this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2025
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It's driven by scared parents being asked to put needles in their kids and not having enough education to trust it. On top of that you have the extreme edge cases where parents of autistic children attribute the autism to those things, who earnestly and sincerely campaign against it because they genuinely believe they're protecting other parents and their kids.
Politicians and right wing agitators latch onto it because it's fucking easy to use emotional hysteria with no basis in facts. The others that latch on are conspiracy theorists and cranks.
Because the root of it is ultimately scared parents you have an infinitely replenishing issue base that will always affect a very large and important portion of the population. They use it as the starting point of a right wing pipeline.
I remember when the "vaccines cause autism" thing started picking up steam over 20 years ago. There wasn't as much known or understood about neurodivergence. I understand the reason for the fear at that time, because there was so much that there wasn't an answer for.
But why is all of this still so central to all these cranks? Now if you're concerned about autism you can read about it. You can learn about all the things we know now that we didn't when the hysteria began.
I know the answer is because they're cranks. I know the answer is that americans will never educate themselves when they could just have a moral panic instead.
You're right about frightened parents creating this inexauhstable supply to keep the hysteria going. I think that's the best answer as to why this persists. But I can't seem to ever stop feeling baffled. That this 25 year long hysteria continues in the face of how much our understanding of neurodiversity has grown is something that just deeply effects me.
a lot of people don't really use the internet to research something so much as to find validation for their biases, if not just straight up entertainment.
you can still run into people who think seatbelt laws are bad because im an accident, you need to get out of the car quickly before it catches fire.
granted, they are rarer now than they were 30 years ago, and everybody in their IRL orbit for sure knows they are a complete dolt, but all the research, data and science in the world hasn't done anything to dislodge the turds between their ears.
I dunno I think I'd prefer taking a few extra seconds and risk some mild burns over exiting a car through the front windshield at 60 mph, buy maybe that's because I'm a liberal.
the trick is to close your eyes when you are launched through th glass and then tuck and roll when you hit the ground.
also, the windshields are all made of safety glass now, so like its nbd to be launched face forst through one.
in particular, Wakefield published his bullshit study because he had a financial interest in a competitor to the MMR vaccine at the time.
Perfectly put.