hatey-mchaterson:

timemachineyeah:

a-spoon-is-born:

funoftheday:

You don’t say.

For the record, she actually abandoned the movement BEFORE they all got whooping cough, but abandoned it too late. There’d been a breakout of measles in her area that caused her to reassess, and she and her doctor had already drafted and started a catch-up vaccination schedule, but her kids caught whooping cough just before it could be started. Then she wrote a blog post for The Scientific Parent explaining how she and her husband had come to wrong decisions in the first place, how they changed their mind, the consequences they suffered as a result, and asking other parents to please vaccinate their kids. And now she’s an activist for destroying the misinformation of anti-vaxxers, and reaching out to anti-vaxxers because she’s understands their fears but knows their kids deserve better. 

She was trying to the best for her kids and just didn’t know how to interpret the validity of information or its sources, an actual skill that can be actually difficult and that is under-taught and a necessary first step to being able to trust vaccination research, so chose no action over taking an action she wasn’t sure of. She kept looking into it with family and friends and even eventually came to the right conclusion before her kids became sick, but it was still too late.

Honestly it was pretty brave of her to publicly admit she was wrong. She could have just quietly vaccinated her kids and not become a national news story, but instead she spoke out, even saying “I’m writing this from quarantine, the irony of which isn’t lost on me.” and also “I am not looking forward to any gloating or shame as this ‘defection’ from the antivaxx camp goes public, but, this isn’t a popularity contest.  Right now my family is living the consequences of misinformation and fear.  I understand that families in our community may be mad at us for putting their kids at risk.”

She understood the consequences and still put herself and her story out there. 

You know what, it does take a big person to admit they were wrong so publicly and work to undo the harm. I believe I made fun of her in the past, but timemachineyeah changed my mind.

hollowlaughter:

carabas:

diebrarian:

brunhiddensmusings:

idjitmonkey:

intelligentchristianlady:

What a wonderful initiative! Spread the word.

holy shit, spread this like wildfire guys before November 

one of the biggest and most devious tools being used against voters now is that voting locations for lower income neighborhoods and neighborhoods that are primarily black or hispanic are suddenly closed down, in the middle of nowhere, or only open for 4 hours a day

do whatever you can to help negate that being a barrier

More information can be found at their website

This initiative is aimed at November 6th, 2018, and they are offering 50% off promo codes and free rides to underserved communities. The linked post reads:

• Across the country, we’ll give away 50% off promo codes with our partners that encourage voter turnout. We’re thrilled to be working with Vote.org, Nonprofit Vote, TurboVote and more to help distribute codes to those who need them. We’ll also have a product integration to help passengers find their polling location.
• For underserved communities, we’ll provide rides free of cost through nonpartisan, nonprofit partners, including Voto Latino, local Urban League affiliates, and the National Federation of the Blind.

[picture: screenshot of tweet from Lyft (@lyft) reading:

Over 15 million people cited transportation as their primary barrier to voting in the 2016 election–that’s why we’re introducing The Ride to Vote.  Lyft will provide free and discounted rides to the Polls.  #TheRidetoVote]

https://www.buzzfeed.com/pollup2018/welcome-to-pollup2018