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Parents Who Don't Vaccinate Kids Tend To Be Affluent, Better Educated (go.com)
schwit1 quotes ABC News: Vaccines are universally backed by respected scientists and federal agencies, but that isn't enough to convince every parent to vaccinate their children. The decision to fly in the face of near universal scientific opinion doesn't come as a result of a lack of intellect, however, as experts who have studied vaccines and immunology acknowledge that many parents who don't vaccinate their children are well-educated. They also appear to be the victims of a widespread misinformation campaign, the experts said.
Daniel Salmon, who is the director of the Institute of Vaccine Safety at Johns Hopkins University, said that existing research suggests that there are some common attributes that many parents who choose not to vaccinate their children share. "They tend to be better educated. They tend to be white, and they tend to be higher income. They tend to have larger families and they tend to use complementary and alternative medicine like chiropractors and naturopaths," Salmon said.
Salman also says outbreaks typically start when an American returns from a visit to Europe, where there are much higher rates of measles than in the U.S. But lower vaccination rates help it spread.
One study in August reported Russian trolls "seem to be using vaccination as a wedge issue, promoting discord in American society," though their campaign on Twitter failed to gain traction.
"I blame Amazon Prime," writes long-time Slashdot reader destinyland. "That 'misinformation' they're talking about is the pseudoscience documentary Vaxxed -- and Amazon is one of the top site's pushing it. The movie is not only free for all Prime members -- Amazon's actually featuring it on the front page showing free-with-Prime movies."
Daniel Salmon, who is the director of the Institute of Vaccine Safety at Johns Hopkins University, said that existing research suggests that there are some common attributes that many parents who choose not to vaccinate their children share. "They tend to be better educated. They tend to be white, and they tend to be higher income. They tend to have larger families and they tend to use complementary and alternative medicine like chiropractors and naturopaths," Salmon said.
Salman also says outbreaks typically start when an American returns from a visit to Europe, where there are much higher rates of measles than in the U.S. But lower vaccination rates help it spread.
One study in August reported Russian trolls "seem to be using vaccination as a wedge issue, promoting discord in American society," though their campaign on Twitter failed to gain traction.
"I blame Amazon Prime," writes long-time Slashdot reader destinyland. "That 'misinformation' they're talking about is the pseudoscience documentary Vaxxed -- and Amazon is one of the top site's pushing it. The movie is not only free for all Prime members -- Amazon's actually featuring it on the front page showing free-with-Prime movies."
This is a pattern that I recognized. There's a class of people that are smarter than the US average, yet still rather stupid and arrogantly over-confident from an actually smart point of view.
E.g. Randall Munroe of xkcd or Ricky Gervais are famous examples.
They simply LOOK and ACT smart, but they aren't really that smart. They're just not utter and complete morons.
I don't think educated the word that you're looking for. How about uselessly credentialed?
Either this 'study' is deeply flawed, or it's actually the product of the Russian trolls it speaks of, since this makes precisely zero sense, someone not vaccinating their kids against common diseases is among the obvious definitions of 'unintelligent'. Don't really give a damn what anyone thinks of what I just said, either, so don't bother.
Randall Munroe seems fairly well educated in technical areas. Did I miss something? And, from my understanding,he's open and upfront that his comics aren't based just on his knowledge but that he has to do research fro them.
And I never heard anyone claim Ricky Gervais is particularly smart. Maybe you were confused by his accent into thinking people thought he was smart?/p:
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Higher educated, does not mean not stupid.
There's plenty of issues people have with vaccines that are based in science
Like what, exactly?
I don't respond to AC's.
I've met people who have plenty of fancy letters after their names, and they're dumb as rocks. They studied deep in a single field, but can only regurgitate knowledge, not integrate and extrapolate.
The more life I experience, the more I realize just how truly rare intelligence is.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Because your freedom ends when it endangers my life.
Looking back, wasn't that always the case?
No, I don't think it's that simple. Religion, by definition, is deliberate ignorance: believe something that has no basis in reality because it has no basis in reality. I don't know a whole heck of a lot of truly smart people who are also religious. I honestly don't know if I know any.
But, religion is becoming passe. It's dying off quickly in more educated, modern societies (ie: Europe). Without religion, some people still have some sort of innate need to believe in something irrational, because the idea of "this is all there is" is just too much (or not enough?) for them. I think that these people who need something else, but who can't buy into the magical sky wizard thing are grasping at all sorts of things, and some of those things are online Internet conspiracies.
Personally, I think that life as we know it is plenty interesting enough for me, so I don't understand why so many people need to look past that and believe in some sort of silly mumbo jumbo.
I don't respond to AC's.
Sorry to drag social media into the fray again, but it may have undue influence. The poorest, most ignorant people don't use social media much. When the doctor, or some authority, tells them to get vaccinations, they obey.
But those steeped in social media see lots of opinions, lots of controversy, lots of fake news. When an authority tells them to get vaccinations, they think they know better.
'All's fair in love and war', they say. Raising children is a very emotional activity. Parents tend to be protective and sometimes paranoid about obscure threats to their children. Rationality is sometimes overlooked when they find urgent online pleas to avoid vaxxing.
I work with illiterate adults, helping them to be readers. They are very docile and will do what doctors tell them to do. The rest of us are too smart to fall for that blind obedience trap.
...omphaloskepsis often...
No, it doesn't. According to the CDC :
Good luck trying to convince people that they should not have the freedom to drive a car, to take the bus, or to transport goods in trucks because it endangers your life.