THE BERNHARD PERSPECTIVE
Currently, both the polio and measles vaccines are required for children to attend public schools nationwide. That’s so children in our public schools are safe from these crippling and deadly viruses. But, listen to Dr. Kirk Milhoan, the pediatric cardiologist who chairs the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
This is the part of the CDC that advises which vaccines should be covered by Medical, Medicaid and by extension, private insurance corporations. Just listen: “If there is no choice, then informed consent is an illusion. Without consent it is medical battery.”
“Informed consent” is the Right-wing’s idea that people need to talk to their doctors and get informed about vaccinations so that they can give their full consent on their children getting vaccinated. So, for Donald T****’s CDC, vaccinating children is not about the best medical practices and public health. Rather, it is all about Right-wing politics.
Of course, before T**** took them down, Federal websites contained all the information anyone needed about the efficacy of vaccinations. And since few if any insurance plans offer members paid time to talk to a doctor about vaccinating their kids, this idea of “informed consent” exists only for those who can on their own afford the time off from work and an hour of a doctor’s time. And that, of course, leaves out the underclasses: the unemployed, the underemployed, the under-insured and the uninsured.
The clear choice for Milhoan is between “medical battery”—mandatory vaccinations—or unvaccinated, dead children. And since the affected classes are overly represented by Black and Brown Americans, the overtly racist overtones of the Right wing’s plans are obvious. Not only is Milhoun a bad doctor, he’s a racially bigoted one as well.
Clearly It would be just fine with this soulless ghoul if his kid gets measles and gives the disease to another kid who later dies from it. And even should he refuses governmental medical battery, I am quite positive he can afford these vaccines if he changes his mind, as well as the best medical care money can buy should the need arise.
Yet, under the banner of informed consent, he is quite comfortable with the idea that—unlike wealthy people like himself—people without means would struggle to afford non-mandated vaccinations, thus “choosing” that their children go without, and the risks that go with it.
He also heartlessly suggested that the increasing numbers of unvaccinated deaths from the current measles outbreaks will be helpful for statistical analysis. Says Milhoan: “What we’re going to have is a real-world experience of when unvaccinated people get measles. What is the new incidence of hospitalization? What’s the incidence of death?”
Says the good MAGA doctor, let’s just watch those incidents of hospitalization and death mount up. Think of all that we can learn. After all, it won’t be our kids who are dying.
When it comes to not caring if poor people’s children live or die, this guy’s as bad as Donald T****’, who is just fine taking food out of their mouths. Maybe even worse, because Milhoan is a medical practitioner who should know better. Yet he has no problem putting crass and heartless Right-wing conspiratorial politics before hisHippocratic Oath.
Or perhaps he just wants to see children of color die.
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