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The whole vaccine mess, in the United States and abroad, is a story of allowing anecdotes to trump statistical reasoning.

Some parents who saw their children get their shots, and then tragically saw them develop autism, inferred a causal relationship that wasnt there. Fortunately, we have science to correct such errors, and in this case,science has done that.

But theres another error of anecdotal reasoning here not about vaccinations and the development of autism, but rather about a perceived correlation between leftwing, hippie-types and vaccine distrust.

And thus was born another myth that denying vaccine safety, or avoiding vaccinations, is a liberal,granola thing. Thats the myth that began toshatter on Monday,when libertarian leaning senator and possible presidential contender Rand Paulsaidsome truly alarming things about vaccines suggesting they should be voluntary in many cases, and citing many tragic cases of walking, talking, normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines.** (Dont worry, Im not only using the anecdote of Rand Paul to make this point. Stand by for the data.)

The truth is, the idea that vaccine skepticism lies on the political left never stood up tostatistical scrutiny. I wont belabor this point, since Ive made it before, but this chart from Yales Dan Kahan says it all while many beliefs change as you move from the left to the right of the political spectrum, doubts about vaccine safety really dont move much, and if anything,increaseslightly as you move to the right:

This suggests that political ideology is not the chief factor that predicts how a person feels about the safety of childhood vaccines. And indeed, we know that a much better predictor is being a conspiracy theorist, and holding beliefs like these: The Apollo Moon landings never happened and were staged in a Hollywood studio and The assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., was the result of an organized conspiracy by U.S. government agencies such as the CIA and FBI.

Nonetheless, there is a relatively weak correlation in the figure above between political conservatism and an increased distrust of vaccines. But that probably shouldnt be taken at face value, in light of other research suggesting that the association is really only with one branch of the complicated stew that we call American conservatism namely, with libertarians or free market believers.

Indeed,a new studysuggests that in 2009, in the wake of the swine flu (H1N1) scare, people who were less trusting of government were also less likely to get a swine flu vaccine.

All of this suggests that there may be an important tie between libertarian thinking which puts great emphasis on preserving individual liberties from government intrusions and doubts about government-requiredvaccinations. You dont have to listen to Rand Paul to discern that; you can also get a taste by going over and readingReason magazine, which hosted a 2014 debate over vaccinations that began with the observation, Few issues divide libertarians so emphatically as government-mandated vaccinations against communicable diseases.

The key word here, though, is divide. Even if theres a strain in the community that doesnt want the government telling them to vaccinate their kids, not all libertarians are against requiring vaccinations.

See the original post here:
Rand Paul is a stark reminder that some on the right also distrust vaccines