Discussion: Why Does Green Party's Stein Keep Leaving The Door Open For The Anti-Vaxxer Crowd?

Why does Stein leave the anti-vaxxer door open? Because she’s a kook?

Kooks go to Harvard too. See for example Ted Kaczynski.

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The article says that anti-vaccine arguments “have been disproven by a dearth of scientific research.” I think you meant “disproven by a wealth of scientific research.”

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I don’t know why, but the term “blithering idiot” pops to the surface when I see a picture of Stein.

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I don’t think she’s necessarily a kook. Maybe she’s just smart enough to realize too many of her supporters are kooks and she can’t afford to lose them by bringing science into it.

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Really a shocking dereliction of duty by a medical doctor. Her remarks also display a pretty breathtaking lack of understanding about how the economics of Big Medicine works. “Foxes guarding the chicken coop?” Uh, okay, but drug companies don’t actually make shit on vaccine sales, which is why they aren’t developing any new ones (see also anti-infectives and the looming epidemic of superbugs)…

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What bothers me most about Stein isn’t the anti-vaxxer thing. It’s the fact that she’s lost every race she’s ever run for elective office. Every. Single. One.

Can’t the Green Party find a candidate who was at least elected to the PTA?

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Why does she leave the door open…

Well, several reasons. The Green Party is garbage… okay maybe not several reasons.

When you let your platform include “Support for alternative medicine, homeopathy, and ‘traditional Chinese medicine’ on the Federal level” and other non-evidence based horseshit, then, yes Virginia you are the Queen of Anti-Science Dumbshits.

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You beat me to it, There is no lack of research into the subject, instead there have been buckets of money used to reprove the safety of vaccines, instead of being used for other research.

The thimerosol dog whistle is especially despicable, because it allowed vaccines to be distributed in multi dose vials. Forcing manufacturers to switch to single dose vials dramatically increases the cost of vaccines. Poor and underdeveloped countries are the ones that end of getting fewer doses, and consequently more preventable diseases.

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Mainstream Democrats are leery of OMG TEH CORPORATIONS, and think they need appropriate monitoring and regulation, but I don’t think it’s a mainstream Dem position that large companies are evil. They’re amoral, working to maximize profits within a framework they consider societally viable over some future timeframe.

Greens seem to seriously think that a large company’s involvement in X actually makes X bad. They’re not really a further-left Democratic party, frankly. They might try to peel off voters that way (to the extent they ever actually try to win anything), but in reality they’re a bunch of label-first cargo-cult kooks.

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On the contrary, I for one am quite glad Jill Stein has lost ever race she’s ever entered.

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Not getting your kids vaccinated is like burning down your house because you have bed bugs…

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Its more like burning down your neighbors houses because you have bed bugs.

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“With two of the least popular nominees in history representing the major parties in the presidential election, third parties see an unprecedented opening. That’s certainly the case for Green Party candidate Jill Stein,”

No, it’s certainly not the case. If she sees an opening, it’s a mirage.

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Stein is the quintessential 1930’s communist, loyal to Russia. Why even give her one column inch on TPM. Perhaps, when her 15 Minutes is over, she will go live in China or Russia.

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Stein’s comparison of this controversy to birtherism is ironic, because in fact her own evasiveness on vaccines is hugely reminiscent of the responses of more mainstream Republicans when asked whether they thought Obama was born in America. Few said flat out “yes,” but instead gave variations on “I have no reason to doubt it” or something similarly mealy-mouthed. The reason they talked this way is they didn’t want to lose the votes of birthers by directly contradicting them. Stein is obviously doing the same thing. She doesn’t want to lose the anti-vaxxer vote — when you’re polling as low as she does you need every vote you can get — so she avoids any categorical condemnation of their nonsense but in a way that allows her to take fake umbrage at the suggestion that she herself is anti-vaccine and then has the gall to accuses her accusers of behaving like birthers.

This is one of the many reason why it is a grotesque insult to Senator Sanders to suggest that the Clown Stein is in any way his equivalent.

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My daughter was getting her first vaccines when this Timerisol (sp) was a concern for many, and we talked with our doctor about it. She agreed to source whatever vaccines she could without it for us, and to limit those that did.

So back when this was a thing I, too, had concerns.

Today I say those concerns were unfounded, the science that suggested them was not just flawed but falsified, and that anyone today who still leaves open the door to vaccines causing autism is either extremely ignorant or incredibly disingenuous. Neither is an attractive possibility in a presidential candidate, much less a president.

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Yep. Perot had an opening. The Greens never have.

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Ah, yes, when my mom was dying of cancer she turned to traditional Chinese medicine. Didn’t do fuckall but make her spend a good chunk of her last good days drinking some retch-inducing brew. I don’t want to blindly slag off traditional medicines – often times they were on to something, and folk medicine has produced some modern medicines (hell, even leeches are making a comeback lately). But I think it’s pretty sketchy for a doctor to talk up untested treatments – because we can, in fact, determine whether or not these things actually work through teh science. Which is why teh science is awesome.

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Whether she is a kook or happy to accommodate kooks, it’s a problem.

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