Don’t Let the Anti-Vaxxers Bring You Down

The question continues, “Why don’t these anti-vaxxers just get the shots?”

In the past couple of months, at least two prominent foodies from the organic side of the aisle have come out against vaccines. Ronnie Cummins, founder and director of the Organic Consumers Association, has come out with a new book, “The Truth About COVID-19,” with a foreword by Robert Kennedy Jr. Zen Honeycutt, founder and director of Moms Across America, sends out blogs and tweets that she says “expose” the “lies and corruption” around the invention of the vaccines.

OCA claims 850,000 members. MAAM is a P.R. powerhouse, hosting calls and sending out blogs, tweets, op-eds, Youtube videos and newsletters, but membership numbers are impossible to find. As a longtime reader of MAAM materials, it looks to me like the group is supported by sales of products like drops, powders, mineral capsules and lotions that claim health benefits.

Between the two organizations, passionate foodies have been convinced that COVID-19 vaccines were invented by a corrupt medical system, have not been carefully tested, contain contaminants, violate constitutional rights, and do not take into consideration healthy bodies of careful eaters. This thread of thinking links a corrupt government with industry manipulators. While it is tempting to dismiss the arguments as “anti-science,” they have an easy answer for that. Science, they say, has been used to dupe us time and again.

They have plenty of history to point to. The invention of GMO crops, promoted by USDA and state ag colleges, were created by cutting-edge science, but they require poisons that have made healthy farmland into deserts. Opioids that were originally prescribed to abate pain and help patients relax have become an addictive drug that kills thousands. Medical tests to discover everything from arthritis to zika virus have turned Americans into pill-popping hypochondriacs.

With divisive rhetoric coming from so many directions, it is time for government to get out of the vaccine-promotion business. Their videos of people getting shots and shiny bottles of vaccine on the assembly line convinced some of us. Lotteries and rewards for the vaccinated worked a little bit for a little while. Testimonies from leaders helped some. But now the anti-vaxxers have dug in. Let them stay in their holes.

Nowadays, the vaccines need to go to people in other countries that want them. That is the next best chance to stymie the breakthrough viruses. Export the vaccines to Africa, Asia, Europe. This could be a peace initiative that works.

It’s time to admit that the numbers of vaxxed in the US now—around 61% last I looked—creeps up very slowly, and nobody has bothered to learn what motivates the un-vaxxed to get the shots. We do know that mandates just dig us all deeper into our anger. By continuing to plea for vaccinations and use CDC spokesmen that have ties to industry, the media comes off as a tool of a corrupt system. But, to make things even more complicated, an estimated 30% of medical workers are unvaccinated, despite working in an environment where it’s easy to get the shots.

You have yours, I have mine, we mask and socially distance, let the others go their own ways. A recent New York Times article queried experts about the safety of holiday gatherings, unvaccinated kinfolk, masks, boosters, breakthrough cases, rapid tests and other conundrums and the expert opinions almost all contained the phrase “depending on your risk tolerance.” In other words, if you’re comfortable in a gathering, you can stay.

In my family, we have begun to enjoy small gatherings again, staying masked when we’re indoors, and being outside as much as possible. The kids, accustomed to masking at school and everywhere else, are comfortable in their masks playing together, wrestling, doing kid-things. More comfortable than the grown-ups who complain incessantly about foggy glasses.

We keep a box of masks by the front door and we’ve gotten accustomed to asking workers and visitors, “Are you vaccinated?” and handing out masks to those that aren’t. We ask restaurant owners before we sit down, “What is your COVID policy?” We’ve overcome the terror of boredom, so we can stay home and watch TV. Last winter, we watched all the Oscar Best-Picture winners, starting with “Wings,” made in 1927. This year, it’s “Best Director” time.

We’ve been to a couple of concerts, sitting way in the back. We slip in and out, avoiding our friends, but they’re avoiding us, too. We’ll compare notes via e-mail or zoom. We’ve also been able to enjoy jam sessions in big spaces—churches and community centers—pulling out the fiddle (him) and the cello (me), and sitting a bit apart from the others, and masked. The music parties of today are much smaller than the music parties of two years ago, but that’s OK. We’re still having fun. And, we’ve had our shots.

Margot Ford McMillen farms near Fulton, Mo., and co-hosts “Farm and Fiddle” on sustainable ag issues on KOPN 89.5 FM in Columbia, Mo. She also is a co-founder of CAFOZone.com, a website for people who are affected by concentrated animal feeding operations. Her latest book is “The Golden Lane: How Missouri Women Gained the Vote and Changed History.” Email: margotmcmillen@ gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, January 1-15, 2022

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