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this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2025
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This wouldn't even be a thing if the anti vaccine crowd wasn't amplified by the far right for over a decade
It's actually been almost 20 years since Jenny fucking McCarthy went on Oprah and was given a national platform to spout her antivax claims. That was the huge turning point in the movement.
But what is important is that Jenny and Oprah got rich(er), Andrew Wakefield is dating Elle MacPherson and attending the Presidential Inaurguration.
The huge turning point was when a shit MD-based journal, The Lancet, published a truly low rate manuscript, and even after it was proven fraudulent and Wakefield was stripped of his medical licence, they did not retract the article for 12 years. This is the pinnacle of MD led research.
Where are the lawyers who need to sue:
Wakefield
Winfrey
The Lancet
Robert De Fucking Niro.
Uhg I had forgotten Deniro was a part of that
DeNiro majes no sense. He criticized Trump on how he handled yhe pandemic...but he won't take a vaccine. Why does anyone listen to an actor, they just act smart.
Just because they are an actor/celebrity doesn't mean we shouldn't listen to them. You just have to remember they are a person too, and there are LOTS of fucking stupid people.
God, has it been that long... my bad, but the point is just strengthened by that fact.
Anti-vacc transcends political affiliation.
RFK was very much a lefty darling for years (decades?) with ridiculous support amongst "Hollywood".
And, as anyone who remembers The Pandemic can attest, one of the biggest talking points when the COVID vaccines were rolling out was that anyone who insisted everyone get vaccinated was actually super racist because America experimented on Black People a couple decades ago.
Its the same with "alternative medicine". Chuds insist we should inject bleach into our gooches because of 5G radios. Granola eating lefties insist we should use holistic medicine based on East Asian secrets because they are cultured and it is better for the environment (while the Tiger Moms are calling everyone dumbasses and saying to just get vaccinated because science).
The reality is that it all basically boils down to the vilification of intellectuals. And much of that goes back to long standing efforts by conservative/government orgs. The republicans have been focusing on it, especially in media, since reagan but it goes way back towards burning philosophers and proto-scientists at the stake.
One really funny side effect of this is that the better part of a decade ago, trump actually said something like "I like vaccines" at one of his rallies and his ass got booed REAL abrahamic god damned hard. Which is why he is constantly on the "We are putting too many vaccines into the babies" bullshit because it lets him feel like he is speaking his truth while not getting turned on by his mob.
No, it's not both sides. A decade ago on the left anti-vaxxers were a small fringe group that was concerning, but was small enough to be ignored as long as it didn't grow.
This new anti-vax is overwhelmingly on the right and a much bigger issue.
The left didn't put RFK in a cabinet post.
Guess what? It grew.
RFK was allegedly chosen BECAUSE he is such an evil right wing bastard who also at least used to have a lot of support on the left. He was a celebrity appointee and much of his appeal in that regard used to very much be "both sides".
Yes and no.
Yes in the sense that it is mostly right wingers who are insisting that the measles vaccine will give you super autism and blah blah blah.
No in the sense that lefties have decades of "alternative medicine" and parenting guides (see: A lot of the plague parties over the years). And no in the sense that we very much feel the need to say things like "Okay. Everyone needs to get fucking vaccinated so we can have herd immunity. Err, I am sorry for what was done to you. Everyone needs to but if you have a good reason to not trust the government then you should be free not to."
And, don't get me wrong: What the US government did to Black people was pure evil. It is also just one example amongst those spanning all of human history where actions ranging from unethical to downright monstrous were used for medical experimentation and... there are no signs that is ongoing (yet. RFK is cooking...) so...
I'll say the same thing I said back in 2020 (?): If you are that concerned, drive an extra hour and go to the white people CVS. Just get fucking vaccinated.
It didn't grow from Gwenyth Paltrow or the left. The growth came from a wholly independent source.
The history you're providing is valuable. I just don't like that the opening line was "both sides". To people who have trouble understanding more than one or two sentences at a time it makes it sound like something it wasn't. There are a lot of those people, and it turns out to be important.
Yeah. Those people are the problem and I refuse to rewrite history to try to protect the twitter generation
Just like I don't like pretending that history is different because it doesn't line up with our teams narrative. Because what is the point of history if not to learn from it? And once we start rewriting it to fit political narratives... I mean, everyone knows that is why Obama failed to prevent 9-11, right?
My responses were certainly not rewriting history. BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front) has been a thing for a long time. Your first line does a disservice to the rest of the much more nuanced and interesting comment.
A Bottom Line like
?
You did what a lot of us do. You saw something you didn't like and immediately felt backlash and a need to insist it was wrong. We all have this blindspot because we spend our entire digital (and sometimes analog...) lives in a bubble where our (favorite influencers') Reality is constantly reinforced and anything that differs is hidden by The Algorithm.
The good thing is that, once you actually read, you realized you agreed with much of the sentiment being expressed. But you still have an overwhelming need to insist something is wrong because... it goes against your Reality.
Which... is how a LOT of people became so anti-science.
It IS wrong if that's the one line you read. And I'm not worried about me having a blindspot because of it (in this instance), but everyone else it might influence.
RFK Jr was never lefty. Hollywood is full of assholes.
People criticize the opinions and lifestyle of Elon Musk and his 14 children, but Robert DeNiro has always been antivax and now up to seven kids into his eighties.
And deniro got pretty heavily glazed for how anti-trump he was? Same with people like michael rappaport who could be curb stomping trump's face into mush and STILL radiate "douchebag energy".
Its almost like people are more complicated than that and you can't just say "Bad concept, must be exclusively right wing" or "believes in democracy, must be fully virtuous"