It's been quite a year.
A 🧵.
Today marks one year since I was fired for explaining TN's mature minor doctrine to physicians who were vaccinating teens against #COVID19. It's been a long, disturbing, challenging year. TN continues make things hard for Tennesseans. 2/
Since my firing, TN has continued to be near the bottom for #COVID19 vax rates overall (43rd). Among children 5-11 it's (47th) w/ 0% improvement since 6/15. Among 12-17yo, it's 49th w/ 0% improvement since 6/15. TN is among states w/ the highest counts of MIS-C.

A friend reminded me of this story (thread):
A terrible storm came into a town and local officials sent out an emergency warning that the riverbanks would soon overflow and flood the nearby homes. They ordered everyone in the town to evacuate immediately. 1/ 2/ A faithful man heard the warning and decided to stay, saying to himself, “I will trust God and if I am in danger, then God will send a divine miracle to save me.”
The neighbors came by his house and said to him, “We’re leaving and there is room for you in our car!”

On this final #VaxFactsFebruary of 2020, let’s recap:
✅ #VaccinesDontCauseAutism
✅No US #vaccines given to kids are made in China
✅Vaccines do not cause ppl to change gender
✅Vaccines are not toxic
✅#VaccinesSaveLives
✅>9/10 parents choose to vaccinate
1/ 2/
✅#VaccinesCauseAdults
✅US #vaccines are made in Canada, Belgium, Australia, France and the US
✅Vaccines prevent diseases that can be deadly to babies and children
✅BEST was to protect children is to vaccinate according to the CDC schedule— others are not evidence-based

WHO cites vaccine hesitancy as a top 10 threat to global health. It’s not the “hesitant”, though. THEY ask questions and consider the answers. It’s the rabidly anti-vax who are the threat. They make salacious claims that aren’t supported by credible research.
#Vaccines
1/ 2/
Anti-vaxxers parrot what they hear in their eco chamber. They suggest every malady is caused by #vaccines.
They claim >50% of kids suffer from “chronic dz”. You’d have to consider obesity a chronic dz in order to make that claim. Vaccines do not cause obesity.

A Saturday rant, of sorts...
As a pediatrician who, like all pediatricians, spent 11 years (minimum) in higher education and training, it is absolutely astonishing to me that ppl w no medical training whatsoever think they have equivalent knowledge because they have internet
1/ 2/ access and a social network. I once had a conversation w a parent who questioned the safety of #vaccines and chose not to vaccinate his child (well... until the child was 2 and they wanted daycare and then it was inconvenient to be unvaccinated...)
He was a software developer

Thread:
Lets recap the real #SamoaMeasles story, shall we?
🔴 June 2018, nurse mixes #MMR vaccine w paralyzing med instead of sterile water
🔴2 babies die
🔴Rumors spread that MMR caused deaths
🔴Scared parents stop vaccinating and immunization rate plummets 🔴July 2018 US antivaxxer @delbigtree shares false story on @HighWireTalk stating deaths were due to #MMR vaccine
🔴June 2019 US antivaxxer @RobertKennedyJr visits #Samoa to reinforce that falsehood
🔴By Oct 2019 Samoan immunization rate is 31%

Thread:
The list of anti-vax claims gets longer by the day, but none are supported by research (which is quite different from “search”).
Take a moment to think about their talking points, many of which refute each other.
First is was “MMR causes autism”.
1/ “MMR causes autism!” claim came from the ORIGINAL “paid pharma shill” who took money to falsify data on 12 kids. Dozens of real studies involving millions of kids proved that claim was false.
Then came “it’s thimerosal!”, which was never in MMR and was removed in 2001.
2/

Let’s say I have #measles and don’t have symptoms yet. If I decide to go shopping while infectious, I will spread that to 9 out of 10 babies, cancer patients, pregnant women, and unvaccinated ppl within breathing room of me. How do you notify those people? If I have #measles and expose the public do you review security tapes to try to ID people? Do you put out a press release? Who answers their panicked calls for info? Who investigates them all? Could you miss work for 21 days because you need to be quarantined?