Ask Lemmy

The belief is real (but the claim is not).

A doctor claimed a certain ingredient in vaccines was causing autism, while also trying to sell his own version without that ingredient. A massive conflict of interest and he lost his medical licence over it.

But damage was done and people freaked out over it. In fact, the ingredient was removed in order to alleviate peoples concerns but by that point the idea vaccines=autism had taken off and it was hard to stop that spread of misinformation. Especially since the dude doubled down on the stance.

See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield

It’s so bad Texas currently has a measles outbreak.

The rumor started with a few celebrities with their new age theories (from the same era that brought you "rock and roll comes from the devil", "Anne Frank didn't write her diaries", and "Elvis is alive but Paul McCartney is dead") and then it just kind of picked up because America isn't very pro-disability and gets alienated easily. Fortunately it has finally just about died down, but once in a while someone will bring it up.

Your friend is not joking. There's an epidemic of disinformation washing across the USA.

And thanks to the disinformation around vaccines, there are also several other types epidemics breaking out...

There's too many stupid people in power; idiocracy is becoming real

I have very religious family that repeatedly told my 90 year old grandma not to get vaccinated in the depths of COVID-19. I have other, not-at-all religious family that works as a nurse… And is anti vaccine.

It’s like a parody.

…But it is no joke. I can answer questions about them if you want.

If you’re wondering why, it’s because many Americans are inundated in really scary social media and TV. That part of my family is constantly on Facebook, watching Fox, doomscrolling whatever. Even their church preaches some really, uh, interesting things now.

It’s this way because there’s a lot of profiteering. For example, the current head of the FBI is apparently selling and promoting some kind of “brave anti vaccine” health merchandise. The current head of the US health department made a lot of money and fame off vaccine skepticism. And their church clergy is crooked in ways I can’t even publicly discuss.

Do you see how these days anyone challenging authority and pointing out issues gets labeled and dismissed as a "conspiracist"? In the past years governments worldwide with the help of social networks and mass media pushed stupid ass conspiracy forward like flat earth and no vax as a tool to control and downplay dissent.

With the healtcare system being controlled by for profit evil corporations, medics treating people as if they were robots and after the covid pandemic where experimental vaccines got forced on people against their rights, vaccines misinformation found a fertile ground.

No, it's not a joke, some people are that fucking stupid.

There is a small, idiotic group that thinks that. Unfortunately that group is growing.

A nurse in my family went deep anti-vax during covid, and I still don't understand the motivation or logic. And they're definitely not an isolated story.

Robert DeNiro has a child with Autism he is absolutely positively convinced was caused by vaccines, he's shushed a lot in public, but it's a rock solid belief of his. I have no idea what to say except, the science says it's not true, so I either believe one man's (more than that but still) personal experience and unimaginable pain at the unfairness of life, or I believe demonstrable scientifically tested fact. I go with the later, but still wish Bobby well.

Yes, there are fuckheads here that genuinely believe it (and other crazy shit) and I wish they'd all get cancer and die.

They contribute nothing to society and they typically have zero redeeming qualities. The entire world would be better off if they were dead, full stop.

Yup. Plenty of us sure do! It stems from bogus autism research by Andrew Wakefield like 20 years ago. There are a myriad of reasons for people to buy into it. We’ve even enabled them with religious exemptions at the state level (i.e. it’s against your religion to vaccinate).

Louisiana has even stopped promoting them, https://abcnews.go.com/Health/louisiana-health-department-stop-promoting-mass-vaccination/story?id=118819674

And we have a particularly nasty outbreak right now in one of our states because of vaccine avoidance, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq8yvg5359po

Nowadays, its spread to other things like blaming them for heart problems, GI tract issues, etc. People who were infected with covid, some multiple times, are blaming vaccines for various health issues they're developing and refuse to accept that maybe the full-blown infection that nearly got them hospitalized could have just as well been the cause. Or just something that would have happened as they aged regardless.

I think most of this is genuine belief. There was a doctor named Wakefield who fraudulently published this autism claim in academic journals. Those papers were retracted, but the damage was done.

I think it sticks around as a conspiracy, because otherwise there's not a whole lot else that can explain the causes or origins of autism.

Hey, at least give discredit where it's due, the brits are the ones who started it.

I work with several people who believe this.

Your friend’s mom is a fucking idiot that would believe literally anything that the “right” person would say.

Absolutely a gullible little tool that’s behaving just as they want.

only the ones that are anti-vax believe that, in the us theres this lady , jenny mccarthny who jumpstarted the movement.

In another post, the user who didn't want vaccines said it's that they did not want to put the comfort of others above their own.

I guess that's a valid stance but it's definitely not a view I share.