In science-averse Florida, it’s no surprise childhood immunizations have fallen | Guest Opinion

For most of humanity’s existence, most of us were all on the same team when it came to eradicating deadly diseases.

When Gen. George Washington realized his troops were being taken out by smallpox, he required them to get immunized. When Jonas Salk figured out how to stop polio, most people celebrated.

Yet in 2022, Floridians are regressing, as evidenced by this recent headline: “School immunizations in Florida hit 10-year lows.”

Keep in mind: We’re not talking about COVID-19 vaccines or other newly developed ones. We’re talking about basic immunizations that have been widely accepted for generations: polio, measles and the mumps.

Ideally, scientists like to see immunization rates of 95%. In Florida, they just dropped to 91.7% for kindergartners, according to state numbers.

Families who long understood the importance of public health are now refusing to protect their children — and society in general — in some warped declaration of “freedom.”

The news is troubling yet hardly surprising in a state led by politicians who’ve been demonizing health experts and dismissing science for the past two years. We’re now reaping the results.

When I shared the news on Twitter that basic immunization rates were dropping, one person responded: “This is a good thing.”

Yes, in the battle between humanity and polio, a growing number of Floridians are apparently on Team Polio. And they think it’s a hoot.

Gov. DeSantis has led the medical-mocking mob. When COVID was at its worst and the world’s epidemiologists were urging masks to help stem the spread, DeSantis brought in a psychiatrist from California who tweeted that anyone who wears masks, even voluntarily, was “a retard.”

I don’t know any decent human beings who use that word anymore — much less any so-called medical experts.

When ICUs were struggling to treat sick and dying Floridians, DeSantis started selling $6 beer koozies that said: “How the hell am I going to be able to drink a beer with a mask on?”

Now check the basic immunization reports.

Some Democrats want to blame all this anti-science sentiment on Republicans in general. And it’s true that GOP politicians and pundits have led the way — and that support for standard childhood immunizations among GOP voters has plummeted over the past two years, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

But I think it’s more nuanced. Not all Republicans question established science. It’s often the younger ones — those who don’t remember polio infecting, crippling or killing as many as 60,000 Americans a year.

It’s a form of something called survivorship bias. These 20-to-50-somethings don’t personally know anyone killed by polio. So they don’t consider it their problem.

The generations before them did the right things, giving younger ones the luxury of acting like it was never an issue.

There are, of course, some people with medical conditions or religious reasons for rejecting modern medicine. But most of those screaming the loudest about basic immunizations cite no such things.

The vaccine opponents of today also have something else the Greatest Generation did not — the internet, which allows them to find a website endorsing every fringy theory imaginable. Who cares what the American Academy of Pediatrics says when ScienceSux.com is citing scary anecdotes? Now you can pretend there are two equally valid opinions.

Washington and Salk had their critics, but their critics didn’t have Twitter mobs.

I respect people who challenge authority, but have little use for those who claim to want medical information while ignoring everything the American Medical Association has to say. Or for those who focus on rare adverse effects without acknowledging virtually every drug has them. (Want to find a drug that could theoretically kill you by causing bleeding inside your skull? It’s called aspirin.)

Speaking of aspirin, you’d get a headache trying to follow the logic of the members of anti-immunization crowd who blame others for their refusal to take the polio, measles and mumps immunizations. They blame epidemiologists (and journalists who reported what epidemiologists said) for sowing seeds of doubt during COVID, therefore making them doubt everything they’d ever been told about public health.

“Your side is to blame!!!” declared one Twitter user.

And here I thought we were all on the same side — against polio. How 20th century of me.

If Florida politicians and health officials truly cared about public health, they’d spend as much time promoting long-valued immunizations as they spend questioning new ones. But they do no such thing.

Check out the Twitter timeline of Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo. In the past month, you’ll see only tweets questioning vaccines, nothing urging Floridians to make sure polio doesn’t make a comeback.

Last year, another Florida politician, former Miami state Sen. Manny Diaz, stoked anti-vax fears by asking if Florida should reconsider all its student-immunization requirements in the name of “freedom.”

Diaz quickly backed away after swift and harsh reaction from others who suggested he was paving the way for polio and measles to make a comeback. But Diaz didn’t leave the public arena. No, the man who stoked anti-vaccine sentiments about basic, long-accepted immunizations for school children got a new job. He’s now Florida’s education commissioner.

Maybe we should just dust off the iron lungs.

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