Personally, I distinguish between folks who were anti-vax before COVID, and then those who became so after COVID.
For the "before" group... I think this group was largely sorta radlib (they would say lefty) or somewhat apolitical. Or a Rogan-esque mishmash of ideals. Their anti-vax stance is driven usually by broadly being anti-corporate and being pro-organic/anti-GMO. The type of people who are fairly restrictive regarding what they ingest in their bodies. They would argue that if we think corporations will do anything to increase profit, is it really a stretch to think they would push unnecessary vaccines on the public? I obviously disagree as I think science shows how important these vaccines are, but I also can help but feel a twinge of sympathy for this position because I absolutely wouldn't put it past a corporation (really the capitalists who own the corporation) to do this.
Then you have all the folks - nearly all of them reactionaries - who've jumped on the wagon recently. They will come up with all sorts of rationalizations to not get the vaccine but ultimately it's about as rational as them throwing tantrums over wearing a mask in the supermarket. The reasons are secondary. It's all about them showing defiance against a system they think is pitted against them. It's why you have stories of health care centers in the Ozarks who are giving vaccines to people who are terrified that it will be found out that they got the vaccines. These people have decided that getting the vaccine in a sign of being subservient to a state and system that is against them, and they just come up with whatever rationalization they need to that works in the moment. Funny enough I get this impression this group isn't against all vaccines, just the COVID one.
There was a significant if not majority far right component to the before group too.
Fair enough, my perception might be skewed as I was really into organic food and stuff like that for a while so that group might appear larger to me than it is.
Yeah I guess that exists too however all the hard anti vaxxers I know are deep into shitty fascist boomer FB pages and/or religious nonsense.
Yeah, you had Trump saying some anti-vaxx stuff before the pandemic, it's absolutely not something entirely new.
showing defiance against a system they think is pitted against them
woke individualist consumerists interacting with the world via choice in the market
health care centers in the Ozarks who are giving vaccines to people who are terrified that it will be found out
Like Afghani doctors who have to insist they aren't CIA
Long answer coming up. This is my morning coffee writing here.
I know an anti-vaxx family which lives down the road. The guy is a white millennial / Gen Xer small business owner. I can't reveal his business because it's so specific to this area I would doxx myself, but climate change basically guarantees that he'll be out of a job within ten to twenty years.
His wife is from California and she is absolutely the cliché Californian. A thin pretty hippy with blue hair, no joke. Although she is white, she calls herself a shaman and actually set up like an "alternative medicine" retail place about a year before the pandemic started. I believe she had to shut the place down but I assume her business is still actually thriving out of her home. (Before the pandemic, my state had one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country.) They have a pretty nice house because the guy has family all over the place here possibly going back centuries.
The guy has like twenty kids from eight different marriages. I know a bunch of his kids however and they're all wonderful. I believe most of them are actually vaccinated since their dad only went over the deep end a few years ago. Their youngest kid is my son's age and I believe he has not been vaccinated at all, which horrifies me. When I first met this kid, I thought he was almost my son's twin. He's a beautiful wonderful guy who deserves so much more. His parents had to pull him out of school because the state requires kids to get their shots in order to attend.
These two parents were actually really nice and seemed relatively leftwing—unless we talked about vaccines. Then they would just go on—literally for hours—about how there's poison in the vaccines and Big Pharma is just trying to make us all sick and give us autism. The wife also has kids from who knows how many other marriages and she claimed that one of them had gotten sick from vaccines. Of course, when I actually questioned her about this, it turned out that the sickness had been minor and that it actually wasn't clear at all that being vaccinated had caused any issues. And if they had caused any issues, you can actually sue the manufacturers!
They talked a lot about this doctor named Toni Bark who sold $500 alternative medicine remedies on her website and also traveled around the country to testify in vaccine custody cases (where parents basically get divorced because one has had their brain melted on Facebook). She charged $500 per hour to do this, plus expenses. Toni Bark had all these videos where she would go on and on about how yoga and her sugar-free all-natural organic vegan gluten-free diet was making it impossible for her to get sick. Then she got esophageal cancer a year or so before the pandemic and died. She actually claimed that the cancer came from a vaccine she had received twenty years before. Science. Who needs it?
When I talked about vaccines with this couple I got absolutely nowhere until I told them about the origins of innoculation (among traditional Chinese healers) and how Cuba is famous for manufacturing their own miraculous vaccines. Cuba itself is outside of Big Pharma's power so it acts as proof that vaccines are not always automatically bad. This argument made them pause for maybe a moment, but then they just went back to the usual BS.
Ultimately their brainworms have a psychological and economic origin. Both of these people are, as with many many many anti-vaxxers, aging white petite bourgeois parents of small children with way too much time on their hands. Because their lives of exploitation are ultimately so boring and meaningless (and increasingly precarious), Facebook ensnared them and drove them out of their minds in order to make a few more bucks for shareholders. Reasoning with them is pointless because of the material origins of their psychological malady. Nothing short of re-education camps will help these people.
We stopped talking with each other before the pandemic started. I ran into the dad at the post office around six months ago and he was like: "Are you ready for the covid vaccine?" At the time, a lot of
liberalspeople thought the vaccine was going to suck because Trump was the one behind it. This makes me think that if Trump had won the election, the USA's covid vaccination rate would have been much lower than it already is. I actually didn't have an answer for this guy at the time, although of course I got vaccinated as soon as I could.Because their lives of exploitation are ultimately so boring and meaningless (and increasingly precarious), Facebook ensnared them and drove them out of their minds in order to make a few more bucks for shareholders. Reasoning with them is pointless because of the material origins of their psychological malady. Nothing short of re-education camps will help these people.
This is literally my opinion, although you expressed it way better than I did.
interestingly, I think the vaccination rates may have been higher among the unmasked population, so that could still have a net positive effect overall. The people that have at least somewhat been responding to the pandemic as a problem of physiology and not just of american politics would get the shot either way, as they have now. People who are liberals and wouldn;t get the shot either wouldn't have anyway or are likely very much using hand sanitizer and masks all the time. people who are chuds either wouldn't get the vaccine anyway or might trust their big wet boy and get it, reducing spreading. IDK maybe he'd never release it who knows?
Then she got esophageal cancer a year or so before the pandemic and died
lol lmao
I have a close member of my family who is convinced that it's the Mark of the Beast.
Ironically I tried to convince her because the mark of the beast predictions she's believed in for decades are really specific.
It's a tattoo or a computer chip
No, it's a little bit of organic genetic material
It goes in your forehead or right hand
Left shoulder
One world government gives it out
There are like 6 of them and most are manufactured by for profit businesses
You need it to buy, sell or trade
I fucking wish
I pointed out all the contradictions, didn't matter, still refused to get it.
I don't understand because I'm "not a believer."
Yep I think it stems from being mRNA. So it changes your DNA and then you can't get into heaven.
If that's bad wait til they hear what COVID or any virus does to your DNA
The mRNA vaccines don't alter your DNA, but the virus absolutely does, so idk what the fuck these people are doing
The Book of Revelations and its consequences etc., etc.
Anti-vaxxers are by and large brainworm addled and without legitimate arguments that can be debunked. Like with QAnon followers, facts don't matter.
That said, some of the most compelling anti-Covid vax arguments I've encountered (which are true, if lacking context):
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Modern and Pfizer Covid vaccination are the first ever mRNA vaccines approved for use in humans. Not FDA approved. Not new tech - but the first time it's ever been used in humans, and "rushed" through a lot faster than traditional vaccines.
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Michael Yeadon, former vice-president of Pfizer, is anti-Covid-vax.
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Luigi Warren, a scientist who jointly discovered and explained mRNA technology (along with a co-author who became CEO of Moderna), is anti-Covid-vax.
Luigi Warren
Husband of Elizabeth Warren, brother of Mario :a-little-trolling:
I haven't looked that far into it but my intuition, given their qualifications, is that it is a highly profitable grift for them.
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I know a few people that only started getting into the conspiracy theory stuff (though not completely in the QAnon doodoo) because of how schizophrenic the messaging has been about masking up and going inside. Respected doctors in any given city will say that you should still mask up if vaxxed, while city officials will say everything is good, go out and have a good time at a 100k people event.
Mask on, mask off, mask on, mask off. So much of this could've been avoided simply by fucking shutting everything down AUTHORITATIVELY, giving the people some scraps until shit was contained, and then seeing what damage had to be fixed. But nope, the death drive doesn't allow for the bare minimum, and does not wish to give the populace the bare essentials.
The reasons I've heard (including from relatives) are
-It might have negative health impacts that the drug companies don't know of, because it's new technology
-It doesn't actually prevent covid
-Covid doesn't do anything worse than the common cold or flu
-The government insisting everyone get it means they're doing something nefarious
-It's secretly a population control method that makes people infertile
-It might have negative health impacts that the drug companies don’t know of, because it’s new technology
Someone I know got caught up in the intellectual dark web and this is definitely being discussed in those circles. Imo in the case of covid it's the devil you know vs the devil you don't, but even that's pushing it because we know covid fucks people up whereas mRNA vaccines are at worst a giant question mark.
The thing is, it wouldn't surprise me if these merchants of doubt aren't in favor of a complete lockdown or even just mask mandates.
I think it depends on whether someone is truly anti-vax or just extremely cautious and still waiting and seeing. There are more people in the latter camp than you might think. Note the following points are anecdotes, not data:
I know some people who got the vaccine very late (think late June/July) because they were either scared the side effects would make them miss work and get them fired or because they just didn't feel like it. Both of these groups are gettable.
Another group of people are the ones who are trepidatious about how quickly the vaccine was approved or say "it's still not fully FDA approved / the FDA says they don't have enough data to call it 100% safe yet." What sucks is that both of those statements in quotes are objectively true. The FDA's official position on the vaccine right now is "this is lifesaving medicine and we want everyone to take it, but also there isn't enough safety data to say if it's definitely safe or good for your kids." This is an incredibly stupid position that is killing people. The FDA should have fully approved the vaccine and extended it to kids months ago and their dithering over this has caused thousands of preventable deaths. There are likely some people in this group that are gettable.
There are then, of course, the Fox News/Infowars/conspiracy nuts. They'll only be gettable with a very strict mandate. This is why vaccine mandates and passports are good.
Also, while I'm not black and don't want to speak for black people, I would bet any amount of money that Tuskegee is not the reason for low black vaccination rates. That very much sounds like a shitty white academic's explanation for it, not something backed up by actual data.
anecdotally, the black people in my circle who have not gotten vaccinated (or at least the people who have been vocally against vaccination; maybe there are more people not getting vaccinated who are not vocal and have different reasons) are strongly distrustful of the govt (and other institutions: dem party, big pharma, antifa, the police) and allude to or explicitly cite Tuskegee RE vaccination hesitancy.
Many different groups, there is the people who are just full of brainworms, there are the people who were always anti vax, but I think the largest group is the people who got spooked by all the fear mongering around the vaccines. Idk if this happened in the US too, but in Europe many people got spooked by the reports of severe side effects by AZ, as well as lots of misinformation and hearsay. The other thing I hear a lot is "normally vaccines are tested for at least 4 years and these haven't been tested and maybe something will come up in a few years yada yada". That sort of stuff. Recently there is also a lot of "it doesn't work anyways", again because of misinformation and badly presented information. Oh, there is also people who are pro vax but have also received misinformation and think they can't do it for some reason. They ask their doctors and their doctors are sometimes too afraid to take responsibility in case something happens (even something unrelated to vaccines) and they tell them "oh you have lactose intolerance? Yeah don't do it. Oh you're pregnant? Yeah better wait. Oh your butt hurts? Yeah I wouldn't do it". Nonsense like that. Sometimes it is doctors who are antivax. Again idk how common it is in the US.
There are also all the people who fit into one of the "we will do medical experiments on you without telling you because we don't see you as people" groups who are rightly cautious about the government doing a medical experiment on them again.
What experiment lol the people who think that way have typically been misinformed once again by irresponsible people or not informed adequately enough, it's not so much a genuine or reasonable reflex.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation_in_the_United_States
If you're poor, not white, or not a male, chances are pretty good people like you (and possibly even you) have been experimented upon by this government.
Yes, I know, I'm saying what is the relation to the covid vaccines? Vaccines are not experimental or whatever. The whole rhetoric around this is honestly just irresponsible af and leads to people avoiding the vaccines for no reason.
The chuds quoting Tuskegee were never the ones who would have been in danger of it happening to them.
Fuck em.
I just can't think of a single mass scale medical abuse happening to the racial majority.
Those things happen in LARGE part because of dehumanization and racism. The doctors carrying it out were not black. None of them were.
Its hard to disentangle that racism is a major factor of Tuskegee.
Its like ignoring that no ethnicity has ever genocided itself. Feels like you're missing a key ingredient of the imminent harm.
Yes, what is the experiment here? What experiment is happening? What do the covid vaccines have to do with tuskegee?
I know an unfortunate amount of antivaxxers, they mostly don't trust the government for different reasons and have other difference conspiracy theories tied in. This ended up way too long because I have no one else to rant about this stuff too lol. TL;DR: big egos, bad experiences with gov or medications, using religion as a sheild.
Examples:
spoiler
My step brother: has always been a conspiracy theorist, I genuinely think he believes in a lot of them so he can act like he's smarter than other people because he struggled in school and generally has a superiority complex. Before he was introduced to the antivaxx movement he believed in chemtrails, that the gov sprays something on the trees in California to cause wildfires, and that the fluoride in the water is to keep the people sick. He got worse after being introduced to his wife. Falls for all of the "look this soda can clean a toilet so it's bad for you" posts.
Step brother's wife: her son is autistic and believes getting vaccinated is the cause. She also refuses to use microwaves because she thinks they cause cancer, she gives herself some IVs of something that are definitely not regulated, and has a huge superiority complex like my step brother. They're both also really against medication and keeps trying to get my mentally ill mother off her medication because they don't have to deal with consequences of her not being medicated.
My bf's brother: has a huge distrust of the government because he is Black and Muslim, was unfairly put in jail for months because he's Black, and had a bad experience with the FBI because he's Muslim. He is now into Qanon and thinks the covid in general is a hoax and vaccines have trackers in them.
My bf's mom: doesn't trust the government as Black and Muslim woman, she is a pretty strict Muslim and believes that covid is fake and even if it isn't she will be protected from it. In general she tries to avoid putting things other than food and water in her body, like she won't drink coffee because of caffeine. She isn't really against medications as her daughter takes anxiety medication.
My mother: has been influenced over the years by my step brother and his wife who know she has a learning disability/is really gullible. She became an antivaxxer a few years ago so all her kids did get their shots. One of her cousin's son was given the wrong dosage of some shot when he was a baby and is now mentally and physically disabled, they did sue the hospital and won't say how much they got but they have an elevator in their house (their son struggles with walking and his wheelchair is difficult to get up and down stairs) so it was a lot. She has been medicated for mental illness for most of her life at this point but still struggles with symptoms so she doesn't trust pharmaceutical companies. She's also really conservative, easy to get riled up, and Christian so she can be a bigot so listening to foxnews and televangicals has had a terrible effect on her. She thinks the vaccine was made to kill off the elderly, is the mark of the beast, and lowkey that it can be transferred from an vaccinated person to an unvaccinated person. She mostly only cares about herself so she doesn't care about herd immunity.
My brother: thinks he's smarter than everyone because my mom hyped him up his entire life and he loves Joe Rogan. For the most part just doesn't want the inconvenience of not doing what ever he wants when he wants to and thinks he'll be fine now that he's sick.
This is from a friend of mine who isn’t your normal anti-vaxxer, he is quite far to the left, he considers himself an anarchist although none of the ML shit I say has ever really gotten an negative response from him. His biggest concern is that a private company rushed this shit to market and he also brought up the Tuskegee program as well.
I know a couple people who are not openly anti vax but are definitely leaning that way - their public-facing opinion basically boils down to "there are too many vaccines nowadays, please eliminate 3. I am not a crackpot"
beegest concirn iz tht thy wont git loong covid. tht rllt dont woont 2 tast thengs anymor
