Charles Pierce: The Immune System Is Resolutely Apolitical, and So Is the Virus

 
Lila Blanks is comforted by her friend Nikki Wyatt, her son Brandon Danas, 17, and her daughter Bryanna Danas, 14, at the casket of her husband, Gregory Blanks, 50, who died from complications from COVID-19 in Texas, on 26 January 2021. (photo: Callaghan O’Hare/Reuters)

By Charles Pierce, Esquire

15 March 21

readersupportednews.org

I can’t imagine being so consumed by my personal political beliefs that I wouldn’t protect myself from a stubbornly nonpartisan plague.

eing in the immunological hammock between Dolly Shot I and Dolly Shot II, I have a little more time to despair of my fellow citizens, many of whom are, according to a new Monmouth poll, simply unreachable morons.

Partisanship remains the main distinguishing factor among those who want to avoid the vaccine altogether, with 36% of Republicans versus just 6% of Democrats saying this. Reluctance among these two groups has declined slightly since January (by 6 points among Republicans and 4 points among Democrats), while it has actually grown among independents. Currently, 31% of independents say they want to avoid getting the vaccine altogether – an increase of 6 points since January.

I am fairly political, as should be obvious by now, and even I have to admit that I can’t see a political reason to get (or not to get) vaccinated. My immune system is resolutely apolitical, for which I thank god, because, if it weren’t, I’d go into anaphylaxis at every Republican campaign event, and CPAC might have turned me into one big fever blister. I can’t imagine being so consumed by my personal political beliefs that I wouldn’t protect myself from a resolutely nonpartisan virus. But then again, there has been a conservative backlash against public safety and public health for as long as there has been a conservative backlash against all aspects of the political commonwealth.

When I was growing up, Worcester refused to fluoridate its water for ideological reasons. (Among other opponents was the John Birch Society, which believed fluoridation to be a form of mind control, and the publisher of the local newspaper was a founding member of the JBS.) The controversy was nationwide, and its parameters should sound familiar to all of us today. From Science History:

…right-wing groups like the John Birch Society have long implied dark motives behind fluoridation. But more common are groups raising safety questions. Anti-fluoridation literature goes back over half a century, with titles like Robotry and Water: A Critique of Fluoridation (1959). Members of the Fluoride Action Network and Citizens for Safe Drinking Water have linked the chemical to several varieties of cancer, diminished intelligence, birth defects and declining birth rates, and heart disease—among other maladies. The Sierra Club worries about the “potential adverse impact of fluoridation on the environment, wildlife, and human health.”

Many opponents see fluoridation as a consequence of collusion among industry, government, and a scientific establishment in thrall to both. The scientific evidence—more complicated than revealed during the original Grand Rapids trials—collides with skeptical public opinion. Seven decades of controversy remind us that the two realms are never truly separate.

Nothing is really new. To paraphrase Ralph Waldo Emerson, stupid is in the saddle and rides far too much of mankind.

"There has been a conservative backlash against public safety and public health for as long as there has been a conservative backlash against all aspects of the political commonwealth."