Anti-Vaxxer is arrested in Samoa amid measles outbreak

[Stevicus]

Samoa Arrests Anti-Vaccination Activist As Measles Death Toll Rises

Samoan authorities have arrested a prominent anti-vaccination activist amid an outbreak that has killed at least 63 people, most of them children.

Edwin Tamasese has been charged with "incitement against a government order," according to the BBC.

Government officials say anti-vaccination advocates such as Tamasese have complicated their sweeping efforts to turn the tide on the highly contagious disease that has sickened more than 4,300 people on the independent Pacific islands.

The government has declared a state of emergency and ordered mandatory vaccinations. It shut schools indefinitely. This week, it launched a door-to-door mass vaccination campaign, asking families to pin a piece of red cloth on their homes if they haven't been vaccinated.

"Let us work together to ... convince those that do not believe that vaccinations are the only answer to the epidemic. Let us not be distracted by the promise of alternative cures," Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi said earlier this week.

The anti-vaccination movement "unfortunately has been slowing us down," Samoa's minister of communication, Afamasaga Lepuiai Rico Tupai, told New Zealand's 1 News Now.

I wonder about these supposed "alternative cures."

As Tamasese was being taken into custody, he spoke out again on social media against the vaccine, falsely claiming that a combination of vitamin C and sodium ascorbate, a mineral salt of ascorbic acid, can cure the disease. "This will save your kids," was posted on Facebook before, he said, authorities took his phone.

Response to Tamasese's arrest has ranged from support from people who call him a hero to derision from critics who accuse him of worsening a deadly crisis.

"In jail for somthing he said? Do you all not see somthing wrong with this?" one Facebook user said. Another called for significant penalties: "Spreading antivaxx propaganda and lies which endangers children in the middle of an epidemic. He should be locked up for good."

I think all this anti-vaccination stuff is a load of nonsense, but should they be arrested and locked up for good? Should people be forced to have vaccinations against their will?

 

[Brickjectivity]

Samoa Arrests Anti-Vaccination Activist As Measles Death Toll Rises





I wonder about these supposed "alternative cures."



I think all this anti-vaccination stuff is a load of nonsense, but should they be arrested and locked up for good? Should people be forced to have vaccinations against their will?

In Samoa? I'd be kidding you to say that I cared as much as I should or understood the situation. Yes I do agree with forced vaccinations under some circumstances, not ethically but because its necessary. I don't like it, and I think some people will be psychologically harmed by having something done to their bodies which they don't understand. This will, however, stop the measles which can be classed as a domestic enemy. It attacks, kills, threatens the country. The outbreak is spreading, is killing people, maiming children and is preventable. The government's job is to defend the population. Lets say we are talking about a measles outbreak and somebody is promoting quack medicine or something the government doesn't see working such as...prayer instead of vaccinations. They're saying "Don't get vaccinated. Pray instead!" and people are listening and are dying as a result. Should the government concentrate on their freedom of speech and religion as citizens die or its duty to protect citizens from a domestic enemy? That not really a question. The government has that duty or there is no point to government. It has to save the population if it can.

 

[Altfish]

I wonder about these supposed "alternative cures."

You shouldn't.
Alternative = untested, unreliable, possible useless.

Alternative medicine is not medicine. If it was, it wouldn't use the adjective 'alternative'.

 

[shmogie]

Samoa Arrests Anti-Vaccination Activist As Measles Death Toll Rises





I wonder about these supposed "alternative cures."



I think all this anti-vaccination stuff is a load of nonsense, but should they be arrested and locked up for good? Should people be forced to have vaccinations against their will?

Requiring someone to have a vaccination is one thing. Denying the right of free speech is quite another.

Free speech is always denied for "the good of society". Whether it be political speech, religious speech, anti religious speech, whatever.

Alternative medicine is 99% bunkum, but people have the right to believe in it and talk about it.

 

[Lyndon]

not when it means killing their own children

 

[shmogie]

not when it means killing their own children

Believe in it and talk about it is not the same as using or practicing it. No one has the right to choose a path that kills their children.

 

[ecco]

Should people be forced to have vaccinations against their will?

Vaccinated or isolated.

 

[Lyndon]

90% of those that died were under 4 years old

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Requiring someone to have a vaccination is one thing. Denying the right of free speech is quite another.

Free speech is always denied for "the good of society". Whether it be political speech, religious speech, anti religious speech, whatever.

Alternative medicine is 99% bunkum, but people have the right to believe in it and talk about it.

You dont have the right to put others at risk. That is exactly what anti-vaxxers do. It is a form a child abuse and endangerment, it puts others at risk, and its time American law reflect that.

 

[shmogie]

90% of those that died were under 4 years old

Very sad, and preventable.

 

[Brickjectivity]

Requiring someone to have a vaccination is one thing. Denying the right of free speech is quite another.

Free speech is always denied for "the good of society". Whether it be political speech, religious speech, anti religious speech, whatever.

Alternative medicine is 99% bunkum, but people have the right to believe in it and talk about it.

I partly agree.

 

[Shad]

Samoa Arrests Anti-Vaccination Activist As Measles Death Toll Rises





I wonder about these supposed "alternative cures."



I think all this anti-vaccination stuff is a load of nonsense, but should they be arrested and locked up for good? Should people be forced to have vaccinations against their will?

Voted no and free speech. This does not include anyone presenting themselves as an expert which is fraud.