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.
Related posts:
- Op-ed: Reasons why health care workers need to receive the H1N1 flu vaccine
- Should you follow medical advice from The Huffington Post?
- MMR vaccine not linked to autism
- Rahul Parikh: Anti-vaccine ads, and how false advertising harms children
- A pediatrician takes the anti-vaccine movement head on
- Why pregnant women should get the H1N1 flu vaccine
- How will the H1N1 vaccine be distributed to patients?
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I think that we need to be inoculated against the extreme views of Beck and Huffington.
The phrase that comes to mind: Biting off your nose to spite your face. I guess he showed them. Be interesting to see how he reacts if he gets the flu.
H1N1 flu vaccine, even if it were available to me, which it is not, is probably not something I would seek out. It’s not available to me partially because I am not in the highest risk population.
I would probably take my chances with the flu, being in a healthy middle age, with a childhood replete with survived flu infections, and the tendency of people in my age bracket to suffer relatively mild flu that is got over in the usual time.
I don’t pretend to be invulnerable, but I think the vaccine is of greater benefit to others… and I’m perfectly willing to let them go first.
I wouldn’t say “bipartisan” just because the nutjobs on both side are against it. Just proves that the further you go toward either political extreme the more similar (ie: paranoid, delusional) they become.