The obvious conclusion is that measles and other vaccine mandates are unacceptable too. Because vaccine mandates are bad is now an absolute Republican axiom, not to be questioned. And Republican politicians won’t risk re-election by standing up and being the ones who question. Never mind how many children get sick or anti-vaxxers die. Case in point, Kansas state Senator Richard Hilderbrand who wants to eliminate liability for doctors who prescribe ivermectin — where’s the proof it doesn’t work?
It’s true that even the polio vaccine had its anti-vaxxers, but at least they were true believers, not cowards who know the vaccine saves lives (and I’m sure are vaccinated themselves) but don’t have the spine to say so. Though to be fair, Sen. Ron Johnson says so many idiotic anti-vax things, maybe he doesn’t even feel any pressure on his spine. For example that Fauci overhyped covid like he overhyped AIDS — except overhyping AIDs was the opposite of what happened in the 1980s (check out Randy Shilts’ classic And the Band Played On for a look at how blithely health officials and the government approached the disease).
I doubt Dr. Joseph Ladapo is that ignorant about vaccines — he’s an MD after all — but to get his gig as Florida’s new surgeon general, he’s willing to say maybe vaccines don’t work. After all, Typhoid Ron DeSantis just fired a surgeon general who said the opposite. Likewise I suspect religious conservative anti-vaxxer osteopath Sherri Tenpenny is spewing bullshit (the vaccine will make you a transhumanist cyborg!) because as noted at the link it’s been great for her public profile. But hey, maybe she is batshit delusional.
Oh, and DeSantis himself, despite opposing vaccine mandates, masking or anything that makes the pandemic less lethal, is quick to whine about how it’s Democrats who want us to die. And how nurses shouldn’t be forced to get the vaccine because many of them want to have babies (no further explanation).
Patrick Howley, who once claimed the government plans to criminalize checking out women’s breasts, now claims vaccinated people shun him because they can sense he’s not a “Pfizerblood”
Even Dr. Fauci’s feeling the pressure, and who can blame him?
I’m sure some anti-vaxxers are up in arms that getting vaccinated is a prerequisite for heart transplants. They’re perfectly happy to blame people who believe in medicine and say it’s their fault anti-vaxxers are dying.
You’d think the Supreme Court, who have lifetime appointments, would show some sense, but they’re part of the Republican death cult too.
If this were happening in the developing world, you know how the media would cover it. Ignorant superstitious natives, unable to comprehend Western medicine, fearful it will do something evil to their bodies or that it’s the medicines that make you sick! And yeah, that about sums it up. The anti-vax movement is like the witch doctors in countless old jungle movies. Terrified they’ll lose their power if people embrace the “white man’s medicine” they do their best to whip up the equivalent of a torch-burning mob.
In the movies, of course, those guys always lost. In reality, it seems they’re doing pretty damn well.
So in 1962, Marvel’s Tales to Astonish anthology series had scientist Henry Pym shrink himself down and become “The Man in the Ant Hill,” as captured on Jack Kirby’s cover. With super-heroes becoming popular, they turned him into the astonishing Ant-Man, whose first few years have been collected in ANT-MAN/GIANT MAN: The Man in the Anthill by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and multiple others.
think I want to pay to read them on Marvel’s streaming service). This volume ends with Giant Man and the Wasp battling the Hulk, who then became the backup strip; less than a year later, Sub-Mariner would get Hank and Jan’s pages (
Or for that matter, Arthur Wontner, who launched a series of Holmesian adventures with SHERLOCK HOLMES FATAL HOUR (1931), known when it was made in England as The Sleeping Cardinal. A mix of 
an episode adapted from HF Heard’s first novel about retiree-turned-beekeeper “Mr. Mycroft.” Here, Mycroft (Boris Karloff) discovers beekeeper Martyn Greene has bred a deadly strain of killer bees and is feeling the itch to test them on human beings; can he be stopped? Karloff’s not one of the great Holmes but he’s satisfactory. I blogged about this in more detail over at 
I can’t say I had any sudden urge to find the book online but the image does intrigue me. The girl ready to cry, the guy clearly uncomfortable about something — was he gay? Impotent? Was their love forbidden because he lives down in the boondocks and her daddy is his bossman? The cover made me want to know, which means it worked pretty well.
#SFWApro. All rights to image remain with current holder.
