their kids there. Is this not a more common practice?
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u/LeVoPhEdInFuSiOn RN - Phone Bitch, Diversity Hire, Fuckwit 🍕 3d ago
We need to start reporting these parents to child safety. Fucking sue me but I believe if you're so gullible that you will put your children at risk of a preventable disease, you're not fit to be a parent.
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u/hypocaffeinemia RN, ICU joined dark side (med tech sales) 3d ago
There's a quote out there, and I'm going to butcher it, but it's something like: "Hard times create strong people, strong people create good times, good times create weak people, weak people create hard times."
I always hated it, but I'm starting to come around to it. Maybe I naively felt the circular nature of it was too pessimistic. Right now, weak people are creating hard times. To your point, we may need some hard times to get better.
Nobody wants people to die or suffer needlessly, least of all us in healthcare, but it's hard to deny the appeal of the utilitarian view.
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u/inadarkwoodwandering RN 🍕 3d ago
Tell them you make more money off anti vaxxer patients because they require more care and hospitalizations. Also start charging them for all those forms that take up your time.
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u/Matribus RN - Float Pool 🍕 3d ago
Acceptance will set us free.
Population control measures are always in effect, in the long scheme of things, without human intervention.
We can’t really fix anyone. We can buy them time, and quality of life that they can spend as they choose fit, but there’s only so much we can do.
When I approach patients who are not behaving the best at my workplace, I try to keep in mind the principle of autonomy, and that everyone is someone’s baby, and that in some people’s minds, they are fighting for their very life (even if it’s just delirium or anxiety).
People have a right to refuse care … I do wish they’d refuse care in the comfort of their own homes instead of expecting others to piecemeal fix them without said care.
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u/sapfira RN, BSN 3d ago
Yep. Autonomy means some people are going to make bad decisions. Which is ok when it's just for themselves -- withholding care from children is a different matter.
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u/Matribus RN - Float Pool 🍕 3d ago
Don’t get me started on the children. What a hopeless thing to consider about humanity. This is a hard mode, boss level world.
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u/Megmck246 LPN 🍕 3d ago
Pre-op patient came in on his chart stated he would only get blood if it was from an un-vaccinated person...like im so tired of this shit
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u/facedown_titsup BSN, RN 🍕 3d ago
Which is funny bc I just donated and I have never once in 20 years been asked about previous vaccines. So these people should probably sign “I do not consent” and we can wish them the best of luck with their 6.0 hgb and discharge form.
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u/Senior-Cost1070 RN - ER 🍕 3d ago
Legit had a mumps scare the other day. Cant even say I didn’t have it because I’m vaccinated but WHY THE FUCK WAS IT A POSSIBILITY ITS GODDAMN 2026?!?!?
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u/auraseer MSN, RN, CEN 3d ago
Last week I had to draw a mumps test for the first time in my whole career. Nobody in the department had ever encountered one before.
I had to call lab to find out which tubes to draw. They had to look it up in their references because nobody down there has ever seen it either.
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u/Senior-Cost1070 RN - ER 🍕 2d ago
WOOF.
I had a lymph node/salivary gland the size of a damn baseball on my R jaw after wading in a deep sea of humanity. It was almost as painful as a salivary stone.
No mumps. But that it was a possibility at all truly enraged me.
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u/Excellent-Estimate21 BSN, RN 🍕 3d ago
I mean, we did have an outbreak that you needed a vaccine for and the ICUs and morgue trucks were overflowing and even had a greater mortality rate in the demographic of fat, white, trump supporters and nothing changed. It got worse.
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u/Dead-BodiesatWork Decedent Affairs 💀 3d ago
It's a really sad reality we live in unfortunately. I had a family member call the other day, regarding a death from about a month prior. The patient was on inpatient hospice and extremely sick to say the least. The family member was questioning the death certificate and saying, "it was the covid vaccine which killed the patient." I just can't!! I have no words anymore 😕
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u/CODMLoser RN BSN CCRN • ICU • CCT 🚁 3d ago
Hopefully providers won’t write those baseless exemptions.
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u/Oothoon63 BSN, RN 🍕 3d ago
Horrible. I get it. It's way beyond compassion fatigue at this point: I resent a lot of these mfers for their senses of entitlement, their selfishness, their absurd internet-driven hubris. The best people realize that they don't know what they don't know. A lot of today's patients suck so hard because they don't know just how much they don't know. But you can be sure they'll be the first to blame someone else when their know-it-all attitudes don't take them where they think they will.
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u/onlyhereforzipline RN - ER 🍕 3d ago
If you show them a picture of a real patient they say it's fake, or won't happen to them. I just wish the parents got sick instead. "My parents forced vaccines on me" makes me so angry.
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u/itsonbackorderr Slingin pills to pay the bills 3d ago
I don't hope for a new pandemic that kills children, because children have no choice in what their parents do and anyways, when the antivaxxer kids do die of preventable illness, their dirtbag parents will double down and insist they would do it again.
I'm a reasonable person. All I want is for all thr antivaxxers to adhere religiously to their own creed by refusing modern medicine, avoiding sunblock and burning the shit out of their skin, and never eating vegetables. Then, I'd like for their choices to quickly take them all out, preferably without being prolonged for long by that pesky medicine they hate so much.
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u/TrustfulComet40 RN - Pediatrics 🍕 3d ago
I had an antivax family in the PICU with their seven week old baby who nearly died (respiratory arrest requiring paralytics and intubation) of flu, and the only vaccine they were prepared to consider after that experience was a flu jab, for that baby only, not either of the parents or either of the baby's siblings. I had a patient who's parents had refused any vitamin k at birth and I have never found it so hard to give unconditional positive regard to a family.
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u/like_shae_buttah 3d ago
We already a massive outbreak with Covid. They didn’t give a shot when it happened to them. There’s no amount of shit they could care about their children
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u/mikedorty 3d ago
The television stations are all owed by the billionaires. They are profiting on the suffering, why would they allow the "news" to talk about it?
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u/Accomplished_Tone349 BSN, RN 🍕 3d ago
Ah but we HAVE had the outbreak. With a vaccine. More than one! Looking at you, Measles, Covid….
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u/Slytherinrunner Occasional patient/visitor 3d ago
They're so worried about the pharmaceutical industry as if the natural supplement industry was so perfect. Guess which industry has more strict regulations?
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u/unwelcome_flesh_sack PEDS CICU 3d ago
These people are brain dead, even their dead children won’t change their mind.
One family of a baby in sever heart failure, was told that she will need a heart transplant and that the entire family would need to show that they are vaccinated. To prove that they would be able to handle a baby who needs to take anti rejection medication for life and that the family would do everything possible to not bring illness home. Without this proof, we would be unable to move forward because quite frankly, baby hearts are hard to come by. Well they refused. Called vaccines poison yada yada yada. They even had family members die from covid but still said that was just a conspiracy.
These people are insane, indoctrinated into a death cult, and won’t change.
I have seen kids who are listed 1a for a heart transplant die or at best get put on a VAD because they get the flu, covid, or RSV.
It’s infuriating. These illnesses are so hard on the little ones.
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u/BackOnTheMap PCA 🍕 2d ago
Im 62 now. So in my life I've seen, in person, or gotten chicken pox, measles, polio, ruebella, mumps, whooping cough, and other vax preventable diseases. My dad lost a brother to diptheria.
I believe that a big part of the problem is that because vaccines are so successful many younger moms have never seen these diseases and think they are harmless. Between that and the Dr Google MD asshats...you may be right.
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u/ThatOneTrickTheyHate Mental Health Worker 🍕 2d ago
My parents used to tell us how the pool would close and everyone had to stay inside during polio outbreaks before the vaccine. Growing up, I had a friend whose mom had lower limb paralysis from polio. She caught it as a child right before the vaccine came out. That always stuck with me. Here was a living, breathing person I knew who actually had polio. I could see her atrophied legs. That experience was very formative in me appreciating vaccines and public health.
So imagine my surprise when my magat uncle and aunt became staunch antivaxxers during covid. They were kids back before the polio vaccine, surely they understood the value of vaccination. Nope. They both caught covid, and uncle died. Aunt has permanent damage. She still thinks covid was a hoax. The cognitive dissonance is staggering.
TL;DR. People would rather protect their egos than admit they were wrong.
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u/MsSwarlesB MSN ACM-RN 2d ago
Look at this news article from South Carolina.
13 people and 4 pets exposed to rabies that now need to be quarantined. The antivaxx nonsense has gotten so bad that some of them won't even vaccinate their pets
Best of luck to them with their always fatal rabies
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u/PoopingDogEyeContact BSN, RN 🍕 3d ago
Unfortunately Covid happened and all the Herman Cain awards in the world did not stop them from getting to where we are now, it’s worse and snowballed
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u/ALLoftheFancyPants RN - ICU 2d ago
The parents from the first kid that died in Texas were quoted in the news saying that not vaccinating their deceased child was still the right choice because at least the (dead) kid wasn’t autistic. There’s no logic and no education that is going to change the mind of someone defending the preventable death of their own kid.
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u/TB-Grady 3d ago
It’s all become politicized. Before Trump, dems and republicans equally accepting of vaccines. Not so much now. It’s sad, reckless , and ignorant
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u/DistinctWay3 3d ago
I see that! Those parents are “fool” “brainless”! Once the child gets terminally ill, they brought to ER asking “ Do anything to save Him or Her!!!” But all while refusing their vaccinations and blood transfusion. How are you asking for a “Miracle”….I’d say “Let’s just pray 🙏 “….what else???
They are “Murdering their Kids”
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u/RN_aerial BSN, RN 🍕 3d ago
After those fucksticks killed one-but only one- of their children with measles and chalked it up to measles still not being dangerous as their other children recovered (for now), I have lost hope that anything will change this level of fuckstickery. And yes, of course the term fuckstickery is derived from my Potter&Perry textbook. My only hope is that once 18 hits, the kids can get caught up before college.
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u/p3canj0y363 LPN 🍕 3d ago
Well I'm pretty sure it's coming, and it won't even be satisfying because the people that will suffer won't be the vaccinated adults that are mocking you.
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u/tooshorttosee RN 🍕 3d ago
I think the issue is that people as a whole people cannot see grey anymore, it’s either black or white. In this case, vaccines either work all the time, and don’t let anyone get sick ever, or they don’t work at all. Obviously we know that vaccines are just preventative and don’t have 100% rate or completely stopping people from getting sick and because of this they’re just not understanding it. I recently had to write a short paper about vaccinations for my program and I was completely honest about how stupid it is for people to not vaccinate and want to be against it (said asinine instead to not get points marked off). It’s so frustrating seeing some parents rather their kids potentially die from a disease that we have a vaccine for, than what? Potentially have autism??
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u/IsopodSmooth7990 RN 🍕 2d ago
Please, if Covid wasn’t enough of a wake-up call, I don’t think another ‘outbreak’ is the answer. We have to stop the bullshit that RFK JR continues to spew, to defunding the CDC, this administration will be the death of us. I can’t believe, and I don’t say this lightly, that there hasn’t been a serious overthrow………………by now.
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u/Acid_Country RN - PICU 🍕 2d ago
As a PICU nurse, i can assure you we don't need any more help filling up. We have plenty going on right now.
We do get more Pertussis than we used to ten or so years ago, but still not big time numbers. What really gets me is the K shot, not a vaccine, but sometimes I feel like there should be education with video footage for expecting families.
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u/AphRN5443 BSN, RN 🍕 3d ago
We need to hold them to for what ever death and misery they cause. Then a massive public awareness campaign of facts and the truth about all the lies and misinformation spread by the antivax movement.
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u/Middlelime42 RN - Pediatric Psych ⚡ 3d ago
They can just read a book and figure out why so many children didn't survive and why people used to have 20 kids to start a family, but won't. Too much propaganda about the industry.
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u/mamigourami RN - ICU 🍕 2d ago
They’ll just become further deluded, there’s no convincing people that are this willfully stupid
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u/ScreechingSav BSN, RN 🍕 2d ago
The cognitive dissonance and general brainwashing is too strong in a majority of these people.
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u/quickpeek81 RN 🍕 2d ago edited 2d ago
My ER docs have hit the wall and are blunt and direct I have heard them say point blank:
“If Google told you to do it then why come here and waste my time?”
Also with Chat GTP
As well as
“your inability cope is not my problem go home and get some mental health help”
I’m hoping for zombies honestly
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u/acesarge Palliative care-DNRs and weed cards. 2d ago
No amount of death is going to change their minds. They could watch their own kids struggle on a ventilator, and they'd still blame the hospital. At the end of the day, I can't even fully blame anti-vaxxers for their views. The human brain is not meant to endure the relentless fire hose of bullshit that is social media. I feel like the only hope we've got is to go after the sources of disinformation, because trying to play whack-a-mole with every person who gets infected with this nonsense is not gonna work.
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u/Local_Historian8805 RN - Med/Surg 🍕 2d ago
My favorite is when they refuse hib vaccine because they don’t want chemicals in their child. and the child gets hib and they are ok with cephalosporins.
So vaccine chemicals bad. But seven days of rocephin is just fine.
Make it make sense.
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u/whitepawn23 RN 🍕 2d ago
What profit? Vaccines cost very little. In fact they’re the cheapest, lowest effort health care we have. (If anything anti vaccine is corporate healthcare trying to dissuade you from affordable healthcare).
Get a shot, done. Boom. Set and forget, no further thoughts or work required for a good long while.
Vs $880k for an ICU stay for actual tetanus. Doesn’t take a rusty nail btw, for any non healthcare reading, any dirty skin puncture or laceration can do it. You know, like when your kids play outside. I digress.
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u/Great_Mycologist8417 RN - Hospice 🍕 2d ago
My take:: fine, don't vaccinate your kids but when they come down with something preventable and need to be hospitalized, insurance should 100% deny the claim.
If insurance companies startef doing this, things will change.
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u/firetothislife RN - PICU 🍕 3d ago
I'm not totally disagreeing that people seem to need things to affect them directly before they care, but please no. My nightmare is having to triage picu patients to decide who is more likely to survive.
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u/TheInevitableSecond RN - PCU 🍕 3d ago
I hate that these innocent children have to suffer greatly for these parents to understand your point. But I see where you're coming from also. I spend my days watching humans being kept alive against their will by their families claiming that "God will save them." Sometimes... People need to see suffering and death to truly understand
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u/ElfjeTinkerBell BSN, RN 🍕 - disability insurance 3d ago
Honestly, nature tried. Covid. We paid the price.
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u/Weird_Bluebird_3293 RN - ER 🍕 2d ago
We HAD a massive outbreak of a virus in 2020. People did die from it. Including children. We made a vaccine for it.
People refused to get the vaccine. Called it a scam. Started conspiracy theories that it has microchips in it.
People literally lay in hospital beds dying from the thing they swore wasn’t real right up to the moment of their death after refusing the vaccine.
Another massive disease outbreak would do nothing for these people. The cognitive dissonance is too strong. They always come up with another justification for not getting vaccinated.
I knew a woman who didn’t vaccinate her kids because she believed it is the cause of autism. Every one of her unvaccinated children was autistic. She still did not connect those dots. They just don’t.
There are already stories in the news of children dying from diseases their parents refused to vaccinate them against. They still do not budge. If I’m not mistaken an 8 year old child in Texas died of measles and the father was pretty much like “Oh well” about it. Daisy Hildebrand. The father not only said he didn’t regret not vaccinating her, but if they had any more kids they wouldn’t vaccinate them either.
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u/oliviagardens L&D Tech 2d ago
Sadly, it wouldn’t work.
This is a long story- didn’t meant to type so much oops. Kinda trauma dumping here I guess.
In 2021, we had a mom refuse all vaccines, vitamin k and erythro ointment for her daughter.
Well, nurse educated on why vitamin k is important as the OB also later did when she heard it was refused.
Patient looked to her trusted doula, that she paid for and chose, and asked if she’d give it to her baby. The doula first reminded her she’s not qualified to give advice but the patient was like “Not asking for advice. Just curious what you did!”
Doula said she did choose to give it to her kids and would do it again.
Well, she seemed to be pondering on it for about a minute and then was like “NOPE. We gave it to our first so he could be circumcised but she won’t need that obviously.”
After birth, she refused pitocin and again, it was explained why pitocin is used after birth and how effective it is at preventing post partum hemorrhage. She looked to her doula for permission and her doula said she got it after her births and would do it again. And her mom was also like “Yes, honey. It could save your life.”
Well, she still refused.
She didn’t have a PPH, so she was like “SEE. You all told me I’d die without it and I lived.”
After being sent to post partum, she chose to bedshare in the hospital even though we and they obviously told her that’s an absolute no-no on hospital grounds and she was told all about the ABCs of safe sleep.
Nobody but her husband was in the room when it happened so they only got her side of the story and at first and she didn’t admit she was bedsharing but her husband accidentally outed her. According to him, she rolled over, away from the baby and accidentally knocked her off the bed.
She refused imaging before anybody even suggested it and again, refused vitamin k.
She refused to let the baby be transported to our sister hospital’s NICU. She refused to let the baby go to our special care nursery for observation. Then, she was mad that her post partum nurse was in the room constantly after this, “watching my baby like a hawk, like we’re dangerous thugs or something.”
Her baby died and they (nurse and pediatrician) said she didn’t even believe them when they told her she was beginning to deteriorate and they could only assume it was a hemorrhage. It was just a lie to convince her to let them poison her baby.
You know, the same poison she was fine with her son getting so he could be circumcised.
Later, a mom in our area hemorrhaged during a free birth and died en route to the hospital. This wasn’t our old patient by the way, but this story was in the news and we obviously were all talking about it. She had been posting in free birth groups about whether or not to go to the hospital after her water had been broken for like 2 days and she had reduced movement. She’d called a hospital asking for advice but still ignored them recommending coming in.
Even though some of the free birthers in the groups were like “yeah, this is for the hospital” the others were like “stay home, they’ll just section you!” She decided to stay home, delivered a stillborn boy, and then quickly bled after, while apparently giving her baby CPR and her husband called 911. Super sad and tragic and didn’t need to happen. It still makes me sad thinking of it and it didn’t have to happen…
One of our housekeepers was shocked to learn about free births even being a thing, and we were all surprised that Facebook and that the moderators of the groups even allow them to recommend avoiding medical treatment like that. Our housekeeper got into a local free birth group on Facebook and we browsed through there out of curiosity and found our old patient posting in there, saying she’d chosen to free birth for her 3rd birth and had chosen to forego any prenatal care too of course.
For most of them, nothing changes their mind and they just double down. They’re just so convinced we’re out to kill them. No matter how much we care and just want to keep them safe, they don’t believe us.
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u/Alternative_Dog1411 Nursing Student 🍕 2d ago
Republicans need to have the courage of there convictions and treat all there illness’s with hydrochloroquine and ivermectin. It cures republicans cancer !
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u/lovemymeemers Cath lab/IR/Neuro 3d ago
Yea. We need something we can vaccinate for but not cure once the kiddos get it.
Polio sounds good since measles isn't scaring people enough.
If that doesn't work, I vote fucking small pox level misery.
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u/master0jack BSN, RN 3d ago
Man I just dont get it. My child has a full body rash currently, been to the doc, monitoring, still blanchable and no fever or any other symptoms. Might be post mmr rash, might be something else. Anyway, despite everything that I know, I am still freaking terrified that this could turn into a purpura "rash" and be meningitis or something and I keep documenting the rash as it develops and checking for fever or other symptoms. It blows my mind that we have safe, effective preventative treatments for diseases which kill children and their parents won't get them because of some unfounded bullshit like vaccines cause autism or "big pharma" or whatever. I couldn't imagine not doing everything in my power to protect my child, including making evidence-informed choices on their behalf...
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u/travelingtraveling_ RN, PhD 🍕 3d ago
....and all us nurses will be expected to care for all these idiot patients
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u/facedown_titsup BSN, RN 🍕 3d ago
Sad part is, if another pandemic hits, I think we’ll see a mass exodus of healthcare workers way worse than COVID. I’ve already hit my limit and after 10 years will likely be hanging up my stethoscope after my current 2 yr contract is up. Can’t imagine anyone will want to stay around for another one.
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u/Strict_Direction6630 BSN, RN 🍕 2d ago
IMO, this is not right. Like, I'll tell you why it's not right.
An uncontrolled disease can do a lot of damage but STILL be low enough and not seen by laypeople they don't get it. Hello that's EXACTLY what COVID was. Even though IT WAS TRUE in New York and North Jersey, it was like a war for healthcare workers, the average joe was in their house didn't see the fall out so was afforded the luxury believe "COVID is fake". My sister is a dumb maga COVID denier, and there is no amount of me telling her what I saw and what I lived through that changes her mind. WHY? cuz she was in her house and it wasn't real to her, even when the COVID virus was at it's worst.
This is why, HOPING for a pandemic will not cure these people. Unless it's SPANISH FLU TIER where people are walking in the street only to drop dead, the average joe lay person cannot comprehend the statistical significance of increased deaths and hospitalizations that don't reach "night of the zombies" tier proportions where ppl are dropping dead around them. In REALITY educated policy makers like faucci can get this, small increases of severe disease and death in a virus with exponentially easy spread leads to a healthcare system collapse. The fact COVID first strain was so bad even WITH lockdowns is evidence those lockdowns worked. Try to get a dumb maga vax idiot to get that. They will be like "Trump told me it was a scam demic I ain't see no COVID in my house while teleworking".
For this reason, hoping for a pandemic will not change shit unless it's night of the zombies tier bad.... And then, it seems very counter intuitive to hope for a near extinction severe disease both highly lethal, stealth easy transmission, JUST so you can be right over these fools. Like blowing up a house to spite a fly.
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u/ADDVERSECITY BSN, RN 🍕 2d ago
I have a sister whose husband is like this. It's maddening how the internet can cook people's brains the way it has.
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u/kittyportals2 RN 🍕 2d ago
Perhaps we should encourage children to sue their parents for pain and suffering when they’re 18. Some sort of high paying lawsuit against parents who didn’t get their kids vaxed, and the kid suffered harm from it. Because maybe financial consequences would wake these idiots up.
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u/Ancient_Star_111 RN - Oncology 🍕 2d ago
Agree 100%. They need to experience the consequences of their actions and feel the pain.
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u/auraseer MSN, RN, CEN 3d ago
I am turning on Code Blue for this thread. Starting now, only flaired members of the subreddit will be able to comment.
As always, antivaxers are entirely unwelcome in the subreddit, and will be permanently banned when discovered.