Polio is still a thing in Pakistan. The Taliban there initially spread rumors that the CIA was using the polio vaccine to sterilize Pakistani children which lead to distrust of healthcare workers who were travelling to remote sections of the country to administer the vaccine. Then, the CIA decided to actually use the…

Funny that you mention the light-skin thing. Now that I think about it, those are the ones I mostly see when I see the Hoteps out at bus stops selling incense and oils. You never see them with a dark-skinned Hotep sister.

Yes. An alive child is always better than burying one due to a disease you could have prevented. I don’t think there’s a parent out there who would disagree, even those with exceptionally difficult circumstances (I’ve talked to many).

The period thing is weird, how do they explain the reproductive process for black women if periods aren’t involved?

It takes a lot less manpower when you can get people to oppress themselves.

I mean, I’m on the light end of the spectrum and I’ve worked with those on the farther end of the spectrum (who bite/self-injure/elope frequently and are non-verbal with low receptive language abilities and low IQ) who can be a pretty big ‘burden’ for parents as loaded as the term is. It’s a lot of responsibility and…

Except those concepts have been around long before religion. Even the most isolated communities on the planet that live a hunter-gatherer life and have no organized religion follow those same rules. The reason is simple: survival. Humans survive better in groups and humans learned very early on that working together…

Okay, but both of you, swap out “autism” for “spina bifida” and ask if the same holds true for anti-vaccine prejudice? It doesn’t. Anti-vaxx parents are overwhelmingly and rather insanely concerned over one specific thing, and a lot of it goes back to not wanting to admit that there’s something “wrong” with their…

It’s also a morality system that has less to do with “control” and more to do with establishing social norms that are kind of needed to make a society function. It’s not an accident that things like “thou shalt not kill” or “thou shalt not steal” etc. etc. are included in one form or another in so many religions. A…

Exactly. Obviously people should vaccinate their kids and of course there’s no link between vaccines and autism but I don’t like the tone of some comments who make it sound like autism is a totally insignificant illness. It’s really not. I completely understand that parents are terrified of it (not to the point of not…

Exactly, no other Muslims consider them real Muslims because they aren’t. It’s just some dumbass modern cult like Mormonism.

It’s also a large part of the reason we haven’t eradicated polio. Politicians in Northern Nigeria claiming the Southern-based government were trying to make the population sterile. The problem is, if you are a Northern Nigerian person, it is not unreasonable to believe the government wants to control your population.…

Yes, “autism” is a catch-all for an entire spectrum of psychological and neurological disorders. The majority of those fall on the mild to moderate end, where most still have the ability to lead regular lives.

Agree. I see this comment a lot (“Anti-vaxxers would rather a kid be dead than have autism!”), often from people on the spectrum. I’m glad that there are so many high-functioning people with ASD, but that is definitely not the case for everyone. And it’s hard enough raising neurotypical kids—we usually give parents a…

EXACTLY. Anti-vaxx is presented (by friends and foes alike) as some kind of “crunchy,” progressive, stick-it-to-The-Man fetish when it is reactionary AF. People are freaking out at the possibility that their kid might not be “normal,” and they are so wedded to the idea of molding their child into some kind of ideal…

There are also kids with autism who can’t even dress themselves and who will therefore never be independent from their parents. A friend of mine has a son who’s severely autistic and it’s absolute hell. So please, while there are high-functioning autists there are also a lot who aren’t and I wouldn’t wish that…

Yes, I’m curious too! Did they not want an article posted and just a transcript, or did he not want Jez to use snips from the interview in the article? I don’t see why you guys couldn’t just embed the transcript the way you often do for court documents.

Ummm cause ignorant fear filled people are easier to take money from.

So i recently met someone. A woman with a 25-year-old son. She says he was a completely normal baby up until his vaccines. Then something happened within a day or so. He was hospitalized and diagnosed with autism, he is an adult with it. She was in her 20s when she had him and said no one in her family had it ( I…

Au contraire many in the black community do, even if they aren’t NOI.