Master of the takedown Jon Stewart set his sights on the anti-vaccination crazies to open up Tuesday's episode of The Daily Show. The segment proves, despite gripes from the right, that liberals aren't immune from Stewart's criticism—especially when they endanger their own children and even those with parents intelligent enough to protect their children from measles and other illnesses science has already eradicated.
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After mocking CNN's coverage and "science denying affluent California liberals," Stewart put the issue in terms a cable TV audience might appreciate:
"It's like America's in an isolated farmhouse, and the measles are zombies. And for some inexplicable reason they've risen from the dead and are looking for brains. So everybody in the farmhouse has been given a task of boarding up windows and doors in their area to keep out the zombies. ...And you trust everybody's going to do their job, and then you wake up and it's two in the morning, and there's a fucking zombie gnawing on your brain. You're like, 'What the fuck, who didn't board up their window.'
And that's when some lady from Marin County, who you let into your farmhouse, goes, 'Oh, I read an article on a wellness forum that says we shouldn't sleep in boarded up rooms because it fucks you all up.'"
Measles isn't the only disease coming back thanks to anti-vaxxers. California was hit hard with the whooping cough last year, with Los Angeles county getting the worst of it. A THR investigation from September found extraordinary low immunization rates in the affluent, liberal havens of L.A., including Santa Monica, Pacific Palisades, Brentwood, West Hollywood, and Beverly Hills. The average percentage of parents opting out of immunization in those regions was more than four times greater than the average of L.A. county at large.
"It’s a smoldering fire that has started and it could be a complete wildfire if vaccination rates continue to fall," Dr. Deborah Lehman told THR of the whooping cough outbreak.
And now we're dealing with another fire in the form of measles.
