Why are so many people so irrationally opposed to vaccines?

Vaccines are created by smart, educated people, and the anti-vaxxers hate them because they're neither smart nor educated, and most importantly, don't want to be told what to do by smart, educated people... even when it saves their miserable lives.

R1 nails it. Thread closed.

I blame that dumb tramp, Jenny McCarthy

Robert Kennedy Jr

I've noticed that anti-vaxxers tend to be poorly educated and don't trust doctors or scientists but some crackpot puts a seven-minute video up on Facebook and all of a sudden it's Gospel. They're pretty idiotic.

Donald Trump

I asked this question because I came across a person on my social media feed who explains why he's anti-vaccinations. In reference to the polio vaccine he wrote:

[quote]The truth is in the data. Of course they've created narratives to support their claims & institutions. But the data tells a different story than what they present. All major diseases were on an epic downtrend before introduction of vaccines, due to advances in sanitation, heath, and general abundance/wellness. After introduction of vaccines heath has steadily declined, especially once they used government to falsely release industry from ANY repercussions or liabilities related to anything named "vaccine" Reagan & Congress did that dastardly deed, which has worsened each year since. The deal at the time was HHS would conduct regular studies on effectiveness & safety... we now know thanks to court ruling with RFK Jr that HHS & industry has never once done even a single such study, and the data, if you go look for yourself, shows why.

It sounds like junk science to me.

All the way back to the smallpox outbreak in Stockholm in the 1870s, it's been the same combination of issues that's caused anti vax sentiment: worries about religion and the belief that their freedoms and rights are being infringed upon. These worries are stoked by the media.

As big a proponent as I am of the mRNA vaccines, OP, I can tell you that there’s nothing simple about them. It’s cutting edge stuff. The FDA hasn’t even officially approved their usage. The fact of the matter is that by getting the Moderna vaccine, I became a volunteer guinea pig who joined one of the biggest experiments in world history. Do I regret it? No. But I won’t deny that there’s some truth in the apprehension behind vaccine hesitancy among normal people who are scared to get the shot.

Because they are dumb cunts

Some old order Mennonites are actually leaving Canada for Mexico and South America because they're afraid of restrictions for the unvaxxed. LMAO, bye, cunts. The thing is, all Canadians know that these freaks will be back the moment one of them becomes sick or pregnant. Wish they'd fuck off forever.

No, R9, the truth is that there is no silver bullet. No vaccine is 100% effective. No vaccine has zero side effects. No vaccine is safe for every single person who takes it.

However, they are safe [italic]enough[/italic] that the risks of adverse effects vastly outweighs the risks of not taking the vaccine.

Ask any vaccine-hesitant person if they refuse to get in a car, leave their house or get out of bed. If they say "why no, of course not" then tell them they're being an idiot because getting in a car or even just leaving their house is far more dangerous than taking a vaccine. Just look at the numbers.

There are only two certainties in life: death and taxes (although my husband would add plumbing problems to that list). Everything else is calculated risk.

I think one component is that the diseases that vaccines eradicated are going out of living memory. Only elderly people can remember polio and the fear it caused, for example. Most people alive today have never experienced these diseases that vaccines took care of.

If smallpox were still around I doubt there would be any anti-vaxxers. That was a horrific disease.

Well, thalidomide didn’t help. Then when everybody’s kids needed Ritalin and the next wave were autistic...parents are grappling with a lot of environmental and dietary factors, but vaccines and medication are elements that remain most out of their control rather than ‘do I allow this in my child’s body or not?’

The cause is many things: Trump, the Repigs, Fox News, stupidity, resentfulness, ignorance and not getting your news from legitimate news sources, meaning, some (or many) of the people you follow on Facebook and other unreliable websites are not reliable for actual news. Meanwhile, everyone at Fox and most Repig members of Congress are vaccinated. They are hypocrites and determined to spread lies.

Also, just because the Repigs and Fox have changed its tune the past couple of days about vaccines (Hannity, Carlson, Igraham), for the past year, they have not been advocating vaccines or placing their trust in science. They have done nothing but undermining Fauci and the Biden administration has said every step of the way.

The idiot Repig congressman from Louisiana, Steve Scalese, just got his first does of the vaccine yesterday!! Asshole. It's people like him who would rather put himself and his family, friends and supporters in danger than give in to the science. He would rather undermine the Democrats and the scientific community than keep himself safe. He also wants to remain in the good graces of asshole criminal Trump who took the vaccine in January--and Scalese just got his first dose yesterday!!

They're not. It's just the equivalent of wearing a red MAGA hat.

From Day 1 Trump scoffed at Covid-19. He immediately saw it as a threat to his re-election, and decided to ignore it. Then he bungled it over and over. Then when he saw Joe wasn't so sleepy, he knew he had to start the rallies again. And no way was he wearing a mask during his standup routines.

And his followers copied him. Even after he got it himself.

I really don't think most of them know he was vaccinated in January- he never talks about it and they don't listen to the media (per his instructions). And he continues to go maskless.

Trump and Covid will forever be entwined, as they should be. Til death do they part.

They think they're being totally rational

trump made it political