Blog 241: Vaccinations, My Vote

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We continue to have much for which to be thankful.

Samoan Vaccinations. The following are the facts as I know them. I became interested in the topic after reading an article in the December 2 issue of the New Yorker. If I am wrong or someone has additional knowledge, please let me know. I want to be truthful.

I offer no personal opinion based on these facts. However, I believe they are very important and everyone should have an opinion.

In 2018, two Samoan children died after receiving measles vaccinations. Local vaccine skeptics led an outcry and the government temporarily halted its immunization program. Children’s Health Defense Fund chaired by Robert F Kennedy Jr. posted about the events on Facebook as evidence against vaccinations.

An investigation discovered the nurses had mistakenly mixed muscle relaxer with the vaccine causing the deaths. The government reinstated the immunization program but participation was “perilously low.”

As a result of the low vaccination rate, within a few months a devastating measles outbreak occurred. Nearly 5,700 people on an island with around 200,000 population, contracted measles. Of the more than 80 people who died, over 70 were children. The death estimates in the graph at the top of the page were based on early reports when only 42 had died in Samoa. Based on 80 deaths the estimated toll across nations would be much worse than depicted in the graph.

Robert Kennedy wrote the prime minister raising the possibility that the children who died were possibly casualties of vaccination. He hailed the local anti-vaccination campaigner as a hero.

Additional details can be found in a second source: 2019 Samoa measles outbreak – Wikipedia

Election 2024. A good friend said to me, “I expect you were disappointed in the election outcome. I told him I was happy with my vote. That is all I can control.

I went on to tell him I was particularly happy with my vote because I did not base it on anything a Democrat said. I did not listen to a Clinton, Obama, Biden, Harris, Walz, Pelosi, Schumer, Newsome, The Squad or anyone else who might be considered a Democrat.

I based my vote on what Republicans with first-hand experience with Trump had to say. I read quotes from a long list of people who had first-hand evidence working directly with Trump in his first term.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/03/politics/donald-trump-former-allies-what-matters/index.html

I was particularly interested in what military officers (pictured above) had to say. John Kelley, Marine Corp General, Mark Milley, Army General, James Mattis, Marine General, H. R. McMaster, Army General, Mark Esper, Lieutenant Colonel, Stanley McChrystal, Army General, Mike Mullen, Admiral, Joseph Votel, Army General, and James Stavridis, Admiral all voiced concerns. Thus to iterate, I based my vote on comments by Republicans with first-hand evidence and particularly those who had taken oaths to uphold the constitution.

This and That