What can unify Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh with the progressive anti-vaccine bloggers of the Huffington Post?
Both camps are revolting against the H1N1 vaccine.
In a piece from Slate, Christopher Beam notes that “the two sides have finally found common cause,” and share a worldview where there’s “distrust—of doctors and modern medicine or of government.”
On the right, Mr. Lumbaugh eloquently told the Secretary of Health and Human Services to “screw you . . . I’m not going to take it precisely because you’re now telling me I must.” And many progressive bloggers, especially on the Huffington Post, (falsely) link vaccines in general to various diseases, like autism.
In the midst of political mudslinging poisoning the health reform atmosphere, the anti-vaccine sentiment is strangely bipartisan. Perhaps it’s the universal fear of shots. Or, as Mr. Beam wryly concludes, “Perhaps there’s a simpler, more elegant explanation for why members of both political extremes refuse to get vaccinated: natural selection.”
Indeed.
