Grifters, cynics, and true believers: The family tree of vaccine opponents

A new book looks into the long history of people who have opposed vaccines.

See full article...

 

[TheColinous]

Cynicism is a mental trap. It teaches that nothing can be done to right a wrong. It teaches that if you sit in a cage sinking into shit, you drowning in shit is inevitable. Breaking the cage, wading onto dry land, is pointless – don’t even try. Why waste the effort on some futile effort? Accept your face, sink into the shit and don’t moan about it.

Break the cage. You'll get shit on your clothes, but it can be washed off. And make a law that say that denying children vaccines - without a valid medical reason! - amounts to aggravated child abuse with a prison sentence of between 4-10 years.

 

[pokrface]

Going to buy this and send it to my mom, who has fallen deeply into the anti-vax lunacy pit. It probably won't help, but it can't make things any worse, either.

 

[BS Detector]

This a situation where “But think of the children!” really applies…in a good sense.

 

[mcswell]

“In the US from 2021 onward,” Levenson writes, “being a Republican has become a measurable risk factor for illness and death.” I would think that would apply more to the children of Republicans, no? Since (as the article suggests) a main effect of childhood vaccination has been a huge reduction in childhood death from communicable disease.
Of course the 2021 date implies that this includes Covid-19 deaths, which primarily affected the elderly, so maybe that's what Levenson is saying.

 

[myqhzc]

typo :

The argument that it would ignores most of human history and what we know about microbiology and immunology.

 

[NoSkill]

“being a Republican has become a measurable risk factor for illness and death.” I would think that would apply more to the children of Republicans, no?

The children of Republicans are Republicans. "How thoughtful of God to arrange matters so that, wherever you happen to be born, the local religion cult always turns out to be the true one" - Richard Dawkins

Obviously I don't mean this statistically, or apply it cruelly. Most children of Republicans tend to be indoctrinated at birth and are not given safe options to discover political reality.

 

[Doubter]

kids [will be] needlessly be sickened [...] and die

And this is where it gets real, and where my sympathies for those who have been badly informed, or bullied, into anti-vax positions are sorely tried.
People have died; people will die. Often the most vulnerable. Which makes the lies of the grifters who know better murderously repulsive.

 

[shodanbo]

I am a Republican. Perhaps more accurately I tend to be conservative in my political positions.

I get vaccinated. My parents got me vaccinated when I was a child. I understand the scientific basis behind vaccination and also that the data supports vaccination as improving health outcomes for humanity.

I don't vote for Republicans who push the antivaxx nonsense. While I would prefer some measure of choice for individuals around if and when to get vaccinated, I also understand that when public health and herd immunity are taken into account the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few,

It saddens me to see what has happened to the Republican party within the last 20 years. We have more important issues to attend to than rolling back human progress in fighting off preventable disease.

 

[J.King]

Cynicism is a mental trap. It teaches that nothing can be done to right a wrong. It teaches that if you sit in a cage sinking into shit, you drowning in shit is inevitable. Breaking the cage, wading onto dry land, is pointless – don’t even try. Why waste the effort on some futile effort? Accept your face, sink into the shit and don’t moan about it.

Break the cage. You'll get shit on your clothes, but it can be washed off. And make a law that say that denying children vaccines - without a valid medical reason! - amounts to aggravated child abuse with a prison sentence of between 4-10 years.

You need to shovel yourself out of the shit!

 

[laudunum]

I am a Republican. Perhaps more accurately I tend to be conservative in my political positions.

I don't vote for Republicans who push the antivaxx nonsense.

It saddens me to see what has happened to the Republican party within the last 20 years.

I kinda get it, but a bunch of people aren't going to let you off so lightly, precisely because you were perfectly aware of the long-standing attack on science that, while initiated by corporations, was picked up by the Republican party quite early on. Republicans were also happy to lament, and lambast, fundamentally progressive ideas about equality.

So, no, Republicans don't get to say "it's not my party any more." You helped it get there; you just didn't think about the end game.

Now we are all stuck in the Republican end game which, at this point, includes aggressive censorship (or takeovers) of media, the ripping out not only of regulations and regulators but also the scientific standards that undergird them, and the dismissal of almost any objective viewpoint when it doesn't "feel good."

 

[Cassius Kray]

One of my best friends is a (British) anti-vaxxer. He's very intelligent, but from a non-traditional background, and has an extreme suspicion both of governments and more broadly 'the establishment', and the concept of what he sees as 'injecting foreign objects' freaks him out. Sadly, appealing to science is more difficult these days due to the deluge of bad actors pushing convincing pseudoscience.

I also find it a difficult conversation at times because I completely believe that billionaires and the right-wing media - one form of 'the establishment' - wish to manipulate people for their own narcissistic ends (although through individual psychopathy & selfishness, not organised, shadowy cabals) and I occasionally find it difficult to explain why he should accept that one group of establishment figures can broadly be trusted while other groups can't.

 

[Repeater]

I don't vote for Republicans who push the antivaxx nonsense.

Genuine question: which Republican politicians have clean hands in this area? I ask because there’s “pushing” nonsense, and then there’s enabling and tolerating in service of other agendas.

 

[Cassius Kray]

“In the US from 2021 onward,” Levenson writes, “being a Republican has become a measurable risk factor for illness and death.” I would think that would apply more to the children of Republicans, no? Since (as the article suggests) a main effect of childhood vaccination has been a huge reduction in childhood death from communicable disease.
Of course the 2021 date implies that this includes Covid-19 deaths, which primarily affected the elderly, so maybe that's what Levenson is saying.

Republicans tend to be more anti-science and therefore less likely to follow established heath advice, which is why they are more likely to suffer from illness and death. The anti-vax angle is just one aspect of a wider problem.

 

[Jubs]

I don't vote for Republicans who push the antivaxx nonsense.

Which ones don’t “push for antivaxx nonsense”? Every single GOP senator besides Mitch McConnell voted to confirm RFK. The few dissenters who pushed back got primaried.

A vote for GOP is a vote for antivaxx nonsense.

 

[AusPeter]

I am a Republican. Perhaps more accurately I tend to be conservative in my political positions.

I get vaccinated. My parents got me vaccinated when I was a child. I understand the scientific basis behind vaccination and also that the data supports vaccination as improving health outcomes for humanity.

I don't vote for Republicans who push the antivaxx nonsense. While I would prefer some measure of choice for individuals around if and when to get vaccinated, I also understand that when public health and herd immunity are taken into account the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few,

It saddens me to see what has happened to the Republican party within the last 20 years. We have more important issues to attend to than rolling back human progress in fighting off preventable disease.

You may not have directly voted for people who were antivax, but your voting still enabled the destruction of things like the CDC

 

[plaidflannel]

... the concept of what he sees as 'injecting foreign objects' freaks him out. ...

Even though they are freaked out by that, I have frequently observed Republicans putting all kinds of foreign objects into their mouths and swallowing them, sometimes as often as three times a day. And I've even observed them igniting foreign objects and drawing all the foreign chemicals in the resulting smoke into their lungs. So I find it disingenuous when they complain about putting foreign objects into their bodies.

 

[courtneych]

Republicans tend to be more anti-science and therefore less likely to follow established heath advice, which is why they are more likely to suffer from illness and death. The anti-vax angle is just one aspect of a wider problem.

Which is why Republicans, like smokers, should be charged more for their health insurance — they are more likely to cost the insurance company money, and by trickle down of those costs, the other rate payers.

 

[Hypatia]

One of my best friends is a (British) anti-vaxxer. He's very intelligent, but from a non-traditional background, and has an extreme suspicion both of governments and more broadly 'the establishment', and the concept of what he sees as 'injecting foreign objects' freaks him out. Sadly, appealing to science is more difficult these days due to the deluge of bad actors pushing convincing pseudoscience.

I also find it a difficult conversation at times because I completely believe that billionaires and the right-wing media - one form of 'the establishment' - wish to manipulate people for their own narcissistic ends (although through individual psychopathy & selfishness, not organised, shadowy cabals) and I occasionally find it difficult to explain why he should accept that one group of establishment figures can broadly be trusted while other groups can't.

It is perhaps an uncomfortable truth for some people that much of our knowledge depends upon trust in one community or another. We each cannot become experts in everything.

Social epistemology thus becomes crucial, and even more so in a hyper-connected world. The ability to judge which groups to trust and how much…and when to withdraw that trust are some of the most important decisions we make every day. Some of this is done with logic and logic is necessary for critical thinking, but not sufficient for critical thinking.

This is one of the reasons that Trump and the Republicans are so dangerous: they poison the nature of community itself. Building a community based on obedience and granting/withdrawing trust based upon that unquestioning obedience is the antithesis of critical thinking and of the scientific mindset.

Scientific communities aren’t perfect because they are human communities. But there are self-correcting mechanisms in our communities that simply do not exist in MAGA land. That is one of the most important differences.

 

[Embattle]

Due to the very nature of what they often oppose, at some point, there should be a natural decrease in the number of opponents.

 

[Hypatia]

This doesn't jive with studies that "demonstrate that Republicans live longer than Democrats" and "up to 50.1% of all Republicans but only 36.3% of all Democrats reached an age of 80 years."

NIH paper: "Political Person-Culture Match and Longevity: The Partisanship-Mortality Link Depends on the Cultural Context"

What doesn’t jive? What specific claim are you making here?

 

[TheOldChevy]

Which is why Republicans, like smokers, should be charged more for their health insurance — they are more likely to cost the insurance company money, and by trickle down of those costs, the other rate payers.

They also die earlier, which can be financially an advantage.

 

[coopster]

I am a Republican. Perhaps more accurately I tend to be conservative in my political positions.

I get vaccinated. My parents got me vaccinated when I was a child. I understand the scientific basis behind vaccination and also that the data supports vaccination as improving health outcomes for humanity.

I don't vote for Republicans who push the antivaxx nonsense. While I would prefer some measure of choice for individuals around if and when to get vaccinated, I also understand that when public health and herd immunity are taken into account the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few,

It saddens me to see what has happened to the Republican party within the last 20 years. We have more important issues to attend to than rolling back human progress in fighting off preventable disease.

"While I TRY not to actively support this nonsense, I do everything possible to create and enable a support system for liars and cranks."

Cry me a river you hypocrite, put on your MAGA hat and roll around with the slime you vote for.

 

[Major Major]

What doesn’t jive? What specific claim are you making here?

Ignoring all the structural and economic inequalities in a country where access to healthcare is correlated with wealth while not so subtlety invoking the “getting sick means you sinned” fallacy. I think we all know the claim they’re making.

 

[Readercathead]

Even though they are freaked out by that, I have frequently observed Republicans putting all kinds of foreign objects into their mouths and swallowing them, sometimes as often as three times a day. And I've even observed them igniting foreign objects and drawing all the foreign chemicals in the resulting smoke into their lungs. So I find it disingenuous when they complain about putting foreign objects into their bodies.

Not to mention all the anti-vaxxers who also have obvious and visible tattoos. Now THERE are some unknown and untested substances that may very well contain impurities or even poisons.

 

[Major Major]

Ignoring all the structural and economic inequalities in a country where access to healthcare is correlated with wealth while not so subtlety invoking the “getting sick means you sinned” fallacy. I think we all know the claim they’re making.

Hey look at that, they selectively quoted the abstract of that paper to misrepresent what it actually says:

We examined whether these longevity benefits are universal or culturally varying. Following a person–culture match perspective, we hypothesized that Republicans’ longevity benefits occur in Republican, but not in Democratic, states.
…
In Republican contexts, up to 50.1% of all Republicans but only 36.3% of all Democrats reached an age of 80 years. In Democratic contexts, there was no such longevity gap. Robustness tests showed that this effect generalizes to political ideology and holds across spatial levels but is limited to persons with strong political convictions.”

I.e., the disparity only exists in red states. I wonder why that is…

 

[ARSBodger]

As the prescient Ron White proclaimed: "You Can't Fix Stupid". Stupid comes naturally and it takes effort to overcome. Unfortunately there is so much cultural inertia against making that effort that many will not even try and other will try but not succeed. If everyone surrounding you is stupid you can just blend in. And maybe start a political movement...

 

[marsilies]

“In the US from 2021 onward,” Levenson writes, “being a Republican has become a measurable risk factor for illness and death.” I would think that would apply more to the children of Republicans, no? Since (as the article suggests) a main effect of childhood vaccination has been a huge reduction in childhood death from communicable disease.
Of course the 2021 date implies that this includes Covid-19 deaths, which primarily affected the elderly, so maybe that's what Levenson is saying.

More critically, 2021 is when the COVID-19 vaccines became widely available (there was some limited availability to healthcare workers at the end of 2020), and Republicans broadly rejected it. Remember Trump having to backpedal on recommending the vaccine, the one he desperately wanted to take credit for, because he made his base so anti-science they rejected it?


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSLECVwKiYI


So that's why the start date is 2021, when the vaccines became widely available, vs 2020, when COVID-19 became a pandemic.

Also, there's been newer vaccines developed that adults and older people should take, and I bet less Republicans are taking those as well now. For example, the Shingles vaccine typically isn't administered until you're 50 years old (most insurance won't cover it until then), so if less Republicans are getting that vaccine, they would be at greater risk of getting Shingles

 

[Alfonse]

If everyone surrounding you is stupid you can just blend in.

This is where social media ecosystems really become toxic. Because "everyone surrounding you" is, in those spaces, determined by personal preferences and algorithms.

In the past, a single stupid person could be balanced out by being around less stupid people. One person with slight anti-vax leanings surrounded by people who oppose that cannot find community with others. As such, their leanings either become erased or silenced.

But with modern social media-driven echochambers, it's always trivial to find community with like minded people. And social media will sometimes just throw you into community with such people if its algorithms calculate that you'll be more engaged if you do. Your leanings get amplified, not extinguished.

 

[Madestjohn]

Due to the very nature of what they often oppose, at some point, there should be a natural decrease in the number of opponents.

.. subtle correction,
RFK jr and all his offspring are fully vaxed
As is Trump and all his offspring
As I suspect, but don’t know for sure, is the case for all of Trump’s cabinet

It was the case for Elon’s racist grandfather who wrote various conspiracy laden diatribes against vaccines and public health measures in general.

it’s important to note it the public part of public health they oppose not the private benefits
In their view good health, like education, is a privilege that should be preserved for the few that can afford it or the class who were born into it

 

[Snark218]

It is perhaps an uncomfortable truth for some people that much of our knowledge depends upon trust in one community or another. We each cannot become experts in everything.

Social epistemology thus becomes crucial, and even more so in a hyper-connected world. The ability to judge which groups to trust and how much…and when to withdraw that trust are some of the most important decisions we make every day. Some of this is done with logic and logic is necessary for critical thinking, but not sufficient for critical thinking.

This is one of the reasons that Trump and the Republicans are so dangerous: they poison the nature of community itself. Building a community based on obedience and granting/withdrawing trust based upon that unquestioning obedience is the antithesis of critical thinking and of the scientific mindset.

Scientific communities aren’t perfect because they are human communities. But there are self-correcting mechanisms in our communities that simply do not exist in MAGA land. That is one of the most important differences.

And this is the difference between people like us and the dipshit crank described in the post you’re responding to: a willingness to engage deeply enough with the topic to be able to differentiate between groups of people claiming expert authority, and to understand what makes their claims of greater or lesser reliability. Viewing all “authority” figures as an amorphous mass of elites you can vaguely resent and distrust equally is just lazy, stupid contrarianism.

 

[marsilies]

Due to the very nature of what they often oppose, at some point, there should be a natural decrease in the number of opponents.

That's assuming it's genetic, and even then, it's assuming that they're not outbreeding the mortality rates.

But anti-vax nonsense is something that can spread to people, like a viral disease itself, via fear, ideology, and misinformation. The best defense is a solid education, but the GOP is doing it's best to kill public education, while also trying to force their religion and ideology into it.

 

[The Lurker Beneath]

Hey look at that, they selectively quoted the abstract of that paper to misrepresent what it actually says:

I.e., the disparity only exists in red states. I wonder why that is…

Some have been enthusiastically predicting / declaring a disparity in the opposie direction.

Of course any of the results could still be entirely compatible with Republicans benefiting less from vaccines but more from other lifestyle differences.

 

[randomuser42]

Some have been enthusiastically predicting / declaring a disparity in the opposie direction.

Of course any of the results could still be entirely compatible with Republicans benefiting less from vaccines but more from other lifestyle differences.

Since we're all just taking turns reading one more line of the paper than the last, I'll just point out this is not a medical paper published in a medical journal, it's a psychology paper published in a psychology journal. Its focus is on "culture match" because it is pretty decently established that living in a community of like minded people and engaging in social activities is a pretty good contributor to a long life. It also ignores that I think a disproportionate number of Democrats in Southern states are minorities which is also a risk factor in illness and death. Again, it's a psychology article so math and stats are...ehh..

The real answer to the poster is this paper is from 2023 looking at people reaching 80 so will mostly not include the impacts of covid and the recent mainstreamimg of anti-vax sentiment, and the quoted person in this article very specifically notes that being Republican is a risk factor for illness and death since 2021. So you can take everything at face value in the paper and this article without any disagreement. It all jives.

 

[Zeppos]

The second is that now, arguments against vaccines tend to be touted by only one particular subgroup of people: Republicans. And that has come with predictable consequences. “In the US from 2021 onward,” Levenson writes, “being a Republican has become a measurable risk factor for illness and death.”

I know how to get Republicans vaccinated. Not getting vaccinated may reduce the amount of republican voters just a notch. Since every election, the difference between republicans and democrats is very small, this may lead to democrats winning forever.

Bet they would be queuing up for the vaccines if this gets on every billboard.

 

[Fatesrider]

“In the US from 2021 onward,” Levenson writes, “being a Republican has become a measurable risk factor for illness and death.” I would think that would apply more to the children of Republicans, no? Since (as the article suggests) a main effect of childhood vaccination has been a huge reduction in childhood death from communicable disease.
Of course the 2021 date implies that this includes Covid-19 deaths, which primarily affected the elderly, so maybe that's what Levenson is saying.

Kinda yes, but mostly no.

Those who don't vaccinate their kids end up sick more often.

And COVID is just one of the list of things that kill kids off more often. It disproportionately impacts the very young and the very old. For kids, though, it's not about mortality like it is for seniors and the elderly as it is the long-term impacts on them as they develop. Long COVID side effects that can happen even with a mild acute case can be debilitating over time, and that can be exacerbated with every exposure to COVID (which for kids will happen much more often over time than for Grandpa or Grandma).

So, no, it's going to hugely impact kids, but not so much on a single case as it can for an older adult. There's 1 death for a vaccinated adult over 55 out of every 10 unvaccinated adult deaths from COVID. Kids don't die as often, but the increased lifetime exposures will inevitably make life increasingly miserable as they get older, and they will PROBABLY die younger. That data hasn't had a lot of time to become apparent yet, but I expect it will in the future as our coexistence with COVID continues.

So, it will disproportionately detrimentally impact anyone who adheres to the current psychotic beliefs of the Republican party, young and old, compared to the young and old who adhere to modern medical advice. More deaths more often, more dying among the young and older dying younger, and a more miserable existence if it doesn't kill you first.

That's what the GOP is sowing, and they've begun to reap that grim harvest already.

 

[aapis]

Covid did us a favour by removing so many folks like this from the gene pool. Thanks, bats.