The Harold Ramis comedy Groundhog Day is considered one of the greatest comedies of all time, and was one of the most successful films of 1993. In it, Bill Murray plays Phil Connors, a self-absorbed weatherman sent to Punxsutawney to cover the Groundhog Day festivities there. He finds himself caught in a time loop, forced to live Groundhog Day over and over again, until he learns to become a better person. Some people have tried to estimate how long he was in the time loop. Estimates vary, but the best appear to be around 30 years.
We appear to be stuck in a antivaxx time loop, where things repeat over and over. I’ve mentioned Theresa Mulderij, who was dismissed for refusing to be vaccinated. Articled Clerk Dale Dryden was fired from Duncan Korabie Attorneys at the end of August 2021 after refusing to be vaccinated. Duncan Korabie, the firm’s owner, has various conditions and introduced a mandatory vaccination policy. Dryden protested, and used antivaccination propaganda in his response. Korabie then issued an ultimatum, and when Dryden refused to be vaccinated, dismissed him.
Dryden was awarded a settlement as Korabie failed to follow procedure, but his dismissal was upheld.
When Betty White and Bob Saget passed away earlier this year, antivaxxers tried to link their deaths to COVID vaccination. White had suffered a stroke six days prior to her death, and an autopsy has now revealed that Saget had fallen and banged his head, leading to a fatal brain bleed. Undeterred, antivaxxers are now trying to connect the death of Shane Warne from a heart attack to COVID vaccination.
Warne’s death is undeniably sad for his fans, friends and family. However, he was an overweight smoker in his fifties who lived a sedentary lifestyle and followed an unhealthy diet. He was thus a prime candidate for the heart attack that killed him.
Last year, I wrote about Schalk van der Merwe, an antivaxx lawyer who filed papers to get mask and vaccine mandates overturned. He’s now facing charges of conspiracy to commit murder.
Finally, and most Groundhog Dayish of all, Rolf Hazlehurst has lost another Court Case about vaccines causing his son’s autism.
Rolf Hazlehurst is an attorney and the father of Yates Hazlehurst, one of the test cases in the Omnibus Autism Proceedings in Vaccine Court. As a quick refresher, numerous families were seeking compensation before Vaccine Court, believing that the MMR had caused their children’s autism. Yates Hazlehurst, Michelle Cedillo, and Colten Snyder were the three children used in the first test cases. All lost. All three appealed the verdicts, and lost again. The Hazlehurst and Cedillo families appealed to Federal Circuit Court, and lost yet again. Recently, Rolf Hazlehurst reactivated his suit against the physician who vaccinated Yates, alleging that by giving him a vaccine, the physician was responsible for giving Yates autism, and was guilty of malpractice. The jury rejected the suit, and the case never even assessed the causation question.
I understand Rolf’s pain. And yet I want to grab him, shake until his teeth rattle, and tell him to stop. His crusade to prove that MMR is responsible for Yates’s autism is not only futile, it is now causing significant harm to his family. He needs to drop it.