(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Rabies is worse than autism - Vaccinate your dog [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-09-07 A study came out last week showing that a significant portion of dog owners are hesitant to get their dogs vaccinated and one reason is that they are concerned that their dogs could catch The Autism. Yes, you read that correctly. People now believe that dogs can become autistic from vaccines. Isn’t life wild? This new and unexpected factoid has been circulating in my brain for a few days now and it’s hard to know how to react. On the one hand, I want to just give it a facepalm and move on, because, well, it should be obvious: the concept is beyond ridiculous. On the other hand, this nonsense is inevitably going to cause suffering and death to real, living dogs. And people, but let’s stay focused on what’s important here. Dogs are going to suffer horrific deaths because they had the misfortune of being paired with idiot caretakers who would rather take a chance with preventable diseases than risk an imaginary, non-fatal condition that is definitely not caused by vaccines. What. The. Hell. First of all… Dog autism. I’m dubious that it’s even a thing and the evidence is less than convincing. And why would you care anyway? Are people afraid that their dogs will act like cats? That they won’t get respectable jobs? That they’ll spend too much time sniffing model trains at the dog park instead of sniffing butts? Even if dog autism turns out to be real, I can guarantee that any autistic dogs are still good boys and girls. That’s just a law of the universe and autism can’t undo it. Rabies, on the other hand, is horrific and bad. Rabies is effectively 100% fatal and nearly 100% preventable. Vaccinate your dog. Don’t trade a good boy for a dead boy. Another thing to mention is what this reveals about our cultural framing of autism. That’s obviously less sinister than people volunteering their dogs for rabies, but it’s still an issue worth discussing. Whenever the topic of autism and vaccines appears, reasonable people point out that the original research linking the two was fraudulent and subsequent research has demonstrated, conclusively, that autism and vaccinations are unrelated. There isn’t even a correlation to confuse with causation. It doesn’t exist. All of that is true and should be pointed out, but it doesn’t go far enough. Stating just that vaccines do not cause autism and leaving it at that effectively concedes that autism is so horrible, so tragic, so life-destroying that it must be avoided at all costs. That’s a problem. Autism isn’t great and it isn’t a gift (as some people like to call it). Being autistic makes things unnecessarily difficult and leaves some people with significant disability. I don’t recommend it. However, it isn’t the worst thing that can happen to a person. There are many fates far worse than autism and many of them are (thankfully) preventable through vaccination. Here’s a short list: Rabies Smallpox Death from polio Death from measles Death from COVID Tetanus HPV-caused cancers I could go on, easily, but you get the point. Dying is generally worse than being autistic. Many diseases that are not fatal are worse than being autistic. Autistic people, with proper support, can lead good lives. Dead people can’t. Please don’t tell autistic people, directly or implicitly, that you would rather be dead than to be like them. Challenge people who do treat autism as a fate worse than death. Also, vaccinate your dogs. They will love you whether you’re autistic or not and protecting them from rabies is the least you can do. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/9/7/2191877/-Rabies-is-worse-than-autism-Vaccinate-your-dog Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/