Why Did the Anti-Vaccine Movement Tilt to the Right?
Anti-vaccine activism has never had a dominant political affiliation. What happened?
On February 13, 2024, National Geographic published a book I wrote called, TELL ME WHEN IT’S OVER: AN INSIDER’S GUIDE TO DECIPHERING COVID MYTHS AND NAVIGATING OUR POST-PANDEMIC WORLD. For the next few months, I will be writing about various issues discussed in that book.
Anti-vaccine activism has never had a particular political affiliation. On the left, the concern has been avoiding anything with a chemical name, such as buffering agents or stabilizing agents or preservatives or inactivating agents or manufacturing residuals that are often contained in vaccines. The all-natural crowd. Indeed, the measles outbreak in southern California in 2014 centered on a heavily Democratic district. On the right, the issue has been the libertarian notion that the government shouldn’t mandate vaccines. During the COVID pandemic, however, people were much more likely to be hospitalized and die from COVID if they lived in heavily red counties than in heavily blue counties. At one point, people started calling it “Red COVID.”
The first evidence of this tilt to the right in anti-vaccine activism appeared in 2015 when Renee DiResta, a researcher at Stanford, noticed “an evolution in messaging” in Twitter (X) posts from anti-vaccine activists. No longer were activists focusing on false claims about vaccine safety. Rather, they focused on “medical freedoms,” which activists believed would resonate better with legislators. This change in messaging was put to the test when Jason Villalba, a well-meaning Republican legislator in Texas, filed a bill in Austin eliminating non-medical exemptions to vaccines. “All of a sudden we saw a kind of new generation of the anti-vaccine movement in Texas emerge,” said Rekha Lakshmanan, the director of a pro-vaccine advocacy group called the Immunization Partnership. Villalba’s bill never got to a vote. Instead, it inspired the creation of a group called Texans for Vaccine Choice to lobby against this and similar legislation. The “freedom” message united anti-vaccine groups, linking them to the right-wing Tea Party movement and eventually the Freedom Caucus.
COVID restrictions strengthened the link between medical freedoms and the Republican right, giving birth to the Reawaken America tour, which held events throughout 2021 and 2022 in Florida, Michigan, Oklahoma, California, Texas (which was backed by QAnon advocates), and Colorado. The Reawaken America tour had an immediate impact. By July 2021, 86 percent of registered Democrats but only 54 percent of Republicans had been vaccinated. By the end of October 2021, 25 of every 100,000 people in counties that heavily supported Donald Trump had died from COVID. In counties that heavily supported Biden, the rates were as low as 0.4 deaths per 100,000—a 60-fold difference. Why did this happen?
It’s easy to point to cultural and political shifts. Or to the fact that we are a more cynical, litigious, distrusting society. While all this is true, the explanation might be more frightening. Two researchers at Duke University, in a paper titled “Of Pandemics, Politics, and Personality,” took a closer look at the profile of the anti-vaccine activist. In reviewing eight studies involving thousands of participants, investigators found that only a small percentage of people were likely to create, promote, and disseminate misinformation about vaccines. One personality trait stood apart from the rest: the “need for chaos,” which was defined as “a drive to disrupt and destroy the existing order of established institutions to secure the superiority of one’s own group over others.” Investigators noted that this mindset most likely came into play when people “feel they are being marginalized and rejected by the broader cultural environment.”
Which brings us to the days before Joseph Biden was to be sworn in as the 46th president of the United States. On January 6, 2021, about 2,500 people broke into the United States Capitol seeking to overturn the results of the presidential election by disrupting a joint session of Congress. The Capitol was locked down and lawmakers and staff were evacuated as rioters broke windows, overturned desks, and attacked law enforcement officers; 140 of whom were wounded. When the dust settled, more than 1,200 insurrectionists were charged with a crime and 460 were jailed.
Del Bigtree, who heads an anti-vaccine group called Informed Consent Action Network, was also there, speaking to a large crowd gathered around him. “We are being led off a cliff,” said Bigtree. “I wish I could tell you Tony Fauci cares about your safety. I wish I could tell you I believed in the CDC…I wish I could tell you that this pandemic really is dangerous. I wish I could believe that voting machines worked...but none of this is happening.” Stop the steal; embrace the chaos; burn down the house; and don’t get vaccinated. The anti-vaccine movement had found a new home.
RFK Jr. recently selected Del Bigtree to be the communications director for his presidential run.
Another interpretation is that we are seeing a predictable backlash against 2+ years of authoritarian covid policy overreach which broke the social contract. The way back is to embrace the principles of voluntary informed consent and cooperation that have always formed the basis of good medical and public health policy. You will not understand or persuade those who disagree with you by vilifying them.
Please also define “anti-vaccine”. Like you, I have had 3 covid shots and have declined more boosters recommended by the CDC. Are we now “anti-vaxxers” too?
The reason I am an anti-vaxxer or a more accurate term would be a vaccine heretic is simply due the fact that the safety of child hood vaccines has never been properly established.
All you have to do is look at the vaccine package insert of any childhood vaccine to see how little Of a priority safety was.
First red flag is that none of the child hood vaccines have ever gone through a full toxicology screening. None have been tested for there mutagenic or carcinogenic potential or impairment to male fertility
47 of the 114 fda approved vaccines did test for impairment for females.
The clinical trials used for Licensure were efficacy trials to determine Efficacy not Safety.
It is Scientifically impossible to the determine safety of a new vaccine if the control “placebo” is anything other than a saline solution.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjIgu6pvJuBAxX3GTQIHe2LB84QFnoECDMQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.drugs.com%2Fpro%2Fprevnar.html&usg=AOvVaw18sWNC_WFzPuWcy_XuQOXW&opi=89978449
In the trail for Prevnar 7 they used an investigational meningococcal vaccine as their placebo/Control to determine Efficacy but they also used it to determine safety.
How do you determine the safety of a new vaccine that didn’t go through a toxicology screen then use another new vaccine that didn’t go through a toxicology screen as the control/placebo to determine safety?
The Prevnar 7 trial shows that the only potentially
safe ingredient is the target antigen.
Per FOIA requests it is now known that none of the childhood vaccines used a saline placebo tor determine safety for Licensure.
Sure you can point to multi million dollar Observational studies that may or may not show a causal association but that can never prove biologically that a vaccine did or did not cause the adverse event.
There is a very simple solution to your Anti-vaccine problems.
Do the safety science.