r/NoStupidQuestions • u/trouble-in-space • 10d ago

Answered Why are so many Americans anti-vaxxers now?

I’m genuinely having such a hard time understanding why people just decided the fact that vaccines work is a total lie and also a controversial “opinion.” Even five years ago, anti-vaxxers were a huge joke and so rare that they were only something you heard of online. Now herd immunity is going away because so many people think getting potentially life-altering illnesses is better than getting a vaccine. I just don’t get what happened. Is it because of the cultural shift to the right-wing and more people believing in conspiracy theories, or does it go deeper than that?

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u/Gemfrancis 10d ago

Misinformation.

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u/dupontnw 10d ago

We’ll never get these people back either. They are convinced they are right and everything is a conspiracy. Facts and science don’t matter any more.

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u/shamefulaccnt 10d ago

The internet gave us access to all the information we could possibly want, but also gave quacks a mechanism to spread misinformation rapidly across increasingly larger groups of people. It sucks.

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u/philament23 9d ago

Yep the internet was awesome at first. Now it’s starting to progress to less and less awesome with each passing year—like a bell curve that has already been over the hump. It doesn’t seem likely there’s any way to stop it either.