7mo ago

31% of Republicans say vaccines are more dangerous than diseases they prevent

arstechnica.com 31% of Republicans say vaccines are more dangerous than diseases they prevent

The partisan divide on vaccine falsehoods threatens the health of children nationwide.

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.

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Xatolos @reddthat.com

7mo ago

31% of Republicans say vaccines are more dangerous than diseases they prevent

arstechnica.com /science/2024/08/31-of-republicans-say-vaccines-are-more-dangerous-than-diseases-they-prevent/

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Health - Resources and discussion for everything health-related @lemmy.world

jeffw @lemmy.world

7mo ago

31% of Republicans say vaccines are more dangerous than diseases they prevent

arstechnica.com /science/2024/08/31-of-republicans-say-vaccines-are-more-dangerous-than-diseases-they-prevent/

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91 comments

Vaccines shouldn't be political. What is wrong with some Republicans?
- I can start but I think there's a character limit
  
  Better just list what isn't wrong with them, because it's a much shorter list.
  Here, I'll show it to you:
  1.
- 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.
- They're weird.
- 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, mainly~~ Fox 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.
- The "Keyes Constant" in action.
  
  I guess 20 years ago this was a scandal
  Another factor in Obama's favor at the time that Rogers didn't mention is that the original Republican candidate, Jack Ryan,[6] had been forced to suspend his candidacy after his divorce and custody records were released to the press, revealing that he had taken his former wife, actress Jeri Ryan,[7] to various sex clubs (including, in at least one case, a bondage club) and tried to have her perform sex acts on him out in the open.[8] Keyes was the GOP's last-minute replacement on the ticket after the sordid details of Ryan's divorce came out.

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.
  
  Vaccines are dangerous. The probability of vaccines progressing from phase 2 to licensure within 10 years was 10.0%.
  Your cited evidence does not support your claim of danger. Safety is demonstrated in phase 0. After determining that the vaccine isn't particularly dangerous, phase 1 is for determining dosage and side effects, and phase 2 is for determining efficacy.
  Safety is demonstrated in the first few months, but the FDA doesn't (normally) approve something just because it is safe. It also has to be effective. During the pandemic any degree of effectiveness would save lives, so emergency approval was justified.
  The 90% of vaccines that failed to gain approval were not dangerous. They failed because they were ineffective.

31% of Republicans so stupid their genes should be prevented from being passed down
- Yeah, nothing could go wrong with a little eugenics...
  edit: those who down voted this should truly reflect on their humanity.
  
  Fortunately, this is a self sorting problem, it's not eugenics when it's natural selection.

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.

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 (R) 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.
  
  It helps to think of healthcare as just another business in the US.
  It's become such a huge industry. People aren't necessarily there because they believe in the science, but because of all the typical mundane reasons to get any job - stability, income, prestige or appearance of status.
  But yes, it's crazy.
- 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.

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.

The good news is that number will go down over time.
- Make Polio Great Again.
  
  Owning the libs with Mumps.

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.

Yes, a sore arm and a mild fever are clearly worse than a life spent in an iron lung due to polio.

31% of Republicans also say, "Hunter Biden made the moon trans and now we should nuke the sun as a threat to the moon!"
Fucking.weirdos.

They are dumbasses. Weird, dumbasses.

Oh, sorry. Not 31%. That's actually their IQ.

Everyone likes to wag the finger when we call these people morons. What else are we supposed to call them?

Always hearing about ~30 of GOP, followed by the dumbest shit.

31 percent of republicans are a danger to themselves, their families, and others...
scratch that.
better make it '100 percent'.

"About 15% of registered voters are stupid" isn't exactly news.

They are also probably the same wankers who waste Blood banks time telling them they should set up "pure blood" donations or whatever.
Because I'm sure in an emergency, hospital staff have time to dick around and appease grown toddlers.

That 31% has no place in society.
- Only a matter of time with that philosophy.

Lets see here...
Rabies => nearly 100% death rate, and it's only pretty recently it's not 100% with modern non vaccine treatments.
Rabies Vaccine => 100% effective at preventing death.

At least they aren't out burning witches.
- Yet
  
  It will be trans people first

Media Bias Fact Check | bot support

follow guidance on COVID-19 provided by medical authorities
My, what a gentle way to retell events. It was just guidance. That's all. Just guidance.
Unrelated story: I know somebody who went to a private christian school. He tells me that he probably would have remained fairly neutral on religion ...if not for the experience of having Jesus rammed into his cranium on a daily basis. He is now a rather staunch athiest. A few of his classmates have a similar experience. It's as though forcing shit onto people can lead to them closing off from whatever it is that you're trying to force onto them. Totally unrelated to what I said above though. Don't overthink it.
- So you're basically saying you're an anti-vaxxer and you think taking vaccines is a religion?
  
  Not really, and not really. But my views have shifted in ways I never would have expected over the last four years.
  If lemmy sees this and wants to use me as a punching bag, I'd understand.
  I've considered many times initiating the topic, but each time I just don't envision the conversation being productive.

91 comments