This week I received two similar social media messages in my mailbox. One of the young general practitioners Bernard Leenstra who responded to the low and declining national vaccination rate among toddlers.
He’s worried. Ergo, he gets angry. The other message came from Bergen. The willingness to vaccinate here has fallen to 81%. We can therefore be compared to those villages in the Bible Belt, tucked away deep in the Veluwe, where the world is closed with strict Reformed newspapers. Or one of those polio villages where the Lord apparently weighs and arbitrarily decides the fate of a healthy toddler who is then allowed to drive around the god-fearing town in his disabled cart with a disability for the rest of his life.
Vaccination rate
Bussum GP Bernard Leegstra is therefore angry. Furious about the fact that four children have already died completely unnecessarily from whooping cough and the ever-decreasing vaccination rate in the Netherlands.
Leegstra is completely done with this, as he writes on social media: “dissidents, oat milk cargo bikes, Bali sand-eating hipster gurus, anthroposophists and all other fact-ignoring egocentrics”, and he calls on everyone to immediately address that vague bullshit. to pull over and go to the GGD immediately.
Well, if you write it down like that, there is a good chance that you will get some reactions to this ‘communication with the straight leg’. Certainly from the corner of the oat milk elite.
But the GP substantiated his frustrating experiences with facts about vaccination against measles, for example:
- Measles can cause children to become seriously ill, such as meningitis or blindness.
- About 1 in 14 children ends up in hospital.
- Measles spreads 10 times (!) faster than corona.
- There is no treatment for measles.
Vitakruid fetishists
As we are used to in 2024, Dr. Bernard received not only a lot of approval, but also a lot of criticism, but he is not that interested in that. Many people were surprised by the tone of the message, but Leenstra has no regrets: he wants to wake people up. He concludes his message on social media with a message to the so-called ‘vita herb fetishists’ with their mantras such as: “My child has a very strong immune system because the moon shines on her crown. And we follow the teachings of Arie Boomsma and Wim Hof.”
Apples of my eyes
Still, I am happy with the GP’s action, because the unfounded pseudo-medical nonsense that national and local influencers spout is not only life-threatening but also just as contagious as measles. A friend of mine brings and picks up her grandchildren twice a week to and from one of the Bergen primary schools. Grandma takes good care of her little ones and is always at school on time. Her grandchildren can then play in the large garden on the Buerweg. Climbing into the old oak tree where her husband, grandfather, has built a tree house at a height of three meters. Well, when she told that to one of the oat milk mothers, the schoolyard was of course far too small. “Why isn’t there a big safety net under that tree house? Has she installed rubber tiles to prevent the grandkids from getting a scrape? Why gives her lemonade with aggressive unrefined sugars to drink? And that grandma’s bacon pancakes are very unhealthy?!”
Curling Mom
Grandma looked for a long time into the dull, hollow eyes of the oat milk mother with the pale face and said: “Darling, come and visit me sometime and we will walk along my father’s garden path, where those tall trees are… maybe you will then understanding as a child why things turned out so differently with you as a curling mom…”
Robbie
