The far-left origins of the far-right anti-vaccine movement

AP

The nationalist populists are the loudest and most numerous faction in the anti-vaccine movement and get most of the media attention, but there does exist a contingent on the far-left that is also rejecting vaccines. In fact, most of the silly talking points the right are using now actually originated – long before this pandemic – in leftist circles. Via Jon Entine and Patrick Whittle - 

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. The 2015 California measles outbreak, for instance, began in the wealthy, liberal enclave of Marin County, and the progressive San Francisco collar counties were the hotbed of opposition to the California law—passed in 2016 as measles cases soared—banning personal belief exemptions for children entering kindergarten. (Read more)

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