Scientists: Vaccines provide “herd immunity”
Naked apes. Photo: Peter O'Connor/Flickr CC
By using “herd,” the scientific community belies its insensitivity, if not its outright contempt, for the rest of humanity.
Dose the kids, protect the “herd.” That’s the language hardhearted epidemiologists are using to describe how vaccinations work to protect human populations:
“An unusual study done in 49 remote Hutterite farming colonies in western Canada has provided the surest proof yet that giving flu shots to schoolchildren protects a whole community from the disease. Although previous studies have demonstrated what scientists call ‘herd immunity,’ none have been so incontrovertible, because they were done in less isolated places with more sources of flu passing through.
Stanhope to English, Irish, herd: "Go to hell."
Credit Canadian conspiracy historian Alan Watt, for noting how scientists use the word, “herd,” in a way that fails to jibe with any citation in popular dictionaries.
The scientists are, however, using the same, precise language of that obnoxious prig, the 4th Earl of Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope (click the excerpt below, for the full text):
via NYT: Flu shots in kids provide ‘herd immunity’ – The New York Times- msnbc.com.
