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."

Comments

Not really

[PPH]

They also appear to be the victims of a widespread misinformation campaign, the experts said.

I suppose this could be a case of 'Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity.' But I'm going to go out on a limb and call BS. The affluent expect your little snot-dribblers to get vaccinated. No matter how small the risk. Just so their precious ones can benefit from herd immunity.

Re:One-eyed among the blind.

[bill_mcgonigle]

You might be referring to the Dunning-Kruger effect. Like somebody who is top of their game in field A assumes their knowledge is sufficient in field B.

They may also be bad at stats and be completely unaware of it.

intellect != well educated.

[Anonymous Coward]

The article claims that:

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.

Which is asinine. There's many ways to be smart, and many entirely different ways to be educated. A degree in business administration or economics gives you no insight into not getting fooled by dumbass anti-vaxxers or various conspiracy theories. In fact, it may make it easier, since they're "educated" and don't think they can be fooled! It's just as easy to trick so-called "educated" people as it is non-educated people. The only difference is the bait you use.

One of the reasons this anti-vaxxer stuff gets spread is we live in a world where we're taught that science is things printed in books, arguments that "sound right" rather than actually being educated on critical thinking skills, evidence based, and degrees of certainty.

Remember when it was just the Religous Right?

[DalM]

Remember when it was just the religious right that was anti-science? Ah, those were the days. We could just mock them behind their backs and call then neanderthals. Ha ha. Oh, nostalgia.

Turns out "religion" had nothing to do with it after all. A certain percentage of people will just believe whatever they want to believe, regardless of ethnicity, religion or economic status. Looking back, wasn't that always the case?

Re:One-eyed among the blind.

[hey!]

I have a younger relative who's an anti-vaxxer, and she has a master's degree in school counseling. She's not a bad person, in fact she's a good person but with overblown, romantic disposition that blinds her to her own folly on the issue.

Here's what I think happened. After Vietnam, and revelations about cigarette companies lying about lung cancer, and the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, we've done a good job teaching people to be wary of authority and corporate power. We haven't, however, done such a great job in giving them something *other* than trust in authority to fall back on. We haven't taught them to be skeptical.

Disbelieving a traditional authority figure and then putting your faith in an alternative authority is not skepticism. Treating every question of fact as if it were a matter of opinion isn't skepticism either. Both these things kinds of weak-tea skepticism are just alternative forms of credulity.

Re:One-eyed among the blind.

[93 Escort Wagon]

I would be curious if these “better educated” parents disproportionately fall into one particular professional field. My guess is that engineering is very strongly represented in the anti-vaxxer group.

So it's settled

[Opportunist]

It's not the dumb fucks but the selfish assholes. Gotcha.