Unfortunately, the antivaccine movement has had success linking “vaccine choice” with “freedom” and “parental rights”, l
eading to a surge of right wing antivaccine activism that has undermined that bipartisan consensus... and bills like HB 4425/6 and SB 299/300 are the result.
.... thus, over the last five years or so,
the loudest voices in the antivaccine movement have increasingly tended to come from the right, not the left, such that vaccine policy even
featured prominently in the second Republican debate, largely thanks to
Donald Trump’s long history of antivaccine rhetoric and the increasing alignment with antivaccine groups with Tea Party and right wing political groups.... . Antivaxers were
further energized when it was revealed that Donald Trump had met with disgraced British antivaccine gastroenterologist
Andrew Wakefield in August and then again when he met with antivaccine activist
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in January, allegedly about a vaccine safety commission.
Unfortunately, antivaccine activists have become very good at conflating the “freedom” to refuse vaccines with “freedom.” Worse, they are fringe no longer, and vaccine policy is being politicized in a way that it has never been before.
Indeed, a couple of months ago, The Washington Post published an article, “
Trump energizes the anti-vaccine movement in Texas“, and it’s not just in Texas where they’re being energized.
..Unfortunately, the situation around the country is like that in Texas, where the antivaccine groups outgun pro-vaccine groups in terms of funding and activism. Unless we can reverse this situation, the antivaccine movement will succeed in making measles great again, not to mention several other vaccine-preventable diseases.