{"id":5771,"date":"2024-01-24T08:39:12","date_gmt":"2024-01-24T14:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=5771"},"modified":"2024-01-24T08:39:16","modified_gmt":"2024-01-24T14:39:16","slug":"how-fringe-anti-science-views-infiltrated-mainstream-politics-and-what-it-means-in-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2024\/01\/24\/how-fringe-anti-science-views-infiltrated-mainstream-politics-and-what-it-means-in-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"How fringe anti-science views infiltrated mainstream politics \u2014 and what it means in 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"
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CBS News<\/a> Rates of routine childhood vaccination hit\u00a0a 10-year low<\/a>\u00a0in 2023. That, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, puts about 250,000 kindergartners at\u00a0risk for measles<\/a>, which often leads to hospitalization and can cause death. In recent weeks, an infant and two young children have been hospitalized amid an ongoing\u00a0measles outbreak in Philadelphia<\/a>\u00a0that spread to a day care center. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s a dangerous shift driven by a critical mass of people who now reject decades of science<\/a> backing the safety and effectiveness of childhood vaccines. State by state, they’ve persuaded legislators and courts to more easily allow children to enter kindergarten without vaccines,<\/a> citing religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growing vaccine hesitancy is just a small part of a broader rejection of scientific expertise that could have consequences ranging from disease outbreaks to reduced funding for research that leads to new treatments. “The term ‘infodemic’ implies random junk, but that’s wrong,” said Peter Hotez, a vaccine researcher at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas. “This is an organized political movement, and the health and science sectors don’t know what to do.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Changing views among Republicans have steered<\/a> the relaxation of childhood vaccine requirements, according to the Pew Research Center. Whereas nearly 80% of Republicans supported the rules in 2019, fewer than 60% do today<\/a>. Democrats have held steady, with about 85% supporting. Mississippi, which once boasted the nation’s highest rates of childhood<\/a> vaccination, began allowing religious exemptions<\/a> last summer. Another leader in vaccination, West Virginia<\/a>, is moving to do the same.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CBS News Rates of routine childhood vaccination hit\u00a0a 10-year low\u00a0in 2023. That, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, puts about 250,000 kindergartners at\u00a0risk for measles, which often leads to hospitalization and can cause death. In recent weeks, an infant and two young children have been hospitalized amid an ongoing\u00a0measles outbreak in Philadelphia\u00a0that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misinformation-disinformation-and-conspiracy-theories"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5771"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5772,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5771\/revisions\/5772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}