When it comes to spreading disinformation about climate change or the risks of smoking, I can clearly see how it protects economic interests (e.g. the value of the assets of the fossil fuel industry or the tobacco industry). I therefore understand that these lies are (have been) regularly pushed by people who do not necessarily believe in them.
But what are the strategic considerations behind the active spread of anti-vax theories? Who gains from this? Is it just an effective topic to rile up a political base? Because it hits people right in the feels? Is it just a way to bring people together on one topic, in order to use that political base for other purposes?
Or is anti-vax disinformation really only pushed by people who believe it?
I was talking specifically of covid vaccinations. Conflating the way covid was pitched and the reasonable doubt people had with it, and attributing the same label you to to those that questions other vaccinations is it’s own issue.
Measles is one of the oldest vaccines out there. There’s generations of data on its efficacy.
I have been labeled anti-vax because I expressed doubts about the Covid-19 vaccine. And that’s not an accurate depiction of my stance, or of the medical decisions I made for myself and my family both during the pandemic and since (or before for that matter). In fact we required family to get tdap boosters to see my premature daughter back in the early 2010s because of pertussis and the specific risks to newborns, especially premature kids. And I couldn’t bring her home because I had a fever at the end of her multi-week NICU stay.