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Modern day televangelists Kenneth and Gloria Copeland have been scamming their followers for decades, amassing an estimated $760 million fortune in donations from their flock. Like Jesus, they live a humble, meager life:
Kenneth Copeland Ministries operates on a 1,500-acre campus near Fort Worth, TX, equipped with a church, a private airstrip, and a hangar for the ministry’s $17.5 million jet and other aircraft. Copeland resides with his wife Gloria in a $6 million church-owned lakefront mansion.
In 2013, Kenneth Copeland bragged about raking in more than $1 billion tax free since the inception of the ministry. Also in 2013, there was a measles outbreak in north Texas, an outbreak that was traced back to the Copeland’s church, where they’d advised their followers against vaccinations. From NPR:
There, 21 people — the majority of whom have not been immunized — have gotten the disease, which began at a vaccine-skeptical megachurch.
The outbreak began when a man who contracted the virus on a recent trip to Indonesia visited the Eagle Mountain International Church in Newark, about an hour and a half northwest of Dallas.
Earlier this week, crowds flooded in for regular services. Rose Mwangi had her Bible in hand and said she's not worried "because I know Jesus is a healer, so I know he's covered us with the blood...There's no place for fear."
And now the Copelands are at it again. This time Gloria Copeland incorrectly told her audience there is no flu season, no need to get a flu shot.
From Right Wing Watch:
“Listen, partners, we don’t have a flu season,” Gloria Copeland said. “And don’t receive it when somebody threatens you with, ‘Everybody is getting the flu.’ We’ve already had our shot, He bore our sicknesses and carried our diseases. That’s what we stand on.”
Praying for those who may already have the flu, Copeland proclaimed, “Flu, I bind you off the people in the name of Jesus. Jesus himself gave us the flu shot, He redeemed us from the curse of flu.” Those who don’t have the flu, she promised, can protect themselves by simply declaring, “I’ll never have the flu.”
WRONG. Why would the Copeland’s give people advice not to get vaccinated? Are they listed in the last will and testament of their followers? People, get the flu shot. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 53 children have already died from the flu in the U.S. this year. From Popular Science:
Right now, we know of 53 children who have died from the flu so far. Dan Jernigan, Director of the Influenza Division at the CDC, says the total deaths have ranged from 37 to 171 during normal flu seasons. “The highest was during the 2009 pandemic, where 358 pediatric death were reported,” he says. As for this year, he explains that “only around 20 percent of these pediatric deaths had been vaccinated, and half of these children were otherwise healthy.” Just two of those deaths were babies 0-5 months old, which is too young to get the flu shot.
Seniors over the age of 65 are the largest group to face hospitalization and it isn't even close:
Complicating matters even more, guess where majority of saline IV bags are made? Puerto Rico. From Vox:
Making matters worse, there’s also an ongoing shortage of saline IV bags to treat the throngs of people who are going to the hospital. That’s because this year’s flu onslaught followed Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, where nearly half of the IV bags used in America’s hospitals are made. The hurricane disrupted production, and that coincided with an increased demand for saline because of flu — so hospitals and the Food and Drug Administration are scrambling to address the shortage.
Folks, do yourself, your neighbors, you family and friends a favor: get the flu shot and wash, wash, wash your hands.