Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin To Own Kids: 'A Pox Upon Thee!'

Like, literally. He made them get chickenpox, because he is A IDIOT.

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin explained on a radio talk show that he loves his kids so much he deliberately exposed them all to chickenpox, which has potentially deadly side effects. But hey, they lived, so he's the freakin' parent of the century. Bevin said that he'd taken all his kids to the home of a neighbor whose child had chickenpox so they'd all get the disease, instead of getting them vaccinated, and by golly, he's proud of his medically risky decision. And if his kids get shingles later in life, he may not be around to blame anymore, so it's all good!

"  Every single one of my kids had the chickenpox," Bevin said in an interview with WKCT, a Bowling Green talk radio station. "  They got the chickenpox on purpose because we found a neighbor that had it and I went and made sure every one of my kids was exposed to it, and they got it. They had it as children. They were miserable for a few days, and they all turned out fine."

A chickenpox vaccine has been available since 1995, but nah, why do that when you can just expose your kids to the live virus and run the risk of complications and death? Bevin's comments drew criticism from egghead doctors like pediatrician Robert Jacobson, an "expert" in childhood diseases and vaccinations at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, who told the Louisville Courier Journal, "I would never recommend or advise it [...] It's just dangerous."

"We're no longer living in the 17th century," he said. "I really recommend to my parents that they vaccinate their children, that they do it in a timely manner, and they recognize they are doing the right thing for their children."

That's all fine and well Mr. Doctor, but in case you've forgotten, the 17th century had a lot of good things too, like freedom from oppressive government regulations and no busybody doctors telling people to wash their hands. Plus if you wanted to own human slaves or wipe out entire settlements of Native Americans, the government wouldn't get in your way, and might even help. It truly was a libertarian paradise if you were white and rich and lived long enough to enjoy it!

The Courier Journal also notes that the US Centers for Disease Control

urges against deliberately exposing kids to chicken pox, including the past practice of "chicken pox parties" held by some parents.

"Chickenpox can be serious and can lead to severe complications and death, even in healthy children," according to the CDC website.

Then again, what do doctors and public health bureaucrats know about LIBERTY? Matt Bevin knows way more than stupid doctors, which is why he is governor of his state and they are not.

"And I think, why are we forcing kids to get it?" Bevin said in the radio interview, speaking about the chickenpox vaccine.  "If you are worried about your child getting chickenpox or whatever else, vaccinate your child. ... But for some people, and for some parents, for some reason they choose otherwise. This is America. The federal government should not be forcing this upon people. They just shouldn't."

Kentucky is among the 36 states that mandate children receive the chickenpox vaccine before they enter kindergarten, although it allows exemptions for religion or if they show proof the kids have already had the disease. That law, of course, was signed by previous governors who clearly hated freedom.

Bevin's encouragement of the anti-vaxxer/pro-disease movement comes as Kentucky is dealing with a chickenpox outbreak at Assumption Academy, a Catholic school in Northern Kentucky, where at least one student proudly went unvaccinated for "religious" reasons. Thirty-two students were infected, and the the  Northern Kentucky Health Department told any students who hadn't been vaccinated or had the illness as a child to stay out of school, to "prevent further spread of this illness."

The Washington Post   reports one brave student is suing over that public health decree. He's sure the state is doing tyranny to his religious liberty because, as his lawsuit claims, no good Christian can use a vaccine that was "derived from aborted fetal cells."

Now, if you want to get all technical about it, the vaccine was originally developed in the 1960s using a cell line that originally came from two fetuses -- which were aborted in the 1960s. But no aborted fetuses are used in making the vaccine, and no, despite the more fevered ragings of antivax and anti-abortion people, nobody is being injected with abortions. And for that matter, millions of copies of Henrietta Lacks are not being stored in medical schools all over the world. At least not the person, the book is another matter.

As for the Catholic Church, WaPo points out, it "ruled nearly 15 years ago that Catholics are morally free to use those vaccines when there's a threat to public health." Not that the boy or his family are impressed, since Assumption Academy is run by a super-conservative crowd that rejects the whole modern Catholic hierarchy anyway, so the hell with those post-Vatican II apostates.

Abortion, even at a multi-step remove, is an abomination, and so clearly it's an infringement of this kid's sacred right to infect others by taking his unvaccinated ass to school. Maybe Jebus will keep everyone else from him. That's a hell of an Assumption, huh?

In completely unrelated news, a leader of an Italian far-right party who has, like Bevin, railed against his country's mandatory vaccination policy, has been hospitalized with chickenpox himself. Needless to say, he is perfectly fine with that.

In conclusion, we should be talking about building WALL around Kentucky, and maybe all anti-vaxxers, the end.

[ Louisville Courier Journal / Mayo Clinic / WaPo / Independent ]

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