From time to time you may hear that anti-vaccination hysteria is a left-wing problem. But that's simply not accurate. There are a number of groups resisting vaccination; those who have been misinformed about the safety and efficacy of vaccines may lean a little more to the left, those who refuse to vaccinate for ideological or religious reasons may lean a little more to the right. But for now at least it's mostly a non-partisan problem and that's probably a good thing:
But imagine what would happen if that were to change. We already have the blueprint readily available from other science based issues that have become substantially partisan, namely, embryonic stem cell research, global climate change, and the teaching of evolution.
In each of these cases, we see that people seize on facts (and behaviors) that align with their political and religious identities and belief systems. Partisanship leads people to divide over scientific fact itself, and then creates policy dysfunction, gridlock, and quite a lot of divisiveness.
A version of this happens, too, with vaccine deniers as they argue back against the medical establishment. But that’s still a fringe battle that doesn’t map easily onto U.S. political divides.
There are few regimens in all of modern medicine more effective and safer than vaccines. Together with modern sanitation and antibiotics, vaccines form a protective trio against infectious disease that has arguably saved more lives and prevented more suffering than any other healthcare innovation in history.
It's bad enough that an utterly unscrupulous industry has recently grown up around frightening parents to the point that they needlessly expose themselves, their children and all the rest of us to otherwise preventable disease. Given the right's track record on science and politics, the last thing we need is Chris Christie or Rand Paul exploiting that fear for a few political brownie points and setting a political standard for other conservatives to follow.