Some anti-vax people I know personally are my boss, 2 of the office trolls, the guy in the garage, the stinky guy who sits next to me, my friend's mom, etc etc. People are fucking stupid yo.
this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2025
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It's a difficult problem to sum up because there are so many reasons this is happening, and I don't think it's all malicious.
At the core there is a general disrespect for any authority in American culture and it's easy to believe stories that a government-mandated medical intervention is somehow not as safe as they say.
It doesn't help that there have been government programs in the past that were harmful and the knowledge was only made public after it was too late. Very few people believe the government has the people's best interest in mind.
Individuals are only capable of understanding a very limited amount at one time, and rely on their tribe to inform them of almost everything else. These days there's a tsunami of information that is impossible to process completely. So it's just human nature to trust a small selection of sources and does usually offer a survival advantage.
So it's not hard to see how smart people can fall for misinformation especially when they are inclined to doubt authority.
Yes, People are stupid.
They rather believe one discredited doctor that lied because he had a vested financial interest in selling his own product over the competition, and a washed up worthless husk of a failed playboy model, over their own personal history of being vaccinated, their doctors assurances, and the global medical community insisting on them not only being safe, but urgently critical to have.
Americans are some of the most stupid, and most easily propagandized people on the planet. Especially conservative Americans.
Yes. There are people who believe it. I can't explain it, they have the education, they have the information, but for whatever reason they just want to believe a conspiracy theory instead.
gulps
do you really want to know?
Yes, absolutely, and this shit gets so much stupider it is mindblowing, dealing with anybody right of the center (and plenty of people all over the political spectrum) is a constant wild west duel where you have to decide in a snap whether someone believes their batshit crazy ideas as part of a straight faced shockingly amateur grift or whether honest to God that person would literally die for that stupid of a belief......
like..... Exhibit A: See how easily Elizabeth Holmes ripped off a huge number of the most powerful and revered people in US society, culturally and in terms of real power.
There are more than a few mentally defective folks that believe vaccines cause a variety of maladies.
anti vaxxing is a thing that real people really engage in, they are in fact, stupid. But it is unfortunately real, just look into the resurgence in measles outbreaks and TB and shit, that's why.
ur friend very well may be joking, but i can assure it's not a complete meme.
If this is the case, try to convince your friend to talk to their doctor about vaccinations. They may decide, for themselves, that they're comfortable with it.
If people were smart enough to listen to informed opinions, and listen to facts, they wouldnt have become antivax in the first place.
He is not joking and while it is most relevant in the United States it is not exclusive to us.
This is not limited to Americans. This site is dumb. Idiots everywhere are susceptible to misinformation.
Yes and it sucks.
The problem is there is a kernel of truth in it.
I had a nephew get vaxxed 25-30 years ago and it was a bad batch. He got autism. Now disabled for life his mother sued the state and won.
She had the choice of a payout or disability care for life for him. She chose the care because he needs it after she's gone.
Now cases like these are fuel for nutjobs to say vaccines today cause autism...
Get your shots people. Medicine saves life's and saves your baby's life. If your child dies due to you being an anti-vaxxer you should be charged for negligence.
Bad reactions to vaccines do exist, and can be severely disabling, but autism is not something that can be caused by vaccines. If your nephew is autistic, then this was not something that could be caused by a bad reaction to vaccines. It sounds like your nephew experienced a whole host of complicated issues relating to this vaccine though, and I can imagine how managing autism could be made more difficult through other disabling conditions.
Just wait until OP learns about us taking horse paste during covid
A neighbor told me that even though her now-adult children had no side effects if she could go back and decide to not vaccinate them instead, she would
You answered your question with the 4th word!
Mexican here. It's not as pronounced in my country but some people are a bit hesitant of vaccines because of the bullshit leaking out of the US. It's usually the least educated who are often more inclined to believe.
Having said that, we have a lot more believers in homeopathy, including plenty of healthcare professionals because it's been recognized by our Health Department. Because if it's recognized and popular, it's gotta be true, right? 🙃
Mostly the right-wing leaning Americans, who don't like anything that costs them money even if it contributes towards a better society. They say they hate Socialism in all its forms, but had absolutely no problem accepting stimulus handouts. They are the pure leeches of our country.
Left-wing leaning Americans tend to believe science even if it comes as a slight inconvenience to themselves, that includes things that sometimes cost them money.
This is an oversimplification. I have met plenty of people who are progressive or Democrat that believe some pretty wild things about vaccines and western medicine in general. Don't underestimate hippies.
Yeah, the whole thing first took hold in left-leaning crunchy all-natural circles.
Nah, the roots of anti-vax was conservative conspiracy nuts from the moment they were a thing.
It did spread to the granola types but it's older than their existence.
We are actually that stupid.
Yes. America is a joke.
Having lived next to them for my whole life; For Americans if it sounds too stupid to be true it’s probably true
Back in the 90s a British doctor called Andrew Wakefield was bribed by a pharmaceutical company that made separate vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella to come up with a study to discredit the combined mmr vaccine. He found a bunch of parents in an antivax society and twisted the results of a very weighted questionnaire to demonstrate a link between MMR and the 'tism. It was quickly discredited, but the damage was done. He was stripped of his medical licence after that.
There's a number of points this comment misses. First, it wasn't pharmaceutical companies, but moms group of autistic children that approached him.
[I]n 1995, while conducting research into Crohn's disease, he was approached by Rosemary Kessick, the parent of a child with autism, who was seeking help with her son's bowel problems and autism; Kessick ran a group called Allergy Induced Autism. In 1996, Wakefield turned his attention to researching possible connections between the MMR vaccine and autism.
And the time, he was still a well regarded scientist and doctor:
At the time of his MMR research study, Wakefield was senior lecturer and honorary consultant in experimental gastroenterology at the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine
This was also published in 1998 in The Lancet an important medical journal, but the controversy didn't start with this publication, but his press conference after the publication where he did advocate for single vaccines and not a combined MMR. Pretty poor form and highly criticized at the time.
The media took this and ran with it. It caused wide spread misinformation about autism and the MMR vaccine. But it was also a media outlet that began to tear apart the claims in 2004.
It wasn't retracted until 2010 and a full write up about what went wrong in the BMJ in 2011. There was a lot of criticism before then, but I was also highly cited as well.
There's a lot of lessons to be learned here and that is best done with the full story.
Don't forget Oprah Winfrey giving ~~Melissa~~ Jenny McCarthy a mouthpiece in front of every suburban mom in the US. We have her to thank for both that and "Dr" Phil.
If I recall correctly that was Jenny McCarthy, but correct otherwise (not looking to see Melissa McCarthy take the flak for that!). The amount of ugly pseudoscience and bullshit that has emerged through Oprah's platform is horrifying.
oh FFS I mixed up names, will fix it
It's crazy to think about the thousands of lost lives stemming from a single fraudulent study.
It makes me sad that the piece of shit Andrew Wakefield is still alive while so many better people than him have died for his bullshit.
They sure do. It's so dumb.
Even if it does(it doesn't), I would rather have autism than measles or pertussis, etc.
Our "leader" is an anti-democratic felon rapist who incited an insurrection and illegally attempted to overturn an election.
It's not a joke.
Americans are stupid as fuck.
You have to explain to them how vaccines work. I'm waiting for them to turn on antibiotics next. Soon we'll be shaking rattles and swallowing toads to cure diseases.
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It's a very real belief, lot of folks here weren't around to know the "before times" and nothing is ever real until it happens to them.
The real problem isn't the FO, it's the lack of empathy until it affects them personally.
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It's Poe's law- sometimes it's a joke, sometimes they're serious, and it's nearly impossible to determine which at any given time.
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