Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

https://pauloffit.substack.com/p/anti-va...hat-caught

EXCERPTS: Anti-vaccine activists have been around since the early 1800s. Back then, they were small and poorly organized. Not now. Today’s anti-vaccine activists are lawyer-backed, media savvy, and extraordinarily well-funded. Revenue from antivaccine content on social media alone is about $1 billion per year.

Their efforts haven’t gone to waste. More parents are choosing not to vaccinate their children for non-medical reasons than ever before. As a result, the percentage of vaccinated children has dropped below that necessary for community immunity. Measles—the most contagious infectious disease—has come back.

[...] The anti-vaccine movement, which has successfully convinced parents not to vaccinate their children using misinformation, science denialism, and conspiracy, is the dog that caught the car. But it is our children who have been caught under the wheels... (MORE - missing details)

(Apr 23, 2025 10:24 PM)C C Wrote: [ -> ]https://pauloffit.substack.com/p/anti-va...hat-caught

EXCERPTS: Anti-vaccine activists have been around since the early 1800s. Back then, they were small and poorly organized. Not now. Today’s anti-vaccine activists are lawyer-backed, media savvy, and extraordinarily well-funded. Revenue from antivaccine content on social media alone is about $1 billion per year.

Their efforts haven’t gone to waste. More parents are choosing not to vaccinate their children for non-medical reasons than ever before. As a result, the percentage of vaccinated children has dropped below that necessary for community immunity. Measles—the most contagious infectious disease—has come back.

[...] The anti-vaccine movement, which has successfully convinced parents not to vaccinate their children using misinformation, science denialism, and conspiracy, is the dog that caught the car. But it is our children who have been caught under the wheels... (MORE - missing details)

I’d have to think that for the most part, parents are concerned for the welfare/health of their children. I don’t think they refuse to have their kids vaxxed just to be different. Maybe more to do with how parents react out of fear where common sense sometimes goes awry and beliefs take over.

My question is: Is this the cruelty of evolution at work? Those that refuse vaccinations risk death and just so that trait isn’t passed on…..well….i won’t elaborate. For whatever reason vaccinations are refused doesn’t matter, evolution takes its course, actually keeping the species healthy and alive. I suppose the measles germ works the same way, probably why we constantly combat it.