only tangentially related, but I have observed some protest more to injections than other forms of medication due to what I can only conclude is the squick factor. it comes up more in conversations with cis folks about HRT, like people feeling that taking oral estradiol is OK but being a lot more resistant to injections. they’re functionally the same thing but needles are more associated with scarier clinical interventions or drugs and that’s what it ends up being compared to. just speculating but I wouldn’t be surprised if the same “needle = artificial/dangerous” association is made among the antivax crowd.
As somebody who doesn’t like needles, I resent the implication.
Antivaxers are antivaxers because they’re stupid. Whether or not they hate needles is irrelevant.
only tangentially related, but I have observed some protest more to injections than other forms of medication due to what I can only conclude is the squick factor. it comes up more in conversations with cis folks about HRT, like people feeling that taking oral estradiol is OK but being a lot more resistant to injections. they’re functionally the same thing but needles are more associated with scarier clinical interventions or drugs and that’s what it ends up being compared to. just speculating but I wouldn’t be surprised if the same “needle = artificial/dangerous” association is made among the antivax crowd.
“Scared of needles” is a funny dig a fourth-grader would understand ( :( )