Jeff Tiedrich: Why the fuck would anybody voluntarily want to go back to that, it fucking sucked

[Dennis Donovan]

Jeff Tiedrich‪
@jefftiedrich.bsky.social‬
12m
I'm old enough to have had the measles before there was a reliable vaccine, the mumps before there was a reliable vaccine, and chicken pox before there was a reliable vaccine. why the fuck would anybody voluntarily want to go back to that, it fucking sucked

Jeff Tiedrich
‪@jefftiedrich.bsky.social‬
I also remember the entire school lining up in the cafeteria to receive the polio vaccine, because who the fuck wouldn't have wanted that
November 15, 2024 at 2:20 PM

https://bsky.app/profile/jefftiedrich.bsky.social/post/3laz3uw2ds225

[Retrograde]

1. But dontcha know vaccines aren't safe?

Smallpox vaccines only go back to the late 1700s, and inoculations at least several decades before that. We gotta do more testing!

People used to have "measles parties" and similar for their kids: the premise was that if the kids were exposed to someone with the disease they were less likely to get it, or at least get a milder case. Measles and chicken pox still spread through my elementary school. And I attribute my Covid vaccinations to my having only a slight cough and some tiredness when I tested positive.

[Walleye]

2. I remember those days as well. I had all those diseases. And now I'm vulnerable to shingles because of Chickenpox

I find myself having some really dark thoughts about the kids of these people who voted for Trump. It’s not healthy.

[Henry203]

3. I have had shingles

Oh Boy is all I have to say.

[Walleye]

6. Getting that shingle shot is next on my list

[Probatim]

10. I concur - I had a patch the size of a 50 cent piece on my back near my belt line.

It felt like someone branded me with a hot iron and kept it there. I was in my early 30s and have since had the shingles shots.

Hope to never experience that again.

[Henry203]

17. I hhad it on my face and ear.

My face was numb for 2 years. I spoke toa a person who went blind in one eye.

[LisaM]

12. Get the shingles vaccine.

I am not the least bit anti vax and shingles was not on my radar and I got it - all over my face. It was horrible. Four years later I still have facial neuralgia.

[Walleye]

18. Great advice, I'm planning on doing that with my next Social Security check. Since Medicare doesn't cover , no part D

[colorado_ufo]

28. Check with your pharmacy!

If you are age 50 or over and at higher risk from shingles because you have a severely weakened immune system you could be eligible for the shingles vaccine.

[Walleye]

31. Thank you, I'll work it out somehow.

[TexasBushwhacker]

45. It didn't used to be covered, but I think it is now

My Medicare Advantage plan covered it. I just got the first shot about a month ago. I got the newest COVID-19 booster too. I was tired the next day but not especially sore.

[Walleye]

48. I don't have a Medicare part D prescription drug plan. Many of the new benefits depend on getting one of those.

I don’t like the extra expense and I hate dealing with insurance companies. But I will look into it.

[TexasBushwhacker]

51. Get Part D while you can

The longer you go without, the more you'll be penalized when you do finally sign up. If you're ever prescribed a brand name medication, you DO NOT want to pay out of pocket!

[Walleye]

53. Definitely looking into it

[littlemissmartypants]

54. Tell me about it...

I have one that I was paying $500/mo for which is now not covered and the oop cost would be $1900+/month. There's no way! I was already making sacrifices for it @ $500.

I am waiting to hear from my doctor about how to handle this issue because I need to finish my "D" sign up.

[Henry203]

20. It took me 2 years to get my feleling back

It should only be 1/2 of your face.

[Xipe Totec]

61. There's a vaccine for shingles now.

I had the real chickenpox too, and I'm now vaccinated for shingles.

The one good thing about having chickenpox is that for many years I was in high demand for plasma and blood donations to protect women during pregnancy.

[Walleye]

62. Yep, gotta get that shot

[camartinwv]

66. Get the shingles shots. There are a series of 2. I recently got the measles, mumps, rubella and others shots also.

The CDC says older people should get immunized for childhood diseases because their immunity has weakened. I don’t want to get any of that stuff again.

[Walleye]

67. That's good advice. Making a trip to the pharmacy next week.

At least we still have a CDC for now.

[Ocelot II]

4. Same here. I got all those diseases kids used to get,

and while I wasn't deathly ill, I was pretty miserable. Measles in particular can be a killer. I didn't get polio, either, because I was vaccinated as soon as there was a vaccine. But I'm old enough to remember when we weren't allowed to do things like swim in public pools before there was a vaccine, and we got gamma globulin shots in the rear end as the only precaution there was before Salk. And I have a little scar on my left shoulder from a smallpox inoculation; kids don't have to get those any more because smallpox is gone. So far, after all the booster shots I could get, I haven't had covid, either. Yay, science.

"Why the fuck would anybody voluntarily want to go back to that, it fucking sucked."

Yup. It's going to suck again unless this lunacy is stopped.

[Walleye]

21. I remember lining up in first grade for the polio shot, when it was finally invented. We loved it we were allowed to go

Swimming in the pond again

[Johonny]

5. But we cant call Trump voters stupid

They are just differently smart.

[Walleye]

22. I gotta believe they're stupid. Or sadistic.

[diane in sf]

39. They're brainwashed. They've been led down a rathole of rightwing media propaganda over the last 40 years.

And the Repugs have been underfunding and dumbing down public education since the 70s.

[Walleye]

49. A lot of it is the result of laziness. Lazy thinking.

[GiqueCee]

65. All true...

... but ya still gotta be a special kind of stupid to believe half of the absurd nonsense spewed by the anti-vaxxers. But then, there's a horrifying number of people that believe the Earth is only 6,000 years old and flat. And they're allowed to breed indiscriminately.

The human race is doomed.

[Prof. Toru Tanaka]

70. "I love the poorly educated."

[JoseBalow]

43. The term "retarded" has gone out of vogue

I'm fine with using whichever acceptable substitute that conveys the sentiment. I prefer "dipshits" (a phrase that ironically could be a MAGA bumper sticker)

[Walleye]

68. I like dipshit, was one of my boyfriend's favorite words about any dumb lightweight guy

[hunter]

73. So, the (R) after a politician's name means Retard Party? I like it.

retard

transitive verb

: to delay or impede the development or progress of : to slow up especially by preventing or hindering advance or accomplishment

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/retard

[Skittles]

59. they are fucking disgrace

[GiqueCee]

64. Inside out smart? nt

[struggle4progress]

7. "I think I read a story a few years ago about somebody surviving rabies so

let's make rabies vaccinations illegal before we're all fatally magnetized by our dogs!"

[TexasBushwhacker]

47. There are some people who are so antivax

that they don't let the animals get any vaccines. If their pet bites someone, the animal has to be euthanized. The only way to test for rabies is to inspect the brain of the animal.

[DJ Synikus Makisimus]

8. Most Americans of the present have never seen polio, so it doesn't exist.

Polio was a real IN YOUR FACE danger for those of us of a certain age, but the vaccine mostly eradicated it. The vast majority of Americans who never experienced it would be hard pressed to even tell you what it is/does, or what an iron lung is for. If you learned anything from the most recent election, may it be that average American of voting age lives a life that revolves only around themselves, their immediate friends, their family and what they see on that interweb thing and on television. They seldom stray far from where they were born, unless its on vacation where they don't interact with the locals much, so their experience in the broader world is, shall we say, rather limited.They do KNOW, for example, that crime is RAMPANT on the streets of big cities across the U.S. They've mostly never been there, now nothing about living there, but they watch cop shows and see it with their own eyes .

If/when polio affects them personally, they'll scream endlessly and blame anyone their favorite screamer on that interweb thing tells them to. These are also the people who believe most fervently in a god or gods they can't see. Like it or not, that's the mentality you've got to deal with. If you were expecting logic, I think perhaps you may not have been paying attention.

All in all I wouldn't worry about RFK 2.0 too much. Trump appointees are usually incompetent and tend not to last. Whoever comes after him will be worse.

[Ocelot II]

30. They've never seen most childhood diseases, not just polio.

They never got measles, chicken pox or mumps. They've barely even heard of smallpox. If you've never experienced something or even know someone who did, it's almost meaningless - those diseases are historical relics, just like cholera, which we don't think much about any more because we have good sanitation systems. I'm afraid we'll get a reminder, though, because most of the anti-vaxxers have never seen what can happen. RFKJr is old enough to know better, but he has a brain worm.

[Walleye]

35. I Remember the kids who showed up with braces on their legs. And they were the lucky ones.

[Hekate]

74. They were in every single school I ever went to. No ramps or other architectural help. If they couldn't climb stairs...

…they couldn’t be at public school.

[Walleye]

75. This is the America that Trump and Musk want to go back to

[progressoid]

9. I have a feeling the the anti-vax people on the left (yes, they exist)

Gladly voted for Trump/RFKjr.

[xocetaceans]

24. I know one who now happily supports Covid Kim, but used to "rep" Sanders. That person fell into a warren of rabbit...

...holes in 2017 and has yet to emerge. It was completely insane: this person blew up a multi-decade career because of vaccine disinformation. It was painful to watch, but nothing could be said. It was Big Pharma this, Big Pharma that, ad infinitum. That person could not even get the difference between mRNA, RNA, and DNA straight in discussing the issues. Mild corrections to terms would register, but ... somehow ... the fact that these corrections were accepted as valid did not dislodge the larger conspiracies from that person's worldview. There really is something to the saying that reason cannot be used to disabuse a person of a position into which they did not reason themselves.

This person likely voted for Trump & RFK Jf., too, but I do not know at present.

I used to think that Iowa was somehow "immune" to becoming North Missouri, but I am not sure anymore. My home county went more than 70% for Trump.

[ironman99]

11. Jeff Tiedrich: Why the fuck would anybody voluntarily want to go back to that, it fucking sucked

Which is worse, the coke snorted by Bobby Brain Worm, or the fact that the brain worm died of malnutrition?

[Blue_Tires]

13. Vaccines are "woke" now, or something 😐

[GoCubsGo]

14. Because this is The United States of Amnesia. nt

[HUAJIAO]

15. Why even ask the question? It's a waste of time. We all know the answer(s).

[JoseBalow]

46. We meet again, in agreement

[rsdsharp]

16. I had chicken pox. I had measles and mumps at the same time. My parents thought I was going to die.

They were terrified of polio. I had a cousin in an iron lung. A classmate’s older brother had a withered leg and arm as a result of polio.

To say that vaccines haven’t been proven to be safe and effective is idiocy. To say you’re not anti-vaccine, you’re just against all of the currently existing vaccines is sophistry at best.

[Ziggysmom]

19. Holy hell, I remember kids in school during the early 60s who had to wear leg braces due to Polio.

They were horrible!
Just like chicken pox causes shingles, people who once had Polio can develop Post Polio Syndrome many years after infection. It can be pure hell with including muscle weakness & wasting, joint pain, fatigue, and trouble swallowing. Severe symptoms can mimic those of Lou Gehrig's disease.

Why the heck would anyone risk their life when vaccines have been safe and effective for ages. To hell with trumpty dumpty and all his cronies & grifter family.

[Blue Full Moon]

23. They don't have a clue.

Or as Fineman would have said, "Not even wrong." My mother had scarlet fever when she was young. She always made sure me and my sister were vaccinated. Then the grandchildren. I really do think that they want to kill as many as possible.

[ChazInAz]

25. I am very hard of hearing, and I walk funny

All due to the "traditional childhood illnesses" in the early Fifties. Chicken pox, mumps, measles, whooping cough, polio...one right after the other. Damn near killed me, and Josef Stalin's Soviet Union was even worse than the Western world about I creating and distributing vaccines. Even as an apparatchik in the municipal government of Budapest,my father was lucky to get aspirin and sulfa drugs.

[Tweedy]

26. My granddad had polio

Nobody wants polio.

Measles is so contagious it lingers in the air, hanging like a cloud of pain and potential death waiting for its next unvaccinated victim for hours and hours.

Yeah. Insanity runs rampant when memories of horrors do fade apparently.

[Ocelot II]

34. Measles is much more infectious than even covid.

[Tweedy]

72. Oh yeah.

[Walleye]

40. Yep, it only took a couple years for them to forget about the horrors of Covid

[cksmithy]

27. I am old enough too.

I had measles, chicken pox and the mumps. My family had 6 kids, we all got sick. My mom was terrified my teenage brother would become sterile because of me. (I was the one who first got sick with mumps, I was about 13.) I also remember the whole family years earlier, parents included, lining up in the cafeteria/auditorium to get our polio sugar cubes when they were first available.

I also remember my second grade teacher telling my class, how back when the small pox vaccinations were first available, people didn't want to take them because they were afraid they would turn into cows. We all laughed and then lined up to receive our small pox shots. Nurses were set up in the hall giving students small pox shots. In my class, only one student didn't have to because she had a family doctor and was already vaccinated.

I lived in the country, spent a lot of time on the bus, I can remember talking about scarlet fever and heart damage about a girl who had stopped coming to class. (She must not of had access to antibiotics.) After our polio vaccinations, we started taking small camping trips. I can only surmise, we didn't go camping earlier, was because of the threat of polio. Sorry for the long boring story.

[Linda ladeewolf]

29. I had all those as well, measles, chicken pox,

I had a severely sprained ankle, with my mom and dad threatening me with a doctor visit unless I got up and tried to walk on it. It was swollen twice its normal size. My dear old doctor looked at it, and told them I needed to stay in bed, because I also had mumps. They were pretty deflated, they didn’t notice the swollen jaws. Mom didn’t want to have to take care of me. Good times.

[Shermann]

32. Spewing nonsense as an author of shitty books is very different than as an officer in a position of power.

When that power affects the well-being of millions of Americans, they may have something to say about it. And that voice isn't confined to general elections.

[Karasu]

36. Fuck the GOP, fuck the normalization of anti-vaxxers...

...and fuck RFK Jr.

If he gets his way, this really isn't going to be a country worth living in. For anyone.

[Walleye]

42. The media keeps calling RFK a "vaccine skeptic". What a lame way of putting it.

I prefer antiscience moron

[Vinca]

37. I had everything but mumps and, fortunately, polio. This entire episode had me remembering when I was

a little girl of about 6. I had a Tiny Tears doll I carried around and I remember taking some of my mother's yarn to fashion leg braces for it. In retrospect, it's so odd that I would have been aware of polio at such a young age. I must have been watching the evening news even back then. This must have been about 1955. I also remember lining up for the polio vaccines. First it was the Salk injection and after a bit the Sabin oral vaccine. The thought we have an anti-vaxxer up for HHS is terrifying.

[leftyladyfrommo]

38. I was really, really sick with measles.

I also had chickenpox, mumps. But the real worry was polio. Everyone was terrified.

The girls across the alley had whooping cough.

[AwakeAtLast]

41. My mother has a permanent heart murmur

Care of the German Measles. She spent a lot of her childhood sick.

[Prof. Toru Tanaka]

71. I remember getting the German Measles vaccine in elementary school.

Either 4th or 5th grade, I forget which.

[Picaro]

44. Had all of those diseases

Measles and German measles (much less deadly). Chicken pox. Mumps. Gave my father his 2nd case of mumps. Turned out that having had mumps didn’t confer lifetime immunity and the mumps are pretty bad in an adult.

Why indeed would anyone want to go back to that era?

[Otto_Harper]

50. The last thing any anti-vaxxer will want todo

or, perhaps, do, is get in my face and downplay vaccines.

I just got home a few months ago after 3 months in the hospital due to Covid. Because of co-morbidities, I am on immuno-suppressant therapy. I have had a total of 8 Covid Vax shots, which is probably why I am still here. I spent many nights in ICU, tap dancing on the very edge of "The Cliff", but had just enough oompah left in me to make my way back.
I lost my dear wife earlier in the Covid wave to a combination of Cancer, Sepsis and hospital acquired Covid. During lock down, while she was ill but home bound, I spent 6 weeks making phone calls trying to find some vaccine that could come out to her. She finally got the 2 initial shots. But no boosters after that.

A very good friend is a polio survivor from the '50s.

I stood iin line at school to get the sugar cubes.

At this point in life, I am disinclined tolerate vx nonsense from a Trump Bobblehead.

[ShazzieB]

52. I had measles, rubella, and chicken pox but not mumps.

I was one of the lucky ones who did not suffer lasting problems, but those things were no fun at the time.

I worry about mumps if large numbers of people stop vaccinating their kids, because I would have no immunity to that. Also, are immunities to the diseases we have had guaranteed to be lifelong?

And what about the vaccines I had as a kid? I had my polio shots and later the oral vaccine, plus the dpt (for diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus) and never had any of those diseases. But other than tetanus, which I know you have to update periodically, I don't know if I can count on those to protect me forever, if unvaccinated kids start spreading those diseases.

[doc03]

55. There was an entire village a couple miles from me entirely wiped out buy

Cholera back in the 1800s.

[Cha]

56. I like it that JT is on BlueSky.... speaks

Highly!

TY!

[Punx]

57. I remember when I got my first polio vaccine

My mother practically danced a jig at the time. She had grown up with it and had seen the suffering it caused.

And in childhood, a freind of mine came down with measles and we weren't allowed anywhere near him. Year's later I found out he had been rendered sterile from the infection and couldn't have kids of his own. At least of his own making of course.

Bless my mom and her common sense.

[Danmel]

58. Exposure to German measles while pregnant causes deafness

You'd think they'd want to protect "pre-born" baby's hearing.
I had chicken pox and the mumps. Fortunately, my parents weren't idiots and I was vaccinated for measles, rubella, polio, tetanus, diptheria et.al.
I was born in 1960, so we didn't live in fear of polio, but I had a childhood friend whose parents were polio survivors and had heavy leg braces and walked with crutches.
They both developed post polio syndrome and suffered terribly. They ended up moving to New Mexico for the Climate, which was a terrible culture shock.
Both of their kids had depression. Their daughter, my childhood friend, died of a drug overdose about 30 years ago and their son took his own life about 10 years ago.

[Skittles]

60. repukes politicized a virus, a pandemic, vaccines, abortion

they are fucking DISGUSTING

[Hassler]

63. Sure we can believe the CDC and NIH

But that Bobby Jr guy has real cred and don't forget all the yoga instructors! So who really knows. 🤮

[Hekate]

69. Sounds like Tiedrich and I are the same age, because I also remember it vividly & it was awful

I look back and wonder how Mom kept her sanity, with 3 sick kids all at once, one of them an infant.

[electric_blue68]

76. I remember after school ?1st or 2nd grade really scratching the back of my neck and my mom coming to look, parting....

my hair, and, like, gasping..."you have chicken pox!".

I probably had the Measles, and German Measles (luckily, I seem to gave no strong memories so I guess I had an "average" bout). My sis had the mumps, not me.
Old enough to get the d/t/p shot as a baby.

Almost sure I had the sugar cube with the polio vaccine in school when I was 7, or 8. They did it first in 1960 in the USA.

[Chipper Chat]

77. Thing i remember about measles

Is the big pink sign in our front window warning people to not come in our house.
Mom kept our bedroom dark. Dont remember whyhad mumps and chickenpox too. All kids in the 40s did.

[Chipper Chat]

78. And this just dawned on me::

We loved going to school back in the 40s. We hated missing school because of common disease. I loved my elementary teachers.
Young kids now tell me they hate school.