Until 2020, I have taken every recommended vaccine on the US schedule. Happily. I've asked for them.
I will never take another vaccine again aside from a tetanus booster. My response is normal. It is proportionate and appropriately responsive to the reality we have learned about what public health and pharmaceutical companies will do.
I now strongly suspect we've been lied to about earlier vaccines and their risk-benefit profiles, too.
Again, my response is normal. I didn't become crazy. I am making a rational decision that many reasonable people have also made. If my decision strikes you, vaccine-proponent, as "crazy," it is you who is misguided and mistaken. Notice that I'm not calling you crazy (the way you are getting ready to label me). I think you are mistaken, not crazy.
But I am not mistaken in my skepticism and caution. You, vaccine proponent, would agree and acknowledge this in any other context. That you cannot is because you are emotionally terrified to recognize reality because it will destabilize your world view significantly.
That’s your emotional issue to work on. You may choose to work on it, or choose not to. But it won’t make me crazy, or “conspiracy-minded,” or any of the other things you use to comfort yourself. And you’ll know that.
I hope, for you, that the cognitive dissonance becomes so unbearable that you break. Because when you break, you come back to reality. I want that for you, and I want it for all of us who have an interest in a livable, sane society.
Hear, hear! I got flu shots in college (because a math major missing class for two weeks would have been a dealbreaker, almost impossible to recover from) and I got caught up on childhood vaccines as an adult once I found out that I didn't get them as a child. Looking back, I feel so stupid for believing the medical industry long enough to do those things. Never again. I will never again trust the medical establishment to tell me what to inject into my body. I will make my own decisions after doing my own research, context-dependent. Like you, tetanus boosters are the only thing I'm willing to approve at the moment. Lying bastards.
I am more than well vaccinated. Basically, because I traveled so much and vaccinations are often recommended or mandatory for immigration purposes. So, I probably do not have to fear Cholera as much as others might ;-)
What I learned over about the last decade is how little we actually know about health. For example, my family has a long long history of being poor that I can basically trace back into the 1500s. And with that comes a long genetically manifested health story. For example, I am short and I never grew a full set of teeth (I am missing three, they just never grew). My family also has a history of dying young. Both MS and ALS have occurred in my mom's and the prior generation. Heart issues have caused young heart attacks and most of my cousins and my brother had to have surgery before they turned 35 to remove an extra something or so (not sure of the medical terms here). Most of us have back problems and joint issues growing older and nearly everyone gets diabetes at some point. To put numbers to it, my father is the longest living male in my family. He turned 73 this year. Most did not make it past 60.
It is odd that our generation has subscribed so heavily to the wisdom of medical science. Yes, there were a few wins. When I could see the hospital (Groote Schuur Hospital in SA) where the first heart transplant occurred from my apartment window I felt a huge sense of progress and pride about how far humanity has come. The early vaccinations were indeed a life saver. My mother in law had polio has a child and there was a long term negative impact on her health and ability to do things. But nowadays, we know so many areas where the science was misused that we need to become way more critical (nutrition, autism topics... all have been falsified and lied about).
We all have to weigh risk factors and I agree there are a few that make me not get a booster.
When my work made covid vaccination mandatory I had a first panic attack in the parking lot right before my first shot. I did not want to take it (I never get flu shots either), but felt forced. And as the person who has three people relying on her income, I just could not afford any side effects. It was the worst feeling I ever had in my life.
Thanks for being so open about your thought process.