CBS News: 4-year-old dies from flu after members of anti-vax Facebook group advise his mom to use thyme and elderberries instead of Tamiflu

[LewieP]

Yeah she's not fit to be a parent.

Dunno if manslaughter or child endangerment or whatever is the most accurate description of this crime, but she should be jailed.

I don't think the group should be held legally responsible, because they didn't have any actual responsibility of care, that falls on the parent/guardian, and there are always going to be lies on the internet, but I think were facebook responsible they'd shut stuff like this down, or at least provide factual information alongside this disinformation.

 

[Azuran]

"Potatoes in his socks"

Yeah there's a point where you don't give these anti-vaxx idiots the benefit of the doubt. These people should be serving time in prison.

 

[marmalade]

Tech execs need to start going to jail.

 

[Imitation Of Life]

Time for government intervention before her negligence kills another child.

 

[Tremis]

In a just world, you'd get jail time for recommending potatoes in socks for influenza. It's easy, don't talk about shit you aren't qualified to talk about when it comes to life and death.

Like seriously, I feel this is comparable to pressuring someone to suicide or telling them to jump off a bridge, etc. The people in that group making those recommendations should be charged.

 

[EroticSushi]

I feel so bad for kids being brought up in these kinds of households. Imagine you having the flu, your mom has medicine in one hand and potatoes in another.

She decides to go with stuffing fucking potatoes in your sock. She straight up had her child killed. Don't know how this isn't punishable.

 

[Triggerhappytel]

Charge her with negligence and manslaughter and take her other children away. Some people are not fit to be parents and clearly she's one of them.

RIP to the poor kid who died because his mum is a deranged lunatic.

 

[Geoff]

I get frustrated by people I don't agree with all the time but most of the time, I understand where they are coming from. Even if I think they are fucking stupid. But this stuff is just incomprehensible to me. As a parent. It's not just the stupidity it's the way people will gamble the lives of their own children on some internet bullshit. It's how people can post this bullshit and see what the results are and not take a step back. This Larry guy...you killed a child. You were responsible for the death of a fucking kid and you don't reconsider? What the fuck?

 

[Tremis]

Larry is happy making $$$ and assuredly doesn't believe a word of what he peddles. Guaranteed.

He'd be wise to spend some of that cash on bodyguards.

 

[SlipperyMoose]

Some people shouldn't have kids

 

[hikarutilmitt]

Some Most people shouldn't have kids

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Little bit of a fix, there. For accuracy.

 

[King Alamat]

Anti-vaxxers should have their kids taken away. How that's not considered child neglect in and of itself is beyond me.

 

[StarStorm]

Misdirection on the blame. Sue the one who runs that Facebook group. That group should be charged with manslaughter or moderated to hell and back on misinformation.

 

[Chirotera]

If only we had a group of people that we could consult that have spent their entire lives studying illnesses and coming up with solutions for said illnesses in a scientific matter. Sigh, this might have been avoided.

I think a lot of the anti-vax movement can be blamed on inadequate or overly expensive healthcare, however. It places mistrust in healthcare officials because so much of it is underpinned by greed and profit instead of giving treatment to people that need it. That mistrust trickles down to nurses and doctors and puts patients into positions of doubt, thus they go looking for alternatives - when there are none.

Add a big heap of ignorance where these people are also too dumb to see through alternative treatment bullshit and you end up with this. It's incredibly sad. I hope the parents are charged with negligence, but if there were any justice in the world there would be a way to bring charges against people that post these ridiculous ideas as flu remedies. Potatoes in your socks? Sure... sounds, great. They need to be held accountable.

 

[LewieP]

Misdirection on the blame. Sue the one who runs that Facebook group. That group should be charged with manslaughter or moderated to hell and back on misinformation.

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any parent that just goes on the internet and believes any baseless information, and then off the back of that harms their child, is not a fit parent.

 

[LebGuns]

Tbh Tamiflu is pretty shit as a treatment for flu anyway

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hmmmm... An antiviral or potatoes in socks... not sure what to pick here...

 

[Chopchop]

That's depressing. Another kid dead in a completely avoidable incident.

It's amazing just how hard she drank the Kool-Aid in that group. She effectively killed her kid by taking the group's advice, and she's still seeking support and advice from them. She's that dependent on validation from that group that she's not even aware that her decisions directly led to her kid's death.

It's like when a gun nut loses a kid to a gun related accident and yet still acts like they had no role in their kid's death. It's the same level of slavish devotion to their "cause" or whatever the hell it is, even when it costs them their kid's lives.

FB and its bullshit about leaving these platforms open definitely also holds part of the responsibility for giving a platform to this shit.

 

[Charpunk]

Shit like this makes me so mad because nothing will be done about it. Facebook needs to be purged from existence. It does too much harm to this world.

 

[I Don't Like]

Oh I wasn't pulling that out of my ass. That shit happened

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/19/health/anti-vax-harassment-eprise/index.html

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Those wackos issuing death threats need to be locked up.

 

[Kthulhu]

Facebook should be liable for this. IMO the parents should also be looked into for child abuse.

 

[smurfx]

so these idiots have moved on from anti vaccination to anti medicine now? fucking hell we are devolving the more we advance.

 

[Singher]

Those other children need to be taken away. It's really fucking frustrating that it's children who have to suffer due to the idiocy of their parents.

 

[Quixzlizx]

Potatoes in socks sounds like a medical treatment from 1200s Europe (I know Europe didn't have potatoes yet). I'm surprised these people believe in pathogens instead of imbalances of heat and cold.

 

[Dullahan]

Take all of the children away, PLEASE.

 

[Human Resources]

my thoughts are with his fucking family too

 

[Deleted member 2802]

put potatoes in his socks

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I have no words. What in the fuck

 

[MinusTydus]

Oh my God, I totally missed this part:

In early February, two of Najee's brothers tested positive for influenza. And according to a GoFundMe set up by the family, Najee's mother took his 10-month-old brother to the emergency room with a fever of 104 degrees. Upon their return home, she gave the boys baths and sent 4-year-old Najee and his 5-year-old brother to their room to put on pajamas.

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Donations are still welcome for expenses that are to come.

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Yeah, I bet they are welcome.

No jail time, and a tidy profit for your ignorance.

AMERICA!

 

[Deleted member 33533]

I feel so bad for kids being brought up in these kinds of households. Imagine you having the flu, your mom has medicine in one hand and potatoes in another.

She decides to go with stuffing fucking potatoes in your sock. She straight up had her child killed. Don't know how this isn't punishable.

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Yeah it's really sad. The kids don't even have the capability to realize their mom is betraying them and letting them die. I can't imagine what it will be like for that kid's siblings to grow up and realize what she did to their little brother, that is, if they aren't brainwashed by this mentality too.

 

[weekev]

Oh I wasn't pulling that out of my ass. That shit happened

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/19/health/anti-vax-harassment-eprise/index.html

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This article makes my blood boil. Fuck these people. How many lives have they cost with their harassment and spread of utter bullshit? So infuriating.

 

[Hey Please]

Designate anti-vaccine movement as Bio-terrorism.

They're an active threat to herd immunity for known diseases. Imagine their hand in proliferation of a pandemic of potentially Novel variety.

And governments should compel FB, under both financial & criminal penalties, to stop providing platform to the movement. Again, coming full circle, assigning said classification to the movement would make this the natural conclusion.

 

[ps3ud0]

Profiting from child neglect...

There's no excuse for ignorance and with 3 other children I can't believe they won't be put in care.

I have no pity for the mother, its her fault her child died.

ps3ud0 8)

 

[K' Dash]

I mean, I'm not gonna lie and say that my mom didn't do some pretty crazy shit to get me out of an asthma crisis, but she did it alongside the doctor prescriptions, I took every single med he prescribed alongside whatever crazy shit other moms told her to try on me.

Rest in peace little one :(

 

[_Karooo]

Can't have autism when you're dead

 

[Stinkles]

Most anti vaxxers are just disgusting idiots. However it is being weaponized by foreign actors generally creating dissent. Imagine that. 26 year old otherwise moral or disinterested government apparatchik. Loves his niece. Would rescue a puppy. Killing children for slightly more than minimum wage because they're anonymous nothings. Hope one or two of them are reading this.

 

[rokkerkory]

This is so sad :(((

 

[SinkFla]

Designate anti-vaccine movement as Bio-terrorism.

They're an active threat to herd immunity for known diseases. Imagine their hand in proliferation of a pandemic of potentially Novel variety.

And governments should compel FB, under both financial & criminal penalties, to stop providing platform to the movement. Again, coming full circle, assigning said classification to the movement would make this the natural conclusion.

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I completely agree.

 

[T002 Tyrant]

Tbh Tamiflu is pretty shit as a treatment for flu anyway

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Saved my sister's life.

 

[Patrick Bateman]

I'm a doc and no matter how dumb the patient is I'll treat him/her. There's people not understanding the connection between pathology and therapy and what they need to get done, no prob.

But anti-vaxxers and people putting "alternative medicine" above "school medicine" make my blood boil.
Especially if they are endangering kids.

 

[mugwhump]

I read both articles, what's the point of the sock-potatoes

 

[FloatingDivider]

Terrible stuff, fucking potatoes and elderberries tho like jesus christ the fuck are these people on. It's not even anti vax at this point because antiviral medications aren't vaccines and don't operate like vaccines. Saying no to Tamiflu is just being especially ignorant and at that point you might as well reject the entirety of western medicine.

I'd love to play the blame game with mom because her behaviour was idiotic but I think those Facebook groups are a bigger problem and need to be shut down, deplatformed, moderated to hell and back and in all honesty I believe Zuckerberg et al. failing to do so means at least some the blood is on their hands.

Then again Facebook somehow managed to wash it's hands of the myanmar genocide so this will be no different. As a platform Facebook is beyond flawed and is the premier destination for scam artists and disinformation peddlers. I feel like every week or so I'm debunking some Facebook scam some older family member read about, from secret bitcoin money making techniques to buying internet-sourced propanolol to treat migraines it's all fucked.

It's time Facebook and other social media start realizing they do have a responsibility to their user base, they can't let the userbase self moderate, and some ideas are too damaging to let proliferate on their platform. In my opinion if Facebook has the ability to remove the titties, dicks and vaginas from their content they have the ability to remove anti vaxxers and other known scams. I mean I've never known of anybody that's died after seeing a random dick pic but I do know of people that have died from seeing and believing the shit these anti vaxxers put out there.

 

[Lucky_Seenty]

Should be jailed for child neglect

 

[FTF]

Parents should be arrested and the other child(ren) taken away by cps.

 

[zswordsman]

This shit pisses me off. The mother for going with something that doesn't work and being stubborn. And those stupid anti-vaxxers for recommending shit and then having the audacity to blame the hospital for the kids death. I hope a calamity falls upon all of them. Maybe a death in their family, one that could have been prevented will shut them up. Fuck, so ignorant.

 

[wandering]

I'm a doc and no matter how dumb the patient is I'll treat him/her. There's people not understanding the connection between pathology and therapy and what they need to get done, no prob.

But anti-vaxxers and people putting "alternative medicine" above "school medicine" make my blood boil.
Especially if they are endangering kids.

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Where I am there's a glut of naturopathic practitioners and "functional medicine" quacks that are usurping evidence-based medical practice and turning people towards pseudoscience. Some of them are even MDs who are looking to make a quick buck off of the gullible. It's incredibly frustrating.

 

[BobLoblaw]

Facebook needs to be wiped off the face of the fucking planet. It's the biggest source of misinformation on the planet and it's costing people their lives.

 

[uzipukki]

Sad for the kid. The mom can rot in hell tho.

 

[Patrick Bateman]

Where I am there's a glut of naturopathic practitioners and "functional medicine" quacks that are usurping evidence-based medical practice and turning people towards pseudoscience. Some of them are even MDs who are looking to make a quick buck off of the gullible. It's incredibly frustrating.

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This is even worse. When you did study medicine but turn to this life-threatening nonsense..

 

[Deleted member 16365]

That Facebook comment really pisses me off. People are dying due to their refusal to police their own platform. As far as I'm concerned everyone in that group and FB themselves are culpable

 

[Cipherr]

Take her other kid away. He'll be dead from another thing like this and she still won't learn from the mistake.

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I mean, basically... I know its not exactly the same, but super poor living conditions that causes a child to die and social services is all over that... But allow a child to die just the same via AntiVaxx bullshit and everyone looks the other way? Like, is there any penalty for this shit? Or is this the loophole to being negligent and responsible for your kids death with no repercussions... I hate this shit.

 

[Kinketsu]

While these kinds of groups are obviously dangerous shouldn't more be done about the direct issue that this woman deliberately ignored professional advice and common sense leading to the needless death of her own child? Isn't it at least some kind of criminal / willful negligence charge? A poor little boy died for nothing. I don't see how this is any different from locking him in the freezer because she saw it on an episode of Scooby Doo or something. These groups are reprehensible but at the end of the day she allowed her own child to die through her own actions. The gall of a GoFundMe is almost too much.