Man whose daughter died from measles stands by failure to vaccinate her: "The vaccination has stuff we don’t trust"
Summary
A father whose unvaccinated six-year-old daughter became the first U.S. measles death in 10 years remains steadfast in his anti-vaccine beliefs.
The Mennonite man from Seminole, Texas told The Atlantic, "The vaccination has stuff we don't trust," maintaining that measles is normal despite its near-eradication through vaccination.
His stance echoes claims by HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., who initially downplayed the current North American outbreak before changing his position under scrutiny.
Despite his daughter's death, the father stated, "Everybody has to die."
https://futurism.com/neoscope/measles-father-defends-anti-vaccinationOpen linkView original on lemmy.world916
Comments172
It takes a special kind of crazy to say vaccines have untrustworthy ingredients over the dead body of your unvaccinated child.
Ah... right okay.
Ah yes, the Electric Amish.
That was funny. I'll have to reuse that one 🙂
Haha, never heard that one, and I grew up in an area that had a lot of both. 🤣
I was always amused by some of the stuff that Amish would do - like buying a freezer for an "English" neighbor, as an example. Or sometimes borrowing/renting someone else's tractor and then running them at night? Are you hiding these behaviors from your god, or just from other people?
Lots of crazy beliefs out there. Look into eruvs for Orthodox Jews or how they pay "gentiles" to do things for them on holy days, or the timers that are set up...I think Religulous showed this last one. Seems like if you are going to go to these lengths to supposedly stay within compliance on some arbitrarily-determined rules from centuries ago, you might consider just, uh, discarding and revising some of these things? Because an omniscient being is going to see right through these clever legalisms...
There's an expression: "build a hedge around the Torah," referring to the web of extra strictures beyond the basic Commandments, that exist solely because they know people will finagle ways around them. The idea being that by breaking those rules they'll still be protected from breaking the big ones. Of course it just means that more obedient people live restricted lives, and holier-than-thou people smugly keep stupid rules while still being cruel and evil to the core. And cheaters gonna cheat.
Even the first 5 commandments seem to be coming from a place of narcissism for an omnipotent being - you worship me and only me, don't worship anything else, including idols and graven images, and don't use my name the wrong way. Oh, and make sure you keep my special day....this has what to do with any kind of morality?
The rest are reasonable things that could be derived w/o any appeal to mythology - don't kill, steal, lie, cheat on your spouse and covet another's possessions.
I will never understand when someone from one of the Abrahamic religions tells me that without religion, people have no foundation in morality [1]. The very core set they most reference are about 50% irrelevant to morality, the other 50% are something every society puts in place and they don't need Jehovah to derive these rules; they are rather obviously necessary to a functioning society - although that last one our entire system is set up to almost force people to covet things and other people all the time, so that's rather ironic.
As for all the other stuff - the various rules and rituals - that people tend to build up around the three main Abrahamic religions....a lot of it truly does make me scratch my head.
[1] I just saw one of those magamaniacs arguing for that with Sam Seder. That video was excruciating by the way, but I did power through most of it.
We gonna rock down to, Electric Amish Avenue.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOfZLb33uCg
Ha, I got interested in researching what exactly Mennonites are, and funnily, the German Wikipedia article has, in its very introduction, this disclaimer:
Translation by me:
Seems like your American Mennonite exiles are making the rest of the Mennonite world defensive.
I mean, that's just the history of the US anyway. Remember, the puritans were "escaping" "persecution" for there religious beliefs from Europe. Those beliefs were so incredibly strict, conservative, and restrictive that no one wanted those nut jobs around. Oh, look, 250 years later and their descendants are still afraid of a nipple.
Untrustworthy ingredients:
The measles virus, but very slightly modified so it won’t kill you.
The uneducated will kill us all.
Don't you know that vaccines are made out of mercury and dead babies? Wake up sheeple!
Some childhood vaccines contained thimerosal which is a mercury compound as a preservative prior to 2001, some other drugs still use it and it's very probably harmless but technically any drug containing thimerosal contains mercury.
Is the common measles vaccine in the US one of the ones that is developed using a cell line originated from an aborted fetus? Like it doesn't contain any fetal cells in the final product, but technically it wouldn't be entirely a lie to say it's made from a dead baby (without getting clinical and drawing a developmental line before which it's not a "baby" per se), since the media it is grown it is a cell line descended from one..
Kind of like how there are skin treatments made from circumcised foreskins - it doesn't actually contain foreskin, but it contains a compound extracted from cell lines produced from infant foreskin removed during circumcision, because that's the easiest way to legally get baby skin. Usually they'll refer to containing CTFG or epidermal growth factors or something along those lines.
“I don’t trust science so I will choose death instead”
Fucking brilliant people. No doubt they are Trump supporters.
... he's a Mennonite, lot of them won't even use the internal combustion engine. It's one of those low-tech sects of Christianity like Amish.
That sounds worse. Good god.
Actually avoiding the internal combustion engine seems pretty environmentally friendly to me
Ehh, mennonites just want to keep to themselves and their communities. Obviously they’ve got some problematic beliefs, but they would never force them upon anyone or go out and try to be missionaries. Typically they don’t vote or participate in local government.
Found this interesting article about OH and PA mennonites and their opinions on the 2016 presidential election
Ya they all sound like selfish assholes who don’t want to contribute to society.
I say fuck em.
They’re anything but selfish lol. Firstly, there are sects of Mennonites that are integrated into modern society. Secondly, the communities they live in are founded on the idea of everyone helping each other. The extreme sects are allowed to waive their right to social security since their church already provides them a safety net. They don’t take gov benefits. Also, all of them have jobs, they’re not sealed off from the world. I live in Ohio and the Mennonites and Amish are frequently working on home repairs, building garages or barns, and sell a lot of goods from their little towns. These are honestly some of the nicest and hardest working people around.
American society is founded on the idea of religious freedom. If anything they’re contributing in a more positive way since they don’t seek to combine their religion and the wider world (as compared to a MAGA “Christian”)
You are religious aren’t you
Why does that matter 😭 you just instantly went to assuming my beliefs instead of saying something constructive.
All I’m trying to say is that the Mennonites aren’t as evil as you think. Please research them to form an actual opinion instead of reading one measles article and then attempting to debate me.
If you’re trying to go after religions for being a blight on society, Mennonites are the last and least influential place to look
Well, does it seem a universalizable maxim? Everyone is left alone unless they’re in the community - there having fun or getting helped or educated or w/e, you’d hope. Don’t need Common Core or anything… (there are some benefits to the super small governance structure I mean)
Apparently some are out there, wow imagine interacting with the rest of the world! :)
https://mds.org/annual-report/
So basically he'd rather they just die than live with "stuff we don't trust". If "everybody has to die", then why care about what's in a vaccine in the first place? Extreme cognitive dissonance to support an ideology.
I'm not entirely certain, but depending on which Mennonite community they belong to, they might believe that reaching their desired afterlife requires faithful adherence to their religious practices and commitments.
I think part of the problem is the MMR in the United States is associated with a medical abortion. Certain religious groups won't take the MMR in account of that. There's an ethical alternative but it is not commercially available in the US. It would be a good idea to make the alternative strain available here because it would help protect a segment of the population that's otherwise exposed.
Yeah, couldn't the vaccine side effects be "God's will" as well?
Yeah... You totally can't trust a vaccine with 97% efficacy and a negligible mortality rate that's existed for over 80 years versus an extremely infectious virus with a 40% mortality rate and no effective treatment or cure... If only there were extensive scientific studies on these things that were easily and freely accessible to the public! Why do we have to live in such a dark and uninformed time!?
Because conservatives have been gutting education every chance they get throughout history. 🤷♂️
What better way to control the masses than have them all fat, exhausted, stupid, and sick?
Damn, I'm fat, exhausted, and sick right now because I've had bronchitis for the past 2 weeks.
Although I'm not a conservative and I'm arguably not stupid so I have that going for me at least lol
The stupid part is the biggest factor, the rest just wears you down until you're like "Okay... Just do whatever so I can get out of this."
Hope you get better soon!
Sorry about the bronchitis. You're probably sick of sipping warm drinks by now but keep it up, you're at Mile 21 and ready to make a turn for the better.
Hope he told his daughter she had to die to make liberals cry
You know what else has stuff I don't trust? The fucking measles.
I trust measles to make unvaccinated kids sick, and maybe kill them.
Stuff, you say. I'd wager this fool knows nothing at all about this supposed stuff.
He’s a Mennonite. He’s intentionally ignorant of the modern world and murdered his daughter.
Dude has to cope this hard to justify how he and his family killed their daughter.
You can only hope one day the asshole realizes he killed his kid and can't live with his failure.
Good, people thrive when they can acknowledge their failures. I hope he gets pushed into mind breaking anguish I want him to be pushed to his emotional limits and either do mankind a favor and remove himself or reforge himself better.
My favorite quote for situations like this is. "You're never the enemy in your own story."
I don’t think he will. I think he’s lying to himself to avoid the feeling of shame and he needs that protection. He can’t let himself ever admit what he did.
That requires self awareness.
Eh, deep down i think these fuckers know. McDonald's only haf stuff inside i trust. I know everything that is in aspirin. It's all bullshit.
His 5 steps of grief:
He will just rape his wife and make another hate -baby.
Problem solved.
Fucking deathcult of america.
Translation: my beliefs mean more to me than my dead child ever could.
He can contort himself with the knowledge that he actually pulled off the sacrifice of Abraham.
Yep. It happened to me. My mother literally told me "I'll forgive you if blah blah church and Jesus" I forget the rest, it was like 25ish years ago.
Believing in a God that even threatens your child with eternal torture... and still willingly worshipping him without qualms... Pretty much says it all.
It comes from a selfish mindset. Yes, you're threatened, but you're also promised with reward. It becomes a deviously simple equation at that point.
It's the same as being mugged in a dark alley against a wall. If you believe there's no escape, do you acquiesce despite not wanting to give money to a robber, or do you try to fight back and get shot?
I'd totally get shot. Hell, I'll hold the gun steady for him.
Makes sense, what if she took the vaccine and it killed her? Oh, wait..
These people should be in prison for murder and forcibly sterilized.
What a fucking idiot. He should be locked up for murder.
He seems quite content with his daughter dying as long as he doesn’t get tricked by the vaccine crowd. What a winner.
Well you see, the injection is Covid 5G and she would have had superpowers
Who are we kidding, this is straight up negligent murder
The conundrum here is that admitting his stance was wind would take a level of intelligence that would have had him vaccinate his child in the first place.
I know that's oversimplifying it, but the point still stands.
At this point, I can't say I would blame him for still refusing to accept it on an emotional level despite all evidence otherwise. As stupid as it is, how might you cope with knowing you are the sole reason that your daughter is dead? That if it weren't for your arrogance, you would still have a child?
I don't agree with it, but I understand. I don't think I could live with myself if I accepted reality if I were in his situation. Shutting down might be his method of coping. It is a sad situation that was easily preventable.
This is why it's easier to fool someone than to convince them they'd been fooled.
They don't want to admit they were wrong and taken for a ride. It's embarrassing, it's humiliating. They would rather carry their misconceptions to the grave than admit they are incorrect.
It's a vicious cycle that at least 30% of Americans are going through.
He should have died too
Actually no, instead of.
I bet he was given the measles vaccine.
He's a Mennonite, so probably not
This shit ought to be considered negligence and reason to at least remove any other kids from the home. Poor six year old was failed by her family and the state.
But not that young and not from a preventable disease.
Ah yes, the "everybody dies so who gives a shit" defense...
He says he doesn't trust it, but he's lying. If he actually cared about what's in the vaccines, he would get educated on the ingredients, the process of manufacture, the data and studies that have been done, etc.
But he won't do that, because he is a religious fundamentalist. He doesn't care about being logical, or reasonable, or understanding anything. He heard a certain viewpoint that he vibes with and stubbornly and fanatically holds to it.
Same as radical Islamists, or the Crusaders, or conspiracy theory nuts. They didn't reason themselves into their worldview. It wasn't carefully and methodically researched, it isn't something they are willing to change or adapt or be wrong on.
Wasn't that more of a "make money fast" scheme though?
Sure, but for many of the participants, the actual ground troops, they were Christian fanatics that genuinely believed God was behind their cause.
Same story as today really, smart people at the top use religious fundies as useful idiots to help their cause.
I grew up in a Christian fundamentalist community. Most of the people in it genuinely believed all the propaganda and rhetoric. But the right-wing powers at the top usually don't actually give a shit, a bunch of them don't even believe in any of the fundie stuff like the imminent rapture, Revelation, Prophesy, etc. But they know they can use that fanaticism to their advantage to push their agenda forward.
Sadly now that she's dead he has no choice but to defend his stance, because admitting the truth would mean being left with the knowledge that he killed his own daughter.
This is a big and good point. So how do we prevent this unrecoverable situation?
Make sure he doesn't procreate again. Lol
So basically, he's saying he'd rather have a dead child than a child with autism or whatever malady he thinks vaccines cause. Holy hell.
If you can accept the will of God that your child dies without vaccination, you can accept the will of God that your child survived vaccination, even it it caused something unexpected.
Or accept that God sent the scientists that developed the vaccine. The whole "will of God" argument is always so full of holes - logic doesn't come into it.
There are multiple books in the Bible praising knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom as gifts sent from God.
Which ones? I know people who I’d love to pass this info along to
1 Corinthians 7-12 is a good start. From the ESV.
Proverbs I'm sure as I read recently. Others I need to read again. Ecclesiastes likely also has something like this.
Job, Psalms, and Song of Songs are also part of the "Wisdom" block, but their focus is different.
Comment not voted high enough.
The fuck
I'll never understand the position. If a deadly disease is God's will, then so is the vaccine which prevents it.
Mennonites have no problem using blades to cut their hair, wearing glasses when their vision is faulty, or using soap after wiping their ass. Why are they against medicine?
Because they don't like it, and like all religious groups... if They don't like it, then its against gods will. And if they like it, then it is gods will.
Which is why god hates vaccines, but loves child rape and wife beating, at least for these Amish-type religious communities. (and probably most of the republican party....)
It's because you can't control doctors.
The leaders of their community can control everything, except doctors who follow their own rules.
Rather have children die than anyone who could defy them.
"It's easier to fool a man than to convince him he'd been fooled." - Mark Twain
There are many kinds of Mennonites. Most that I know are pretty scientific and well-educated.
Then why are they mennonites?
I think this question could be interpreted in many ways, but typically education is correlated with more religious participation.
For Mennonites specifically, education is one of their core values. They also did a study on what matters most to their members that you can check if you're interested: https://www.mennoniteusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/MC-USA-Report-FN-compressed-1.pdf
Personally, I think a lot of their belief system and activism efforts just make sense and appeal based on their own merits.
Then why are they anti-vaxxers?
In general they aren't. For example, Mennonite Central Committee (a major charity/relief organization) provides vaccinations. https://mcc.org/our-stories/giving-babies-fair-shot
Maybe this is a West Texas thing more than a Mennonite thing.
big difference between Mennonites and the Amish I'm pretty sure you're thinking of
Unpopular opinion: I actually respect this. It's a personal decision not put upon anyone else, has nothing to do with political mis/disinformation, and is entirely consistent with the rest of their beliefs.
I don't have to agree with them to respect how they choose to live their lives. Especially if they will keep their kids in seclusion if displaying symptoms and wear masks themselves when coming into town.
Maybe they'll die, but that's not my call to make, nor can I force them to live my way (nor do I want to).
Your premise is faulty. The dead child had their personal decision made for them. Its one thing to deny yourself medical care, its another thing entirely to deny a child medical care.
yeah the kid 100% had their dumbass parent's decision 'put upon' them.....how this is anything other than child abuse/manslaughter is beyond me - whether they're in a fringe religious group or not, they are still killing people that didn't have a real say in that outcome.
Do, ingest or smoke whatever the hell you want. Bring a kid into it and that’s a whole different ballgame. PD tends to get involved, for better or worse
Except the dead kid
Yes there is that. It's a tricky one too bc likely if you were to ask the kid, they would consent to whatever the family says to do. On the other hand, it's definitely not "informed consent".
Then again, I choose not to become thought police, so long as the parents themselves give informed consent. The alternative would be to take the child away from their parents, which is also a bad outcome.
Like I said, it's "tricky".
Strong disagree. I'm not talking about thought policing, I'm talking about punishing actual decisions that directly lead to the death of a child. People can think and say what they want about vaccines. But when their decision to not get their kid vaccinated directly leads to that kid's death, that crime leaves the realm of thought.
We as a society don't hesitate to take children away from parents who beat them, or punish parents who kill them by a malnutrition, and we go rabid over hot cars. These aren't thought crimes, they are physical actions that physically harm children, and they deserve punishment.
I'm not into being supportive of people that want to live in the 1500s for dumb reasons.
1500's? The measles vaccine was first developed in 1963. The MMR vaccine came out in 1971.
I'm sorry your struggling with my statement. Do you need help figuring out how >before< works?
what do you mean "not put on anyone else"? you think if it's a personal decision the disease they catch becomes respectful and tries not to infect vulnerable people around them? yes it is put upon everyone else.
and that's for adults. in this case the decision was put upon the poor little girl who needed them to shield her from the most basic preventable ailments. what other personal decision would you respect? "yeah she ran around with that kitchen knife but we decided not to interfere with god's will." wow parents, at least she only hurt herself with that knife, good job on not stabbing other children with it.
Except herd immunity is actually important.
These people tend to live apart from society. And I did say:
To address that exact issue.
Perhaps you meant within their own society, but that's different bc it is consensual. I am not about to force others to share my viewpoints, so long as they likewise respect mine.
Obviously his god didn't want him to procreate.
He must have been a sinner, in that case. Mennonites tend to have enough children to tend to a farm, then they have enough children to attend to those children.
It's not so bad if one is taken by disease, you just make another one and hope it's less weak.
Women love bearing children, so it is they who are blessed in the end.
/S
"Stuff in it that we don't trust."
Better to be dead than injected with chemicals that might make you autistic? Gay? A liberal? What could possibly be in the vaccines that would be worse than your child no longer existing?
As a parent, I am so angry. How can you look at your child and be more afraid of the lesser outcomes (not that they even exist, but still) and choose death? What a failure of the parents. And shame on every single person in the media that let this bullshit spiral out of control. That poor girl.
The article says the man is a Mennonite, which means he probably believes in an afterlife. In his mind his child still exists and he'll get to see her again when he passes and spends eternity there.
I pretty firmly believe that afterlife beliefs account for a pretty significant distortion of values in people and helps explain a large number of frankly insane behaviours. Preventing deaths becomes much less important when there's an eternal paradise waiting for you and the "real" risk is doing something that bars you from going there.
Jesus, I can't imagine being so into cult beliefs that I would have that attitude about my own kids, and actively work to make it happen sooner to boot.
I mean sure, we all will die, but it goes against the most basic biological imperative of all living things to make sure their kids outlive them. Must be some strong Koolaid. Dude needs to fuck off with that Jonestown-isque mindset.
I mean, in Judeo-Christian tradition, there's the story of Abraham willingly sacrificing his son to Yahweh until Yahweh stops him last-second. This kind of behavior is explicitly taught: nothing is more important than sky-daddy's whims.
yeah, it's almost like theistic religions are a stupid idea :D
He does not deserve to have kids.
Made even more sad given that, as a child, he likely received the MMR vaccine.
These fools never seem to think about that part.
Maybe, depends if he was born and raised Mennonite then it's possible he didn't. But that also means he likely did nothing to comfort his daughter as she died or else he would have caught it too
It's also possible he was very lucky and had a mild case of measles as a child. That's often a reason people don't take a dangerous disease seriously, especially when you add the religious factor. He's an idiot who killed his child but we don't know he didn't care about her or try to comfort her.
This is just so horrifying. Don't trust? Holy shit, his child is dead!
And what is this "stuff" that he's talking about? Midi-chlorians?
Of course he’s not changing his stance. Doing so would be admitting that his child died as a direct consequence of his own actions. He will forever be anti-vax from now on, even if his life depends on it.
If they're injecting people with Midi-chlorians, I volunteer as tribute!
I would bet money this man could not name a single ingredient in a measles vaccine.
This is why he doesn't trust it I guess
What about Big Mac ingredients?
There's a song about Big Mac ingredients. No song about vaccine ingredients!
Is it a: patty, beef, and salad song or do they list all the 70+ ingredients?
Aluminum and 5G, probably.
Sounds like a negligent homicide charge.
In a logical world, but in a country that gives religious woo a lot of privilege, I somehow doubt it.
She died because of their willful ignorance.
Welcome to the anti-intellectual American experience.
Of course he does. He's desperate to justify his actions, because the alternative is to admit to himself that his choices killed his daughter.
Just fuckin chuggin that koolaid
Yeah, this fucker should be arrested, kids taken away and he should be housed in a care facility where he slowly can be weaned off the conspiracy theories until he's normal again
Yes, I'm advocating for forced treatments of these fuckers. Hell, I'd deport and quarantine them in a remote island where they can slowly die of diseases and what not, I don't care.
If in 2025 you still need to believe in dumb shit like unicorns, skydaddies, and conspiracy theories like a 5 year old then you don't have the right to live liek any other healthy adult, you should be considered mentally deficient and treated as such. Sorry, you are not competent to raise children, these poor kids deserve better.
Lock em um
I'm sorry, but I'm not sorry. These people habe been ruining this world since forever and it has to stop. I'm out of are, I'm out of mercy, I'm out of patience
Downvotes from people who don't like this authoritarian stance.
Fuck em, this is one authoritarian stance I share. If your kid dies because you made the active decision to feed them nothing but fruit, you get arrested. If your kid dies because you made the active decision to leave them in a hot car, you get arrested. If your kid dies because you made the active decision to not get them vaccines, you should be arrested.
I see those few downvotes, but I agree with you.
Unchecked stupidity is dangerous, and even deadly as we see evident right here.
These people should not be allowed to make decisions for others.
Once Cheeto-Christ is allowed to rampage his way down his list of enemies, I'm sure the Amish and Mennonites are hovering just after 'gypsies' (Romani) in the Purge Order.
I bet he'd be more upset if his son died, not his daughter
Should be up on manslaughter charges. What the hell man.
I suppose doubling down on being an utter useless fool is still easier on the ego than owning up to having negligently murdered your own daughter.
So he's a coward too. Lovely.
Magical Sky Daddy logic strikes again
He's hoping for a Book of Job situation. "Yeah, those ones died, sure, but I got double the kids in the end!"
Is this a case of total brainwash, or just a case of a parent who didn't want his kid? Measles seems like a socially acceptable form of post-birth abortion today.
He's a Mennonite, pretty sure they've been opposed to what basically counts as modern medicine for a long time. The Old Order ones live similar to the Amish.
Brainwashed cult, and unfortunately we don't have time to deprogram these people
What happened to pro life 💀? oh wait it's Texas
Nothing? It's always been just pro birth/anti choice.
I sort of think we should be really mean to these people.
You can lead a horse to water that lost their baby to dehydration, but you can’t make them drink
Guy's almost happy his kid died. That should be a crime. Even worse, he's happy to have been at the helm of her death. Disgusting.
Like what?
Texans are a whole 'nother breed of stupidity.
It's impressive how proud they are of it. And scary.
They fought a war to keep slavery. TWICE. The only state in the union to do so
Everything is bigger in Texas, including my middle finger to Texas twice
He's a Mennonite, hardly Texan at all. They live in their own society practically.
There's a lot of stuff that I don't fully understand that I trust. Seatbelts for example. Saw a video a long time ago on how they work but totally forgot about how they work.
Point is, you have to trust other people and recorded evidence for most things in life.
I should feel sorry for this man because he's obviously mentally ill. But I don't.
I feel sorry for the kid.
This pile of shit on the other hand….
Everybody has do die
Maybe we make one codfin size S and one XL in this case
Well I guess he has to choose, trust a vaccine, or trust Trump. We should ask his daughter how his decision held up
Sounds like the prosecutor ought to be asking for enhanced charges. No remorse.
I wonder what the wife thinks.
What are the chances that this "man" is vaccinated? I'm sorry for the loss but that's a selfish moron.
I hope for nothing but horrible things for this moron. He should be charged with murder.
He should get neutered to make sure he can't stand by more failures. What an absolute waste of life this guy is.
Isn't it just saline and the dead or weakened measles virus?
This is an old vaccine afaik
Unredeemable. Socitey will not function if people like this are allowed into it.
I wonder what the daughter would have said.
Can't fix stupid
Duh.
Ignorance is not bliss. And neither is being a useless coward.
I would love to see this man beaten to death
Follow the god that failed...
This really is a tragic. A child is dead cos of bullshit information
This should have been an article in the onion