It's a very real belief, lot of folks here weren't around to know the "before times" and nothing is ever real until it happens to them.

So this happened…

They actually believe it. Despite no actual link being found. Despite the author of the OG article admitting that he falsified data.

People here also believe that mRNA vaccines will rewrite your genes, that the COVID vaccine sequesters in your testicles and makes you sterile and magnetic, that vaccines are less effective than "natural immunity", that vaccines will feminize you and make you compliant to authority, and that vaccines are ineffective.

I have legitimately heard all of those arguments against vaccines in the wild. For the record, vaccines are one of the oldest and most effective preventative measures we have. There is a reason why the mortality rate for children isn't +30% anymore, it's vaccines, and vaccination programs.

People are stupid and subscribe to tribalism. It's very real.

People heard about the original, now discredited study, which came out around the time autism diagnosises were increasing. People then either didn't hear or chose not to believe that the OG study was discredited.

I know many who believe vaccines cause autism yes

There are people around the world who don’t believe in it. It’s not specific to Americans. You are basing this off one person on both the ends.

As an American that lives 20ish miles from the boarder of Idaho state (on average poor, uneducated, and conservative population), let me tell you its fucking real. Those people are ignorant and proud. It is depressing.

United States citizens have reasons not to trust their government with their health. Trust takes a lot time to build, and recent administrations haven't been building it.

At a job in Silicon Valley I had a boss who had an autistic child and my boss told me directly that when they vaccinated their child, the child's behavior changed, and caused autism.

I have other friends in SV who are huge vaccine skeptics.

So, yes, even in deep blue areas there are anti-vax people. There are also Trump flag flying people in SV too.

The irony is it was all started with a guy trying to spread FUD over existing measles vaccines to try getting his own vaccines picked up.

Yeah this is a true thing. This person that knows me asked me if vaccines caused my autism.

Do you see how these days anyone challenging authority and pointing out issues gets labeled and dismissed as a "conspiracist"? In the past years governments worldwide with the help of social networks and mass media pushed stupid ass conspiracy forward like flat earth and no vax as a tool to control and downplay dissent.

With the healtcare system being controlled by for profit evil corporations, medics treating people as if they were robots and after the covid pandemic where experimental vaccines got forced on people against their rights, vaccines misinformation found a fertile ground.

MIL100% believes this. Her son was normal until about 3 and then developed seizures and is now brain damage. She blames vaccines and it doesn't help a few other kids in area had similar experiences. She thinks there was a bad batch distribution.

It’s a loud minority. Also not just in America there are anti-vax people all over the world. Mostly in developed countries where they have eliminated diseases like polio. And where outbreaks of measles are really rare. Anti-vax don’t believe vaccines are necessary since they personally never seen diseases like polio. While everyone in the developing world knows that vaccines are necessary since they’ve seen what those diseases can do to people.

You know the meme Hard Times Create Strong Men, Strong Men Create Good Times, Good Times Create Weak Men, Weak Men Create Hard Times Well antivax are the weak men.

Most people? No, definitely not. Most Americans get vaccinated. More people than you would hope? Yeah, absolutely.

There's so many people here who have crazy views on health and wellness generally. Juice cleanses. Chiropractic. Homeopathy. Fad diets. Faith healing. I think some of it is because people can't afford real healthcare, but most of it is anti-intellectualism and propaganda.

Yes, they do believe it.

In my country which is a third world country no one believe shit like that even my Grand mother who is illiterate and religious don’t believe thing like that and knows the benefit of vaccine

That is because your country has recent, relevant experience with the efficacy of vaccines.

US citizens have been so coddled for so long by being an economic superpower and having access to medications and medical procedures that others do not that those who remember are beginning to pass from old age. This means an entirely new, always coddled generation literally does not know from experience how bad things can get without it. Due to that, and due to American obsession with "free speech" lies and misinformation have flourished, and made people believe that these things are dangerous instead of lifesaving.

Further, it's tied in with how US citizens feel about being "different." We live in a wild cult of individuality where everyone knows that if you're actually really different that things can go sideways for you fast. They'd rather not risk a child being "different" and having autism, and they genuinely don't understand that they're choosing to risk death of their child instead. You can be different, just so long as you're exactly like everybody else!

Our education system is so broken, and our people are so fucking coddled, that they have the opportunity to pretend that these things don't matter. It's literally children tearing down things they don't like because they don't understand.

These are those "weak mean that create hard times." Which is infuriating because anti-vaxxers and their ilk are the people who peddle that kind of bullshit ass saying the most, erroneously thinking they're the "strong men" because they're "willing to stand up to the man." In this case, "the man," being anyone with an education. Notice they don't hate a rich idiot like Trump who does not care for them, but they hate intellectuals "in their ivory towers" (cough academia).

Yes, a society can be so coddled that the stupid resent the intelligent and educated to the point where they reject everything they say. They think they are fighting tyranny because they have convinced themselves we are lying to them to "get one over on them." It's absurd because the very people who put those ideas in their heads are the ones trying to get one over on them. Of course, this has been going on in America for long time.

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'

-Isaac Asimov, 1980

The rumor started with a few celebrities with their new age theories (from the same era that brought you "rock and roll comes from the devil", "Anne Frank didn't write her diaries", and "Elvis is alive but Paul McCartney is dead") and then it just kind of picked up because America isn't very pro-disability and gets alienated easily. Fortunately it has finally just about died down, but once in a while someone will bring it up.

The belief is real (but the claim is not).

A doctor claimed a certain ingredient in vaccines was causing autism, while also trying to sell his own version without that ingredient. A massive conflict of interest and he lost his medical licence over it.

But damage was done and people freaked out over it. In fact, the ingredient was removed in order to alleviate peoples concerns but by that point the idea vaccines=autism had taken off and it was hard to stop that spread of misinformation. Especially since the dude doubled down on the stance.

See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield