Thread by @ErrataRob

Social media is a toxic swamp of anti-critical-thinking right now. A good example is this story about the border agents refusing to vaccinate children in their care. It's obvious nonsense.
cnbc.com/2019/08/20/the…

For one thing, there's an obvious flaw in journalism where everyone else piled onto the CNBC story, repeating it, without chasing down their own facts.
cnn.com/2019/08/20/hea…

So I did. I sent email to the CBP spokeperson asking for their full statement and got the response.

Also, I got confirmation that it's never been the policy for the CBP to give flu vaccines to immigrants. The CBP didn't give flu vaccines under Obama, either. And there's good reason for that: it's a stupid idea.

I talked to doctors. They've confirmed that if a child arrives with symptoms of the flu, then you don't give them a vaccine to cure the flue. That's not how vaccines work.

Nor will giving flu vaccines to healthy children stop them from getting infections in detention centers. Vaccines take a couple weeks to become effective, the CBP only has them for a few days before handing off to others, like Health and Human Services (HHS).

HHS has migrant children for longer, and does give out flu vaccines. The issue with the CBP is that they hold onto migrants only for a short period of time before handing them off. They do immediately, not long term, medical care.

I agree with you that Trump's immigration policies are evil. But "critical thinking" is something that you insist Trump-supporters should do. It's something you need to apply to our own side, to challenge the stories that seem to agree with us.

Of the many ills Trump is responsible for, the CBP not giving out flu vaccines isn't one of them. The story is nonsense, as are all the op-eds based on the story.