Diphtheria, a Once Vanquished Killer of Children, Is Resurgent

I should have known better than to mention that. For obvious reasons this one virus is a bit of a politicized subject and activates the outrage machine.

I've got no problem with our paediatrician. Rather like him, if I'm being honest. Wouldn't be going back for every subsequent appointment if I did have a problem. The "long lecture" bit is more affectionate than complaining.

Alarmism, militant shaming, and omission of details like the ones I mentioned above are three strategies that steer vaccine hesitant people away from taking vaccine advocates seriously. Personally, I would raise concerns about anything but COVID and ease up on the Newspeak.

Almost literally everyone has and will continue to get COVID at this point. Not vaccinating your child, or all of the children in the US, won’t prevent that. I don’t know a single person that hasn’t had it, vaccinated or not. So, your child gets the vaccine. They’re then, what, maybe 50% less likely to get COVID for 6 months? Not exactly moving the needle as far as community transmission goes. This isn’t 2021 anymore.

If we had a better, longer lasting vaccine you might have an argument. Very, very few parents are going to do the COVID vaccine for their child every year. At the very least you’re risking them picking up something more serious just by going to a clinic or pharmacy to get it.

No. You probably thinking some other vaccine and infection, not covid. For covid once infected, vaccinated people express similar number of virus in their saliva as unvaccinated (see for example [1]). Additionally, infected vaccinated people have lower intensity symptoms or now symptoms at all, and thus more likely to go about their business as usual (and thus spread the virus) than to stay home like unvaccinated. As a result the vaccinated people do possibly spread more infection than unvaccinated. The obviously propagandistic and using government force push "do it for the good of the community" (very USSR style) for covid vaccinations against the science - as those results were already known at the end of 2021 - drove a lot of new people into vaccine-sceptic crowd.

[1] https://www.ucdavis.edu/health/covid-19/news/viral-loads-sim...

"new study from the University of California, Davis, Genome Center, UC San Francisco and the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub shows no significant difference in viral load between vaccinated and unvaccinated people who tested positive for the delta variant of SARS-CoV-2. It also found no significant difference between infected people with or without symptoms.

...

Although vaccinated people with a breakthrough infection are much less likely to become severely ill than unvaccinated, the new study shows that they can be carrying similar amounts of virus and could potentially spread the virus to other people."

He did all the mandatory vaccines, the rest is a tail risk. Unless you vaccinate yourself against the flu and your children for both flu and COVID, I don't think you have any leg to stand on.

COVID-19 vaccines are no longer indicated for most healthy children (or most healthy young adults) in most jurisdictions as the risk benefit analysis no longer supports it.

What an incredibly selfish point of view. Both for ignoring the risks of measles in your own child, and more importantly, for completely leaving out of the equation the likelihood that they will spread it to someone who for medical reasons cannot be vaccinated or for whom the virus is even more dangerous.

An interesting angle, though I wouldn't say I agree. As one example, I believe all of us in India routinely receive the BCG vaccine against TB right after birth. It's not routinely done in the US (unless I'm wrong and don't remember it). The US choosing not to do it doesn't make Indian people want to not get it.

More likely, there's something else that's making people worried about the standard vaccines.

I don't understand this take, if you are a parent. For example, RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), rarely causes death in developed countries. But 1) like SARS-CoV-2, almost every children will get infected at least once in their first two years of age and 2) a respectable number of non-deadly consequences come from this virus, some of them long term.

My point is death is not the only consequence you should weight. Just having your baby a couple of weeks in "expensive hospital" (i.e. ICU), with a chance short term consequences like respiratory problems and secondary infections, or long term non-deathly consequences like asthma and alergies, sounds like a danger serious enough to me. It seems like a very poor parent decision to not vaccinate your children against RSV, even if it's almost impossible for RSV to kill your baby.

Just wait for polio to make a comeback. It's life-altering, has no cure, and is easy to vaccinate against.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio

Which, I mean, was at least true for one of them. Cia, indirectly killing children since 1950 would be a great catchphrase.

> "Somalia is the first country to apply to Gavi for new funding to give children diphtheria boosters — shots delivered to children in their second year of life, then between 4 and 7 years old and 9 to 15 years old — in areas where the outbreak has seemed most severe."

RFK Jr. was personally responsible for ending US' involvement in Gavi, due to his insane view that the diphtheria vaccine is unsafe:

https://www.statnews.com/2025/07/02/rfk-jr-vaccines-former-c... ("RFK Jr.’s intellectually dishonest excuse for defunding Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance" / "The diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis shot study he cites is fatally flawed")