Anti-vaccine parents are often college-educated and shop at Whole Foods

[Illusions]

College education doesn't mean much when the field of study is in a different field from medicine. What's worrying is that in college, you should be taught about using proof and citations for your work, so when they only bring forward faulty research papers that have been disproved, it shows flaws in that country's education system.

Also, we should distinguish parents who don't vaccinate from anti-vaxxers. There can be very real reasons why one doesn't vaccinate their children, and it's not just 'big pharma bad!!!!!!' - the horrific story from the first page is one of the parents who I'd say has a real reason to be distrustful. Children who have compromised immune systems can't be vaccinated either, and yet their parents will still get swept with the antivaxx brush.

However, most of the stories come from US (while it's a big problem in EU as well), where the big pharma is doing shady stuff, some medicine in the US is super pricy and whatnot while costing pennies in the EU. Epipen drama, for example. I wouldn't say being distrustful of that is necessarily a bad thing, just with vaccines, one should still opt to vaccinate.

[Daedius]

Trending echo chambers with an ever expanding group of stupid peers to fortify their beliefs.

[DKjaigen]

I used to be anti-vax, but I'm in the minority in that my 3rd child died of acute interstitial pneumonia due to a reaction to the pneumonia vaccine she'd had two days earlier. My daughter was unable to breast feed and we specifically asked the doc if we should postpone the vaccines for a few weeks to allow her immune system to develop more fully since she didn't have her mother's antibodies from the breast milk. Doc said no, it was imperative we stick to the schedule.

Her death wasn't peaceful.

When trust has broken, it's not anti-intellectual to look at self-preservation.

Society embraced science when there was rigor and discipline. Being a scientist was considered a calling more than a profession. Now, medicine is purely for profit. There have been so many failures that it's easy to lose trust and want to withdraw from that system.

And there's no accountability. The vaccine industry is immune from liability.

I'm not anti-vax now, but it sure as hell wasn't narcissism that led me to be that for a time.

What many pediatricians seem to want to say is that, "it's a one in a million chance anything happens. If your child dies as a result, well, that's the cost society pays to avoid many more deaths" Empirically, that may be true.

However, society doesn't pay that cost, it's individual families. And there are no resources to even help with funeral expenses or to acknowledge anything happened because there's so much money in them that no pediatrician is gonna get on the bad side of the vaccine industry... even in the event of the death of a child. The industry doesn't want to improve, they want to preserve their profit margins.

I only post this because there legit are those who think that vaccines cause ZERO damage or deaths and thus, anyone not getting them is selfish.

Around my mic on my desk is the bracelet my daughter wore home from the hospital with her name spelled out in beads. I look at it EVERY DAY.

Again, I'm not anti-vax. But, there are legit issues with the vaccine industry that no one IN the industry wants to address, not lack of independent testing, not lack of true oversight, not the immunity from liability...none of it.

People are just told they have to do it no matter the cost.

If you've never been a parent, you can't know how unsettling it is. Especially because in the rare instance it goes wrong, it doesn't go mildly wrong...it goes way wrong...or even all the way wrong.

All that to say... it's more complicated than anything you imagine.

Sorry for your loss but if you dont vaccinate your children your not only endangering your own children but others as well. Herd immunity is a thing look it up. 100 years ago the Spanish flu killed tens of millions of people. We cannot take the risk even its not 100% perfect.

[Xath]

In what fantasy world does getting ripped off at whole foods make someone intelligent?

[Lochton]

https://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-w...UEAyMCuJrp0mN4

It is sad seeing our best and brightest holding onto anti intellectual viewpoints. Where did we go wrong as an society? How can we restore trust in science and technology?

I think the anti vax ideology is a form of narcissism.

Being an anti-vaxxer is a token of social suicide. They should be excluded for the safety of society.

[Katchii]

College educated and shopping at Whole Foods doesn't mean they're smart. WTF kind of evidence or correlation is that?

[Independent voter]

What happened is a researcher linking vaccines to autism and he got his study published in a prestigious science journal.

After that, he wrote a book about it.

Thing is, he pretty much faked his study and the results, linking vaccines to autism, are bogus.

I don't blame the parents. As a parent myself, you'd do anything to protect your kids.

The scientific community needs to police itself more rigorously.

[Kumorii]

Anti - vaxx is an extreme part of the "natural" and "organic" movement. Highly educated doesn't mean doing research or checking up on everything they come across. Plenty of people fell for the "its natural therefor good" which just expanded into anti vaxx and other crazy ideas.

[Etoo]

If they shop at Whole Foods and pay those prices, we already know their decision making skills are sub-par.

[xindralol]

What happened is a researcher linking vaccines to autism and he got his study published in a prestigious science journal.

After that, he wrote a book about it.

Thing is, he pretty much faked his study and the results, linking vaccines to autism, are bogus.

I don't blame the parents. As a parent myself, you'd do anything to protect your kids.

The scientific community needs to police itself more rigorously.

Wakefield? Didn't he lose his license?
Ironically even if his outlandish claims were true it would still be beneficial to continue using the MMR vaccine.

[breadisfunny]

If they shop at Whole Foods and pay those prices, we already know their decision making skills are sub-par.

whats wrong with whole foods? we don't have one in my area.

[Skulltaker]

https://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-w...UEAyMCuJrp0mN4

It is sad seeing our best and brightest holding onto anti intellectual viewpoints. Where did we go wrong as an society? How can we restore trust in science and technology?

I think the anti vax ideology is a form of narcissism.

Just because you hold a degree doesn't mean you're in any way among the best or brightest.

[Vash The Stampede]

I like that college education and shopping at Whole Foods should identify something about ones intelligence. Especially Whole Foods like that's where the smart people go for bread. The idiots get their bread at Walmart. That's like saying a serial killer likes to play Doom and I like to play Doom, so therefore I like to kill people. Doesn't work that way.

[Alvito]

It is sad seeing our best and brightest holding onto anti intellectual viewpoints.

They can't be out best and brightest and also as you put it hold anti intellectual viewpoints. The Whole Foods addition doesn't mean shit for the story, as far as being college educated, that on it's own isn't very impressive. Many people are college educated, I knew some real fucking idiots when I was in school it is easy as shit to get into most colleges and at that point you really just need to pay your bills and show up to class and you are probably going to make your way through.

[Mackeyser]

The vaccine industry is not immune from consequences though and no one in the medical field is unaware that every single thing you do comes with a risk. The issue with anti vaxxers is that is is mostly, with a few exceptions, a self vs collective issue. The risks for the self are tiny and the benefits for the collective are huge.

As for child mortality due to vaccines it does indeed happen but of course it is, as I am sure you know, extremely rare. Compared to child mortality pre vaccines it is an almost non existing number even if it must feel very differently for the one in a million that it happens to. The thing that the doctors do not tell us very often is that vaccines are not all that effective if you look at them case by case and person by person. We need that herd immunity for them to work and an anti vaxxer is putting your child at risk even if your child is vaccinated.

Well, I lost my response because MMO-Champion seems to be back to expecting Twitter length responses. God forbid anyone be thoughtful and take a moment to post something...

Anyway, I'll Strunk and White it.

There's no accountability...for anything...in the vaccine industry.

The Vaccine Court is a joke.

Extremely rare doesn't mean fuck all when it's YOUR child you're putting in the ground.

I'm not anti-vaccine. If I didn't have a bad reaction to the flu vaccine, I'd take that. Took it 3 times, even as I got pneumonia all 3 times. Can't risk any more pneumonia.

I do hate the vaccine industry, more specifically, the Pharma execs who hold the nation ransom and are perfectly content to accept the death of other's children as a cost of them doing business... except there is no cost because they're immune from liability.

[Najnaj]

Well, I lost my response because MMO-Champion seems to be back to expecting Twitter length responses. God forbid anyone be thoughtful and take a moment to post something...

Anyway, I'll Strunk and White it.

There's no accountability...for anything...in the vaccine industry.

The Vaccine Court is a joke.

Extremely rare doesn't mean fuck all when it's YOUR child you're putting in the ground.

I'm not anti-vaccine. If I didn't have a bad reaction to the flu vaccine, I'd take that. Took it 3 times, even as I got pneumonia all 3 times. Can't risk any more pneumonia.

I do hate the vaccine industry, more specifically, the Pharma execs who hold the nation ransom and are perfectly content to accept the death of other's children as a cost of them doing business... except there is no cost because they're immune from liability.

YOu can not get pneumonia from flu vaccine.

[ellieg]

Does it list what their college degrees are? College educated does not mean intelligent anymore. Could mean mommy and daddy paid for some really expensive daycare so their child could get a useless piece of paper in dance therapy.

[unbound]

https://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-w...UEAyMCuJrp0mN4

It is sad seeing our best and brightest holding onto anti intellectual viewpoints. Where did we go wrong as an society? How can we restore trust in science and technology?

I think the anti vax ideology is a form of narcissism.

Education does not equal intelligence. Education merely elevates their base abilities. So an utter moron becomes merely a moron, an average person can become a valued member of society, and the gifted can exceed what they thought their limits were.

Sometimes people open their minds so much that their brains fall out. It's still better than the closed minded fools who think they understand things that they clearly don't.

In the case of the anti-vax movement, you had people who were too open to new ideas, but lacked critical thinking skills to properly question this notion initially. This was exploited by a doctor looking to move his vaccines (for the money) over existing vaccines...but it took off beyond even his control and morphed into the stupid we see today that is utterly immune to reasoning and fact.

Again, education does not equal intelligence. The anti-vax movement demonstrates this quite well.

[CrittenMitten]

https://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-w...UEAyMCuJrp0mN4

It is sad seeing our best and brightest holding onto anti intellectual viewpoints. Where did we go wrong as an society? How can we restore trust in science and technology?

I think the anti vax ideology is a form of narcissism.

I don't understand why the majority of gullible people still believe that graduating from college suddenly makes one an 'intellectual' and a morally good person.

[Molis]

Thank you anti-vaxxers for not allowing Timmy to get his Chemo treatments or Stacy to get her liver transplant because you have totally fucked up the herd immunity.

This is one thing California has gotten right in our school system.