Oct 24, 2021 10:49 PM
https://quillette.com/2021/10/21/vaccine...-the-left/
EXCERPTS: Nowhere is the politicization of science more evident than in the pernicious absurdity of the anti-vaccination movement, which has received fresh impetus during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The internet and social media (not to mention malevolent bots and trolls) have enabled the rapid spread of vaccine misinformation. But what role do broader political beliefs play in fueling anti-vax sentiment and suspicions about science in general?
We know this is happening on the Right, especially in the United States, where resistance to COVID vaccines has become a marker of political and ideological identity among Trump supporters, even though their leader was among the first politicians to avail himself of the shots. Vaccine rejectionism fits comfortably with traditional right-wing opposition to certain types of science (such as evolution and the reality of anthropogenic climate change), but in a fiercely polarized political climate, it has been inflamed by suspicion of liberals who endorse vaccination. For some conservatives, a childishly contrarian resistance to the “progressive establishment” constitutes a kind of principled libertarianism.
But before the Left allows itself to become too smug about this particular right-wing rejection of science, a little history is in order. Seldom discussed, let alone acknowledged, is that right-wing vaccine rejectionism has its roots in mainstream left-wing doctrines. Twenty-five years after Alan Sokal’s celebrated hoax, anti-scientific nonsense from the Left continues to inspire and inform anti-vaxxers’ absurd abuse of science. Consequently, vaccine rejectionism in the US is now endemic. In the decade preceding the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States saw a 10 percent overall decline in the number of parents who believe that it’s extremely or very important to vaccinate their children (from 94 percent in 2001 to 84 percent in 2019). An astonishing 11 percent say that vaccines are more dangerous than the diseases they prevent. In 2015, almost two-in-five respondents to a Canadian survey stated that “the science on vaccinations isn’t quite clear.”
Before the pandemic, resistance to vaccinations in the US was fairly evenly divided between Left and Right, at least according to polling data. But the reasons were different, and telling. Conservatives were more likely to believe that vaccination should be the choice of a patient or parent, while leftists were more likely to embrace conspiracy nonsense. Many of the movement’s most ardent conspiracy-mongers were progressives and the largest pockets of anti-vaccine sentiment were in liberal US counties...
[...] These actors and television personalities have offered various justifications for their stance, including concerns about autism, opposition to “Big Pharma,” and a belief that vaccines are “unnatural” and that protection is safely achievable by following homeopathy and sundry “wellness” doctrines.
The modern anti-vaccine movement has always had a media celebrity component. [...] Syndicated TV talk shows like Sally Jessy Rafael, the Maury Povich Show, and Real Time with Bill Maher provided celebrity anti-vaxxers with an uncritical platform. In 1990, The Cosby Show star Lisa Bonet appeared on the Phil Donahue Show and compared vaccinations to "alien microorganisms" that could cause “cancer, leukemia, multiple sclerosis, and sudden infant death syndrome” (none of which is true).
The modern anti-vax movement exploded in the late 1990s after British activist and physician Andrew Wakefeld and 12 colleagues published an article in the Lancet falsely claiming that the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine may predispose recipients to behavioral regression and pervasive developmental disorder in children—autism...
During the COVID pandemic, some of these leftist groups remained anti-vaccine, although some twisted their views to distance themselves from the right-wing strain of rejectionism.[...] These groups’ websites are full of paranoid anti-vax misinformation promoted in the name of “natural health.”...
[...] The Left’s suspicion of vaccines is linked to other strains of science denialism among progressives, most notably anti-GMO and anti-CRISPR activists. For more than two decades before the COVID pandemic, the most influential anti-vax organizations were organic advocates who fiercely rejected agricultural biotechnology...
[...] RFK, Jr. is the founder of the notorious anti-vax organization, ... “Natural health” promoter Joe Mercola, meanwhile, is an RFK, Jr. ally who has contributed more than $2.9 million to the pseudoscientific National Vaccine Information Center...
[...] Recently, left-wing vaccine rejectionists have embraced a new celebrity endorser, Mercola’s girlfriend Erin Elizabeth Finn, the founder of the website Health Nut News. The Center for Countering Digital Hate has named Finn, along with Mercola and RFK, Jr. as part of the Disinformation Dozen—12 public figures it says are responsible for the majority of social media coronavirus vaccine misinformation...
How did anti-biotechnology activists come to embrace COVID vaccine denialism? British environmentalist George Monbiot, an influential columnist for the progressive Guardian newspaper in the UK, has attempted to explain this phenomenon. Monbiot acknowledges that “there has long been an overlap between certain new age and far-right ideas” and that “for several years, anti-vax has straddled the green left and the far right.” He is also open about the “shocking” and “uncomfortable” fact that so many of his fellow left-wingers are falling prey to lunatic ideas.
[...] Yet Monbiot is nothing if not a hypocrite on this issue. Like many on the Left, he has been consistently and deeply critical of agricultural biotechnology, often uncritically embracing the rejectionist tropes of the same groups now fanning suspicion of vaccines. Like many of the left-wing vaccine critics he abhors, Monbiot believes that biotech innovations are dangerous products peddled by corporations forcing GM food on reluctant populations and polluting the global food supply. And while he is honest enough to acknowledge the Left’s current slide into irrationality, he blames this development on the sinister machinations of conservatives...
[...] When advocating for action on climate change, environmentalist organizations like Greenpeace are fond of intoning that “We should listen to science.” But when it comes to biotechnology and genetic science, it has been a different story...
Vehement and longstanding opposition to genetic modification has left Green political parties in Europe and NGOs everywhere in a bind. They rely on the votes and donations of supporters conditioned to distrust biotechnology and biotech companies. Yet now, due to a global health disaster, they are presented with bioengineered vaccines, created by hated biotech corporations, that can provide for the wellbeing of billions. How can these parties justify the embrace of life-saving vaccines made by the very corporations they have persuaded millions of people to distrust?
[...] New Zealand’s anti-biotechnology views are so entrenched that when COVID struck, vaccine proponents were forced to walk a political tightrope, fearful that bioengineered vaccines might fall foul of the country’s strict GMO legislation. In the end, the sheer magnitude of the crisis overwhelmed political correctness, at least in part, and key influencers downplayed the contradiction for fear of fueling latent anti-vaccination sentiment. Playing the anti-capitalism card, the environmentalist Left ignored the biotechnology angle altogether, and focussed instead on the need for a “People’s Vaccine” that, in the words of the New Zealand Green Party, “put[s] human lives before the interests of multi-billion dollar pharma companies.” This is boilerplate anti-GMO activist rhetoric.
This is a farcical state of affairs, and it highlights the selective absurdity of restrictions targeting crops but not medicine...
[...] Exaggerated safety concerns, suspicion of new technology, and distrust of profit-making corporations have been features of leftist opposition to modern genetic and genomic technology for decades. Consequently, biotechnophobia has certainly played a part in the public’s sometimes ambivalent attitudes towards the new bioengineered COVID vaccines.
There is deadly precedent here. In the late 1990s, as the HIV/AIDS epidemic raged through sub-Saharan Africa, then-President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, openly rejected the evidence-based battle against the disease. Influenced by “AIDS denialists,” Mbeki believed that the disease “was brought about by the collapse of the immune system … not because of a virus.” So he turned his back on modern pharmaceutical drugs, opting instead for “natural” alternatives. As a result, more than a third-of-a-million people are thought to have died. Those lethal beliefs and motivations match those of today’s anti-vaxxers—different disease, same life-threatening message.
[...] The finger of blame for this is most often pointed at the Right and its crackpot extremes—an accusation for which there is ample justification. But the progressive Left must shoulder its share of responsibility for enabling the anti-scientific hostility to biotechnology that sustains the anti-vaccination movement. The coronavirus pandemic has caused massive backtracking and spin-doctoring among progressive parties over bioengineered vaccines. It remains to be seen whether or not this expediency will produce a rethink about biotechnology and its benefits once the COVID crisis recedes.
In the words of exasperated leftist Alan Sokal, “rational thought and the fearless analysis of objective reality”—the very hallmarks of science—are the best means to achieve the progressive goals of greater social justice and equality. They will also provide us with the tools we need to finally slay the beast of COVID-19... (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPTS: Nowhere is the politicization of science more evident than in the pernicious absurdity of the anti-vaccination movement, which has received fresh impetus during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The internet and social media (not to mention malevolent bots and trolls) have enabled the rapid spread of vaccine misinformation. But what role do broader political beliefs play in fueling anti-vax sentiment and suspicions about science in general?
We know this is happening on the Right, especially in the United States, where resistance to COVID vaccines has become a marker of political and ideological identity among Trump supporters, even though their leader was among the first politicians to avail himself of the shots. Vaccine rejectionism fits comfortably with traditional right-wing opposition to certain types of science (such as evolution and the reality of anthropogenic climate change), but in a fiercely polarized political climate, it has been inflamed by suspicion of liberals who endorse vaccination. For some conservatives, a childishly contrarian resistance to the “progressive establishment” constitutes a kind of principled libertarianism.
But before the Left allows itself to become too smug about this particular right-wing rejection of science, a little history is in order. Seldom discussed, let alone acknowledged, is that right-wing vaccine rejectionism has its roots in mainstream left-wing doctrines. Twenty-five years after Alan Sokal’s celebrated hoax, anti-scientific nonsense from the Left continues to inspire and inform anti-vaxxers’ absurd abuse of science. Consequently, vaccine rejectionism in the US is now endemic. In the decade preceding the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States saw a 10 percent overall decline in the number of parents who believe that it’s extremely or very important to vaccinate their children (from 94 percent in 2001 to 84 percent in 2019). An astonishing 11 percent say that vaccines are more dangerous than the diseases they prevent. In 2015, almost two-in-five respondents to a Canadian survey stated that “the science on vaccinations isn’t quite clear.”
Before the pandemic, resistance to vaccinations in the US was fairly evenly divided between Left and Right, at least according to polling data. But the reasons were different, and telling. Conservatives were more likely to believe that vaccination should be the choice of a patient or parent, while leftists were more likely to embrace conspiracy nonsense. Many of the movement’s most ardent conspiracy-mongers were progressives and the largest pockets of anti-vaccine sentiment were in liberal US counties...
[...] These actors and television personalities have offered various justifications for their stance, including concerns about autism, opposition to “Big Pharma,” and a belief that vaccines are “unnatural” and that protection is safely achievable by following homeopathy and sundry “wellness” doctrines.
The modern anti-vaccine movement has always had a media celebrity component. [...] Syndicated TV talk shows like Sally Jessy Rafael, the Maury Povich Show, and Real Time with Bill Maher provided celebrity anti-vaxxers with an uncritical platform. In 1990, The Cosby Show star Lisa Bonet appeared on the Phil Donahue Show and compared vaccinations to "alien microorganisms" that could cause “cancer, leukemia, multiple sclerosis, and sudden infant death syndrome” (none of which is true).
The modern anti-vax movement exploded in the late 1990s after British activist and physician Andrew Wakefeld and 12 colleagues published an article in the Lancet falsely claiming that the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine may predispose recipients to behavioral regression and pervasive developmental disorder in children—autism...
During the COVID pandemic, some of these leftist groups remained anti-vaccine, although some twisted their views to distance themselves from the right-wing strain of rejectionism.[...] These groups’ websites are full of paranoid anti-vax misinformation promoted in the name of “natural health.”...
[...] The Left’s suspicion of vaccines is linked to other strains of science denialism among progressives, most notably anti-GMO and anti-CRISPR activists. For more than two decades before the COVID pandemic, the most influential anti-vax organizations were organic advocates who fiercely rejected agricultural biotechnology...
[...] RFK, Jr. is the founder of the notorious anti-vax organization, ... “Natural health” promoter Joe Mercola, meanwhile, is an RFK, Jr. ally who has contributed more than $2.9 million to the pseudoscientific National Vaccine Information Center...
[...] Recently, left-wing vaccine rejectionists have embraced a new celebrity endorser, Mercola’s girlfriend Erin Elizabeth Finn, the founder of the website Health Nut News. The Center for Countering Digital Hate has named Finn, along with Mercola and RFK, Jr. as part of the Disinformation Dozen—12 public figures it says are responsible for the majority of social media coronavirus vaccine misinformation...
How did anti-biotechnology activists come to embrace COVID vaccine denialism? British environmentalist George Monbiot, an influential columnist for the progressive Guardian newspaper in the UK, has attempted to explain this phenomenon. Monbiot acknowledges that “there has long been an overlap between certain new age and far-right ideas” and that “for several years, anti-vax has straddled the green left and the far right.” He is also open about the “shocking” and “uncomfortable” fact that so many of his fellow left-wingers are falling prey to lunatic ideas.
[...] Yet Monbiot is nothing if not a hypocrite on this issue. Like many on the Left, he has been consistently and deeply critical of agricultural biotechnology, often uncritically embracing the rejectionist tropes of the same groups now fanning suspicion of vaccines. Like many of the left-wing vaccine critics he abhors, Monbiot believes that biotech innovations are dangerous products peddled by corporations forcing GM food on reluctant populations and polluting the global food supply. And while he is honest enough to acknowledge the Left’s current slide into irrationality, he blames this development on the sinister machinations of conservatives...
[...] When advocating for action on climate change, environmentalist organizations like Greenpeace are fond of intoning that “We should listen to science.” But when it comes to biotechnology and genetic science, it has been a different story...
Vehement and longstanding opposition to genetic modification has left Green political parties in Europe and NGOs everywhere in a bind. They rely on the votes and donations of supporters conditioned to distrust biotechnology and biotech companies. Yet now, due to a global health disaster, they are presented with bioengineered vaccines, created by hated biotech corporations, that can provide for the wellbeing of billions. How can these parties justify the embrace of life-saving vaccines made by the very corporations they have persuaded millions of people to distrust?
[...] New Zealand’s anti-biotechnology views are so entrenched that when COVID struck, vaccine proponents were forced to walk a political tightrope, fearful that bioengineered vaccines might fall foul of the country’s strict GMO legislation. In the end, the sheer magnitude of the crisis overwhelmed political correctness, at least in part, and key influencers downplayed the contradiction for fear of fueling latent anti-vaccination sentiment. Playing the anti-capitalism card, the environmentalist Left ignored the biotechnology angle altogether, and focussed instead on the need for a “People’s Vaccine” that, in the words of the New Zealand Green Party, “put[s] human lives before the interests of multi-billion dollar pharma companies.” This is boilerplate anti-GMO activist rhetoric.
This is a farcical state of affairs, and it highlights the selective absurdity of restrictions targeting crops but not medicine...
[...] Exaggerated safety concerns, suspicion of new technology, and distrust of profit-making corporations have been features of leftist opposition to modern genetic and genomic technology for decades. Consequently, biotechnophobia has certainly played a part in the public’s sometimes ambivalent attitudes towards the new bioengineered COVID vaccines.
There is deadly precedent here. In the late 1990s, as the HIV/AIDS epidemic raged through sub-Saharan Africa, then-President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, openly rejected the evidence-based battle against the disease. Influenced by “AIDS denialists,” Mbeki believed that the disease “was brought about by the collapse of the immune system … not because of a virus.” So he turned his back on modern pharmaceutical drugs, opting instead for “natural” alternatives. As a result, more than a third-of-a-million people are thought to have died. Those lethal beliefs and motivations match those of today’s anti-vaxxers—different disease, same life-threatening message.
[...] The finger of blame for this is most often pointed at the Right and its crackpot extremes—an accusation for which there is ample justification. But the progressive Left must shoulder its share of responsibility for enabling the anti-scientific hostility to biotechnology that sustains the anti-vaccination movement. The coronavirus pandemic has caused massive backtracking and spin-doctoring among progressive parties over bioengineered vaccines. It remains to be seen whether or not this expediency will produce a rethink about biotechnology and its benefits once the COVID crisis recedes.
In the words of exasperated leftist Alan Sokal, “rational thought and the fearless analysis of objective reality”—the very hallmarks of science—are the best means to achieve the progressive goals of greater social justice and equality. They will also provide us with the tools we need to finally slay the beast of COVID-19... (MORE - missing details)
