01-30-2019, 02:05 AM
Acer wrote:
I agree with testcase. Anti-vax is not racist elitism. It's ill-informed stupidity.
It's all of the above, and more.
Anti-vaxxers are nearly always white, affluent, well-educated parents. You do not find clusters of poor minority parents letting their kids go without vaccines. Those people would expect to be punished for doing that.
Anti-vaxxers know their children are protected by herd immunity and by previous efforts to eradicate diseases. But getting shots is for other people; they want their kids to be "pure" and they live in such privilege bubbles that they don't accept responsibility for how their behavior endangers not only their own child but society in general.
You might think this crowd is mostly crunchy granola ultra left types, but there are just as many Republican anti-vaxxers as Democrats - it's not really a political thing.
I am all for continued research into the safety of vaccines, of course. But some things we know for sure: if this trend of not vaccinating children continues, people will suffer and die unnecessarily.
Here's a good article on who they are and why they reject the core advice of pediatricians and public health officials:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/who-a...ti-vaxxers
"The biggest camp by far are the highly educated, mainstream upper-class people who don't reject modern medicine, who go to the doctor, but have gotten on this theme of distrust of the information that's being provided by doctors about vaccines," Sawyer said.