Thread by @sfpelosi

At the risk of introducing nuance on Twitter …

I’ve worked on l/around vaccine politics for 20 years, since the U.S. House Oversight Committee debated a Victims Compensation Fund for children who got autism after (not from) measles vaccines. It failed. The same dynamics 1/

then exist now: a vaccine spectrum from self-described #antivaxxers, vax skeptics, vaccine hesitants, to vaccine proponents. It was not partisan. Now the covid vaccine spectrum is much more partisan than the childhood vaccine spectrum but not exclusively so. 2/

The science 20 years ago about childhood vaccines was not universally accepted — and the Wakefield Study falsely linking vaccines to autism affected people on many levels - such as fear of vaccines; ableism in treating and “curing” autism; outlier study used to oppose mandates 3/

Throughout the 2000s the fight to limit self-exemptions to vaccines got increasingly personal. By the time we were pregnant in 2008, my husband and I were told that baby doctors would only take us if we approved all vaccines. We did. 4/

And when my Bella was little, California was debating school vaccine requirements. People would bring unvaxxed children to Democratic meetings to protest vaccines and I had to be careful not to expose myself or her. Those parents’ health choices directly affected my health. 5/

And in an incident you may have read about, there was a Disneyland measles outbreak based upon unvaccinated visitors infecting others. At the time we had a “personal belief waiver” in CA. 6/ nbcbayarea.com/news/local/cal…

Senator/Dr Richard Pan who passed laws limiting exemptions to student vaccine mandates. The hard angry anti-vaxxer edge of the vaccine sprectrum occupied the Capitol hallways in 2019 culminating with a woman throwing menstrual blood at the State Senate. 7/ sacbee.com/news/politics-…

ALL this was before COVID. Now the dynamics are similar - but the level of anger that was always on the hard antivaxxer edge has permeated the entire spectrum. Proponents are mad; good faith skeptics are insulted; hard antivaxxers are dug in. But unlike homeschooling kids …8/

adults want and need to go out in society. So technically Biden didn’t make a universal vaccine mandate - he made a work vaccine mandate, a public vaccine mandate, a choice to go out with protections or stay home. And even people who want vaccines hate being told what to do. 9/

So as one of the 75% of Americans who are covid vaccinated and want others to be, I get that people operate on a spectrum not a binary and *may* follow mandates to work, play, fly. But leave the scolding out. Try to reach them where they are even if you think it’s bogus. 10/

And in the meantime, make sure to fund the public health care, public education, and other human infrastructure to care for people who do get sick - even the willfully unvaccinated. We will face a covid corner but it doesn’t have to be a covid cliff. 11/11

12/12 because some conflate a vaccine to live at home in isolation (NOT Biden’s plan) vs. a vaccine or test to interact in public with other shoppers/students/coworkers whom you could infect or who could infect you.

https://twitter.com/sfpelosi/status/1436482303081861125