Public sentiment on the importance of safe, lifesaving childhood vaccines has significantly declined in the US since the pandemic—which appears to be solely due to a nosedive in support from people who are Republican or those who lean Republican, according to new polling data from Gallup.
In 2019, 52 percent of Republican-aligned Americans said it was “extremely important” for parents to get their children vaccinated. Now, that figure is 26 percent, falling by half in just five years. In comparison, 63 percent of Democrats and Democratic leaners said it was “extremely important” this year, down slightly from 67 percent in 2019.
Vaccines shouldn’t be political. What is wrong with some Republicans?
They figured out how to weaponize science-illiteracy like many authoritarians before them.
It’s not always political, but it’s always stupidity, and stupidity is worse on one side than the other.
You know, like facts having a liberal bias.deleted by creator
It’s part of “don’t trust gubment”.
Nah, they might repeat that as a talking point but they’re down with fascism, just like they’ll bitch and moan about the pharmaceutical companies having a profit motive to lie without wanting to remove the profit motive from healthcare.
They’re just liars and hypocrites who want their team, Team Racists and Bigots, to have total control and never forget it.
My theory is that it’s a combination of lead poisoning from going to NASCAR races (which still used leaded gas until 2007 or so) and right wing media indoctrination, mainly Fox News.
My theory is that it’s a combination of lead poisoning from going to NASCAR races (which still used leaded gas until 2007 or so) and right wing media indoctrination, mainlyFox News.FTFY
Total embrace of the paranoid style of politics.
A couple decades ago, these people would be ranting about how the reds are adding fluoride to the water to make American patriots infertile.
Previously, the paranoid style was less prominent. By acquiring control of large sectors of the media, a strategically important asset, they have widely propagated conspiratorial thinking at a scale that has never been seen before in the USA.
It’s the group with the least information. They’re morons.
These idiots are not only harming themselves and their children, they’re harming and sometimes killing others who are medically prevented from receiving vaccinations. These scumbags are literally spreading disease.
Plague rats.
Actually it’s worse than that, if you have enough unvaccinated people in an area you’ll increase the viral load received by the local population. Vaccines raise immunity significantly, but don’t make you fully immune. If you experience enough of a viral load despite being vaccinated you can still get sick. This is how outbreaks occur and why we’re seeing them in low vaccination communities. These viruses then spreads to others that shouldn’t normally get the virus. So in short it harms everyone including those vaccinated.
Every time I see some of my relatives, I make sure I bring up “oh, by the way shouldn’t I be dead now? You made a pretty big fuss about how everyone who was vaccinated [would] be dead within a year”
It’s always met with eye rolls and silence.
Ha ha! Love this!
That number is… eerily close to the percentage population estimated to be hardcore unshakeable Trumpers.
My dad contracted polio as a teen a year before the vaccine came out in our home country. Fuck people who think vaccines are dangerous. Ask my dad how well his legs work.
Same, but my mother.
Vaccines are dangerous.
The probability of vaccines progressing from phase 2 to licensure within 10 years was 10.0%The probability of vaccines passing phase 1 is between 63.3% and 82.5%
Licenced vaccines are safe.
31% of Republicans so stupid their genes should be prevented from being passed down
I suppose it’s good news that this belief hurts them the most, but it’s also a public health problem.
Yeah, their children will be wracked with disease complications and the whole country will be on the hook to help care for them.
Even worse, it forms a reservoir of disease that the most vulnerable of the population, those who have not/cannot be vaccinated, will suffer tremendously from.
Wait until tetanus starts being a real issue again. It’s actually pretty scary shit. In advanced stages it can make your muscles contract and spasm so hard your bones can fracture.
At least tetanus isn’t really person-to-person transmissible
That’s true, but I figure it’s common enough and an entirely preventable illness.
It’s one of those examples of the vaccine working so well that the population completely forgot how bad it can be and that it’s a very slow and terrible way to die.Yeah, my only point was more that at least the antivaxxers will only be hurting themselves and (unfortunately) their children, not risking other people like with covid
I sincerely hope that 31% of Republicans contract Polio. Then maybe they’ll shut the fuck up
If we had a way to quarantine them all together so they can’t infect their unvaccinated kids, or anyone else who didn’t ask to participate in their bullshit, I’d be fully on board. Unfortunately, we saw what those dipshits did with COVID.
Ahh, yes, if only the iron lung encapsulated the head of ® to shut them up.
This is gonna be the real maga legacy. A generation of kids that have to deal with the consequences of horrific, preventable, disease
Recently at a doctors visit, this came up. We were discussing the use of AI to design vaccines. Doctor said that it didn’t make any difference because people like his staff nurses wouldn’t take a vaccine in any case. I was shocked. So, he opened the door and asked his nurses. Sure enough, not one nof them would take a new vaccine. I still can’t believe it.
Lockdown taught me that most nurses receive an inadequate education. There were big antivax nursing groups 3 years ago.
My mother has worked in healthcare most of her life and it’s always blown my mind how many people she’s worked with are anti-vax.
Well, to be fair, recently released vaccines are fairly untested, but it’s mostly fine, so I wouldn’t worry about it too much.
I suppose this falsehood started with the Covid 19 Vaccine. In early January 2020, labs received the first computerized model of the Covid virus. Due to the current level of science, and smart people, the vaccine was finished in six days. The rest of the year was taken in testing for FDA approval until it was made publicly available in December of 2020. It was well tested.
Well yes, but there was some complications with Jansen and AstraZeneca vaccines: Wikipedia:Jansen(Adverse effects) and Wikipedia: Embolic and thrombotic events after COVID 19 vaccination
There are known complications with flu shots too. In the end you have to answer the question for yourself. Are you going to chance complications and get a polio shot. Or are you going to sit in a wheelchair for the rest of your life? I think you’ll find that the FDA judged these to be minimal probabilities.
I am vaccinated against the coronavirus, but for flu, it’s just too much work.
Flu is just a pain in the ass. Until you get older.
There’s this constant 30-35% of America. Get better lower third god damn.
15-20%, since less than half of the US votes republican.
Considering the number of unregistered and independent voters… Very well could be less than that.
In comparison, 63 percent of Democrats and Democratic leaners said it was “extremely important” this year, down slightly from 67 percent in 2019.
Well, that’s disappointing. As someone who has spend many years in Europe, it’s no wonder the rest of the developed world sees the US as dumb as a bag of rocks. It’s just an unreal circus looking from the outside.
We’ve seen a bonanza of quack medicine in the US over the last few decades. Homeopathy, chiropractory, ivermectin, gay conversion therapy, MyPillow, sci-fi style medbeds… All this shit getting pushed hard by con-artists who suffer little to no pushback and reap enormous financial returns from a gullible audience. And that sets off a vicious cycle of more nefarious advertisements, more hoaxes, more political enablement, and more people lured to their deaths for the profit of others.
Americans aren’t simply stupid by their nature. They’re deliberately and systematically misinformed over entire lifetimes by a well-financed propaganda machine.
The anti-vaccine movement is easily the biggest tragedy of our time. The consequences have not yet hit in earnest.
I don’t find that particularly surprising considering that this demographic votes Republican.
Great and terrible example of the power that the right wing media bubble has on people and the damage it can cause. This isn’t a political issue or a matter of opinion. This is objective and scientific, with extensive real world evidence of vaccines eradicating contagious diseases.
Vaccines are perhaps the single greatest public health breakthrough next to basic sanitation. People have been convinced of an objective, scientific falsehood that puts their own children and the public at large at risk of disease and death. This is brainwashing, full stop.
Antivaxxers existed before COVID, but they were the fringe. It’s now a mainstream Republican belief manufactured out of thin air because COVID was bad for Trump politically and any improvement in the pandemic post-election was good for Biden. The stark partisan split proves it.
