The Social Order
From the time of the Roman Empire until well after the discovery of the tuberculosis bacterium in 1882, many of the best medical minds believed that miasmas invisible vapors emitted from the earth caused killer infections such as typhus, diphtheria, and malaria. Though the bacteriological revolution of the late nineteenth century routed that theory, a new miasma theory has lately sprung up in schools of public health, holding that racism and sexism, though as unmeasurable as the ancient miasmas, cause AIDS, cancer, drug addiction, and heart disease. Indeed, according to public health professors, living in America is acutely hazardous to women and minorities, so shot through is the United States with sickness-producing even fatal injustice and bigotry.
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While the first doses of the new COVID-19 vaccine are being administered to California health care workers this week and will be available to the broader public next year Rupert McClendon will not be rushing to get it.
“I would not trust it, in no shape or form,” said 42-year-old McClendon, a special education teacher in Sacramento.
McClendon’s misgivings about vaccines are rooted in family history. His uncle Stanton, who lived with his grandmother in San Francisco, was in and out of prison, and as a result he always had a hard time finding a job. So his uncle would sign up to be part of medical trials in order to make money, McClendon says.
Rupert McClendon at his home in Carmichael, Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2020.
Andrew Nixon / CapRadio
While the first doses of the new COVID-19 vaccine are being administered to California health care workers this week and will be available to the broader public next year Rupert McClendon will not be rushing to get it.
“I would not trust it, in no shape or form,” said 42-year-old McClendon, a special education teacher in Sacramento.
McClendon’s misgivings about vaccines are rooted in family history. His uncle Stanton, who lived with his grandmother in San Francisco, was in and out of prison, and as a result he always had a hard time finding a job. So his uncle would sign up to be part of medical trials in order to make money, McClendon says.