An 8-year-old girl in Texas died Thursday morning of “measles pulmonary failure,” according to The New York Times, citing records it obtained.
A Trump administration official told the paper the girl’s cause of death is “still being looked at.”
Narrator: It wasn’t still being looked at
You’re not wrong. The parents chose not to vaccinate, and vaccines almost certainly would have prevented this outcome. Where I’m struggling is the “serves them right” attitude when it wasn’t the parents who paid for their mistake- it was a small child with no say in the matter. It’s possible to feel anger towards the parents (though it doesn’t change anything at this point) and still have empathy for the actual victim.
There is no 100% to know the outcome of a “what if.” The vaccine could have given her side effects, serious ones, as per the study I sourced, the vaccines may have not helped. People still do die from diseases they have taken shots despite constant PR against that notion. The third leading cause of death in hospitals in the USA is medical malpractice as per one review, that’s at lesst 25,100+ people, others put it at around 4%, or 30,000-40,000 , yet another equally weak one puts it at least 1% of total deaths. Point is that those are absolutely huge margins to be wrong in and not have a better idea but you are never going see a hospital hanging a banner with those facts, and next to no one wants to take the time and seriously look into it. Partly because of the fear that they will find a fairly accurate number that is bad or out of fear people will stop going to hospitals if results ate not great in the aggregate.
The above the best reasoning to remaining blind about perhaps some uncomfortable facts. But this happens in medical science and research a lot more than what people are aware of. Lots of conflicting interests.
Up here in Canada, death % in soecific hospitals are public, so you could technically pick and chose a better hospital if you have enough data and now how to interpret it.
Throughout history hundreds upon hundreds upon hundrends of millions of people had measels and moved on with their lives as if nothing. People still do today, outside the West and some do die. We do know that she died, and it happens. Millions die every day. Or, she could have been fine, or the reason she died is that she had some subclinical issues that they were not aware of. We would have to wait for the report.
I am apathetic about it, I wish them neither negative or positive vibes. One can assume that they are heartbroken that their child died, but it happens. They took a risk and they lost. I do not know who they are, or their situation or beliefs so I am not going to project my biases onto them. I would say, in my opinion that having a “it serves them right,” attitude toward complete strangers that we have 0 info on them is patronising if you go around telling people outside echo chambers. But hey, I am not going to tell you what to feel or not. It is your choice. I would argue that having a lost child can be perceived as usually a devastating happenstance, to callously say that are not “paying” for it, seems like projecting on your part. Personally, I do not know, so I am not going to pretend that I do.
In real life, having freedom of choice in things means that those actions have consequences. Sometimes outcomes are great, sometimes outcomes are terrible. I would say that them living with those may be sufficient. Guess that coming from a third world country that has gone through a civil ear makes one a realist or pragmatic about the reality of choice. I would still rather have a choice than no choice. Just like I would not go to someone else’s country and tell them how to live their loves, despite that I could certainly have some private opinions on it.
I fully get why you feel bad about the girl, though. But I also get that people are allowed to do choices and live or die due to the consequences. You want to vaccinate and take one every other week? tlThen do it, vaccinate your plants if that makes you happy. But we have no right to tells other what to do.