Since you’re professional dealings with many of them, did you pick up any patterns among them? Is it random or are there good (if imperfect) predictors of whether or not someone is anti-vaxx?
It’s not a straight right-left issue. On the one side you’ve got “nobody’s gonna tell me what to do” righties. And on the other side you’ve got nature-harmony lefties.
And Trump did in fact throw support to the anti-vax side.
After all some people have told him …
Yeah the “some people” was of the D side, but not of real power while Trump to no small degree is the GOP now.
MichaelEMouse really no. At least not that I can determine. They’ve “heard things” or “researched” on the internet or “know someone who” had some bad thing happen soon after they were immunized. Fewer out and out refusers in recent years and more doing stupid alternative schedules that delay protection based on an idiotic recommendation out there by someone who actually even has an MD.
From what I’ve observed, anti-vaxxers are slightly more likely to be conservative, however, there are also a considerable number of anti-vaxxers who are the anti-GMO, green, hippie type as well. And then there are anti-vaxxers who simply are Moon landing and Nevada-aliens-in-hangars or Flat-Earther types - people who aren’t so much liberal or conservative as they are simply deniers of reality.
I do think **MichaelEMouse **is on to something about the gender divide. Overwhelmingly, it seems that anti-vaxxers are women and not men.
Though, to be fair, what goes into actual party platform is notoriously more extreme than anything the rank and file believe. There’s a long and storied tradition (on both sides) of letting the loonies put crazy stuff in the platform and then ignoring it.
Political parties play to their bases. While anti-vaxxers tend to be liberal, as demonstrated in this PBS Frontline episode, the pro-science majority of Democrats would oppose anti-vaxx candidates. The Republicans opposed to vaccination for reasons of woo, government distrust, or religion may be few, but throwing them a bone wrapped in extreme rhetoric, and they’ll turn out in droves. Most Republicans are more committed to the right’s agenda as a whole than to the greater good.
That is an extreme position. Not likely to gain a foothold in any party.
Now you’re just fuckin with us.
To be even more fair, though, the head of the Republican Party, the President of the United States, has made some anti-vax statements. While he hasn’t gone full anti-vax lately, stretching out the vaccine schedule is anti-science bullshit and plays into the hands of anti-vaxxers.
And, this: https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/449525268529815552?lang=en
So, actually, he is pretty anti-vax.
I’m pro-nuclear power myself, but resistance to that is nowhere near as anti-science as global warming denial, anti-vax, or anti-evolution positions. There really are health and safety concerns with nuclear power (which, of course, can be addressed and contained).
There really is no comparison between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to anti-science positions. And, I don’t think the Dems have put anti-nuke into their actual position statements (although I haven’t researched it much).
The left has its share of kooks and crazies. So does the right. But, I just don’t see the parties as being as equally kooky and crazy, especially when it comes to science issues.
MichaelEMouse, the 19th century called; it wants its misogyny back. But what would I know, I’m just an emotional woman with a pretty little head. :rolleyes:
I never said that all or even most women are like that.
Note the part where I specifically say that some flaws are more likely to be found in men. Do you agree that there are flaws or cognitive biases more commonly found in men? If so, could there not be some flaws more commonly found in women, for example those related to anxiety and overprotectiveness? It doesn’t need to be most women who are like that to end up with a disproportionate number of women in the anti-vaxx movement.
If you have alternative explanations for why the anti-vaxx movement is mainly female than the ones I named, I’d like to hear. I thought it was pertinent in a discussion of party position on vaccinations because women tend to vote Democrat and men Republican and that may explain part of the association between Dems and the anti-vaxx movement.
At least there’s something on which we can agree on an individual basis.
One, not so sure it is. Leadership isn’t anyway.
Two, it’s mostly parents out there advocating for and against immunizations and more who say yes than no, but more of both who are women than men. Pro-vaxx is mostly women too. This is our society and the role expectations. Women take on the main decision making role for the family (and not just for the kids, but for their partners as well) and men fairly commonly defer. So women will be over-represented among those saying no … and among those saying yes.
The role bit can be silly. Years back a couple came in with their baby for maybe a six month check. Dad was the stay at home and mom was high powered working long hours. She still insisted on being the one to ask and answer the questions even if she had to ask Dad for the information. He, the one who was most familiar with how the kid ate, napped, pooped, and played, sat quietly feeding her information as she requested it from him so she could be “the mother” running the child’s show. Still today Dads fairly commonly defer.
Sorry to interrupt your incorrect gender assumptions, but this says that 56% of men and 44% of women are anti-vax:
Also, just to shut my own mouth, 60% self-describe as liberal (although in my defense, the article also says that “Republicans have been more open to legitimizing the positions of people who distrust vaccines…”).
So, it’s probably fair to say that anti-vaxxers tend (>50%) to be liberals supported by Republicans, as weird as that seems.
Thanks you for the correction. I presumed the anti-vaxx movement was mainly composed of mothers of young children, which would put most in-between 25 and 40, who tend to heavily skew Democrat. I see that’s not the case, thanks for the data.
You’re welcome! 
As Felix Unger said, when you assume… uh, something about peppy and bursting with love. I may be confused on that point.
I am quite surprised that a group whose average member is (quoting the link): “A middle age, Midwestern man with high-school diploma, low income and a tendency not to think his vote matters much” would self-describe as liberal at a rate of 60%.
Maybe we can make a distinction between people who are specifically anti-vaxx vs people who are suspicious of nearly everything, vaccines only being a small part of it. The former are likely to be identified as part of the anti-vaxx movement and actively support it whereas the latter may just be seen as a grouchy curmudgeon who just doesn’t get vaccinated and is largely not heard from on that topic unless you specifically ask him.
While I appreciate your fighting back against that nonsense, a quick flip for the stats: it’s not that 56% of men are anti-vax, it’s that 56% of anti-vaxxers are men. (I did a double-take when I saw what you’d written and went to the article to check). Important difference! 
Michael, if you can’t see the sexism in this passage you wrote, I dunno what to tell you:
Huh. Following your link, it contains links to those other studies. The Fordham University study says:
The Yale study abstract doesn’t contain a statement.
The University of Idaho study abstract says this:
The CDC data is really long, so I searched for “political,” “ideology,” “liberal,” “conservative,” “Republican,” and “Democrat”. None of those terms appeared in that data.