Anti-vaxxers are literally a plague upon society.
Thanks to them, highly contagious diseases such as measles, tuberculosis, and mumps are making a big comeback.
In fact, measles was thought to be eradicated in the US back in 2000 but there has been over 1200 cases in the U.S. this year.
"The reason measles is coming back is that a critical number of parents have chosen not to vaccinate their children,'' said Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, told USA Today.
"If you get to a few thousand cases, you'll start to see children die of measles again," Offit continued.
Ninety-two percent of U.S. children have received the MMR vaccine, while that number seems high, the number of children under two who haven't received any vaccinations has quadrupled in the last 17 years.
RELATED: A new study of over 650,000 children finds — once again — that vaccines don't cause autism
"More and more we're seeing people opting out of vaccinations out of a feeling they're in some way dangerous, which is absolutely and completely untrue,'' Judd Hultquist, assistant professor of infectious diseases at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, told USA Today.
Anti-vaxxers' biggest fear is that vaccinations cause autism.
However, over 140 peer-reviewed articles published in specialized journals that document the lack of a correlation between autism and vaccines. Earlier this year, a study of over 650,000 children in Denmark found that the MMR vaccine didn't increase the risk of autism in children.
Even though anti-vaxxers spread contagious diseases because of their deeply-held, but incorrect, beliefs they want to be taken seriously.
RELATED: Anti-vaxxers cursed at ER staff who helped their son because he was 'isolated' to protect others
The aptly-named anti-vaxxer group Crazymothers made an appeal to the media on Twitter asking to start referring to them as "Vaccine Risk Aware."
"Dear Media," the open letter read. "Please retire the use of the term 'Anti-vaxxer.' It is derogatory, inflammatory, and marginalizes both women and their experiences. It is dismissively simplistic, highly offensive and largely false. We politely request that you refer to us as the Vaccine Risk Aware."
Dear Media,
Please retire the use of the term “Anti-vaxxer." It is derogatory, inflammatory, and marginalizes both women and their experiences. It is dismissivemy simplistic, highly offensive and largely false. We politely request that you refer to us as the Vaccine Risk Aware. pic.twitter.com/WtAyFOhLuv
— Crazymothers (@Crazymothers1) December 1, 2019
This inspired a flood of people to respond with their own hilarious and sometimes morbid new names for anti-vaxxers.
"Polio fanciers"
— YesMalarkeyHat (@Popehat) December 3, 2019
FINE.
“Bioterrorist" it is, then.
— Blue Collar Heathen 🎩 🎃 (@BCHvids) December 3, 2019
Plague enthusiast
— Joe Kassabian (@jkass99) December 3, 2019
I think of you as the “Correlation is not causation" Unaware.
— Daddy Love (@SemiMooch) December 2, 2019
No, but I have a compromise to propose. How 'bout if we settle on “Dunning-Krueger Menace to Society imbeciles?"
— NCSteve (@TCFKA_NCSteve) December 2, 2019
"Pro-Disease" is pretty easy to say
— Hill Country Exvangelical (Carbon Emotions) (@M_knight_Shaman) December 3, 2019
ok smallpox karen
— Nils (@Sadboirickyy) December 3, 2019
You know what else is inflammatory?
Measles
— 🆘Rogue™🆘🍑 (@RogueOpsCommand) December 3, 2019
Typhoid Mommies.
— Paulå S. Mørgan (@SquirrelyGrrl) December 3, 2019
Influenzers?
— Sambhav (@SambhavRM9) December 4, 2019
"I only want a child for 3 years" faction
— Possum in a Trashcan (@ATinyGremlin) December 3, 2019
Anti-vaxxer Anti-vaxxer Anti-vaxxer Anti-vaxxer Anti-vaxxer Anti-vaxxer Anti-vaxxer Anti-vaxxer Anti-vaxxer Anti-vaxxer Anti-vaxxer Anti-vaxxer Anti-vaxxer Anti-vaxxer Anti-vaxxer Anti-vaxxer Anti-vaxxer Anti-vaxxer Anti-vaxxer Anti-vaxxer Anti-vaxxer Anti-vaxxer Anti-vaxxer
— Aidan Baron (@Aidan_Baron) December 4, 2019
The tweet also inspired others to tee off on the Crazymothers for hurting children.
Yes please treat our group “Crazy insane crazy mothers, crazy people who are crazy" with the dignity and respect we deserve.
— Brendel (@Brendelbored) December 3, 2019
Immunologist here.
The answer is: NO
You are not "Vaccine Risk Aware", you are "Dangerously uninformed and insisting that public health experts indulge your fantasies"
If you don't want Anti-vax, the only thing left is Self-Indulgent And Irresponsible Crazyperson
Pick one.
— JulieS (@jaxcarys) December 3, 2019
The best way to avoid being called an anti-vaxxer is not to be one.
— Widow/Orphan Control (@jimbaldwin123) December 3, 2019
No. Stop killing children.
— The Barefoot Sage (@TheBarefootSage) December 3, 2019
Deaf guy here. For deaf people of my generation, the #1 cause of *permanent* deafness was measles. When you see an older person signing in ASL, just remember they spent a lifetime like that because there WAS NO VACCINE. Now it's happening again because of DELIBERATE anti-vax BS.
— Openly Ray 🌈 (@RayHarwick) December 2, 2019
Robin Williams performs for military men and women as part of a United Service Organization (USO) show on board Camp Phoenix in December 2007
Gif of Robin Williams via 
A woman conducts a online color testCanva
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Pictured: A healthy practice?
Will your current friends still be with you after seven years?
Professor shares how many years a friendship must last before it'll become lifelong
Think of your best friend. How long have you known them? Growing up, children make friends and say they’ll be best friends forever. That’s where “BFF” came from, for crying out loud. But is the concept of the lifelong friend real? If so, how many years of friendship will have to bloom before a friendship goes the distance? Well, a Dutch study may have the answer to that last question.
Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst and his team in the Netherlands did extensive research on friendships and made some interesting findings in his surveys and studies. Mollenhorst found that over half of your friendships will “shed” within seven years. However, the relationships that go past the seven-year mark tend to last. This led to the prevailing theory that most friendships lasting more than seven years would endure throughout a person’s lifetime.
In Mollenhorst’s findings, lifelong friendships seem to come down to one thing: reciprocal effort. The primary reason so many friendships form and fade within seven-year cycles has much to do with a person’s ages and life stages. A lot of people lose touch with elementary and high school friends because so many leave home to attend college. Work friends change when someone gets promoted or finds a better job in a different state. Some friends get married and have children, reducing one-on-one time together, and thus a friendship fades. It’s easy to lose friends, but naturally harder to keep them when you’re no longer in proximity.
Some people on Reddit even wonder if lifelong friendships are actually real or just a romanticized thought nowadays. However, older commenters showed that lifelong friendship is still possible:
“I met my friend on the first day of kindergarten. Maybe not the very first day, but within the first week. We were texting each other stupid memes just yesterday. This year we’ll both celebrate our 58th birthdays.”
“My oldest friend and I met when she was just 5 and I was 9. Next-door neighbors. We're now both over 60 and still talk weekly and visit at least twice a year.”
“I’m 55. I’ve just spent a weekend with friends I met 24 and 32 years ago respectively. I’m also still in touch with my penpal in the States. I was 15 when we started writing to each other.”
“My friends (3 of them) go back to my college days in my 20’s that I still talk to a minimum of once a week. I'm in my early 60s now.”
“We ebb and flow. Sometimes many years will pass as we go through different things and phases. Nobody gets buttsore if we aren’t in touch all the time. In our 50s we don’t try and argue or be petty like we did before. But I love them. I don’t need a weekly lunch to know that. I could make a call right now if I needed something. Same with them.”
Maintaining a friendship for life is never guaranteed, but there are ways, psychotherapists say, that can make a friendship last. It’s not easy, but for a friendship to last, both participants need to make room for patience and place greater weight on their similarities than on the differences that may develop over time. Along with that, it’s helpful to be tolerant of large distances and gaps of time between visits, too. It’s not easy, and it requires both people involved to be equally invested to keep the friendship alive and from becoming stagnant.
As tough as it sounds, it is still possible. You may be a fortunate person who can name several friends you’ve kept for over seven years or over seventy years. But if you’re not, every new friendship you make has the same chance and potential of being lifelong.