Thanks for that, leoj.

--

Armchair Critic,

No, the Washington Post is not good enough for me when it comes to science. Where science in concerned, I rely almost entirely on peer-reviewed articles. That should be plain enough to anyone who has read my posts.

<<You lost your own credibility opening your piehole without checking things out first. Yes?>>

No, I didn't.

Good bye, Armchair Critic. I have little time for your utter madness and conspiracy theories. You have absolutely no grasp on reality whatsoever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMmDMH8EUck

//What fascinates me the most about this non-debate regarding vaccines, is that it is fast becoming a domain of the Right, despite the fact that it has traditionally been a far-Left position.//

Yeah, you're right: one of my uncles married an anti-vaxxer. She's a lovely person, but very much of the hippy-dippy new-age mindset. Fond of quackery in all its many different hats, and so anti-vaccination is just an (il)logical extension of her batshit crazy belief in homeopathy and other similar follies.

Whereas there seem to be more anti-vaxxers that herald from the tin-foil hat wearing camp these days, people who may not necessarily doubt the wisdom of conventional medicine when it comes to treating their headache or their hypertension, but have adopted the idea of Big Pharma secretly trying to poison us all through vaccination as one of their conspiratorial beliefs.

//Toni Lavis your reply adds evidence to my thought you... do not even warrant replying to anything you say.//

Ummm... hate to break it you, but you just did.

No thoughts on the topic of vaccination then? Just wanted to shake your tiny fist at me in self-righteous indignation?

Maybe get back to us when you've got an actual point to make.

//I for one will totally ignore anything you have to say//

Yeah, doing a sterling job their champ.

Yes, Toni Lavis, it's becoming known as "crank magnetism":

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Crank_magnetism

According to crank magnetism, it was only matter of time before our climate-change-denying, right-wing friends boarded the anti-vax wagon.

It looks like ttbn is fighting the Dark Side of the force. But I fear his strength will only hold out for so long...

Vaccines work similarly to seatbelts. While there are a few recorded cases where people died because of seatbelts where they would have lived without them, these few cases are outweighed by hundreds of thousands of lives saved. No vaccine is 100% safe, but the chances of living a long life are greatly enhanced by getting vaccinated.

As for the anti-vaxxer movement becoming a policy of the right, I think that that is complete bollocks. While one or two might take it up as an issue of free speech, the vast majority of anti-vaxxers still sit firmly on the left.

Notably, it is the conservatives that are pushing to increase vaccinations by scrapping the "conscientious objection excuse änd giving preschools the right to exclude those not vaccinated.

Shadow Minister,

If you can write off the groundswell of anti-vaccine sentiment on the Right side of politics as “complete bollocks”, then you haven’t been paying much attention.

http://www.businessinsider.com/anti-vaccination-beliefs-dont-follow-typical-liberal-conservative-divide-2017-8?IR=T

Yes, anti-vaccination sentiment is still predominantly a domain of the Left, but to brush off any anti-vaccination sentiment on the Right as just a few concerned over freedom of speech issues is dishonest.

I’d further point out that the most public faces in opposition to the anti-vax movement are far from right-wing (e.g. Michael Shermer, Steve Novella). Follow any pro-vaccination page on Facebook, too, and you will see that these are pages overwhelmingly Left:

http://www.facebook.com/AustralianSkepticsInc
http://www.facebook.com/theskepticsguide
http://www.facebook.com/groups/SkepticsAustralia
http://www.facebook.com/RtAVM
http://www.facebook.com/welovegv
http://www.facebook.com/skepticalob
http://www.facebook.com/scibabe