Anti-vaxxers

Scientists usually receive very few grants for research on the safety of vaccinations, adjuvants and other vaccine components. However, there is more than enough funds to research why people do not vaccinate, and how to make them vaccinate their children. Therefore, there are many studies characterizing "anti-vaxx" parents.

It is believed that the "anti-vaxxers" are usually uneducated, religious and science-denying people. However, objective evidence suggests otherwise. Most anti-vaxxers are wealthy and well-educated.
In some private schools in Los Angeles, less than 20% of children are vaccinated. How can it be that these rich and educated people do not vaccinate their children? Do they not know that vaccinations are completely safe, and that they protect against terrible diseases? Or maybe they know something about vaccinations that others do not?

Here are a few studies:

Unvaccinated children are mostly white. Their mothers are over 30, married, have an academic degree, and their families earn more than $75,000 a year. (USA)

Children of less educated mothers and children in families with low income-to-poverty ratios were more likely to have completed the vaccination series.
More African and Latin Americans are vaccinating their children, and the poorer they are, the more they vaccinate. (USA)

Parents with college education are 3 times more likely to refuse vaccinations.
Medical workers are 4 times more likely to refuse vaccinations.
Atheists are 2.6 times more likely to refuse vaccinations. (Netherlands)

Parents who do not vaccinate their children, value scientific knowledge, know where to look for, and how to analyze information about vaccinations, and at the same time expressed high levels of distrust of the medical community. (USA)

In California, the percentage of students with non-medical vaccination exemptions increased 4-fold between 2001 and 2014 (from 0.77% to 3.15%). Higher income, white population, and private school type significantly predicted greater increases in exemptions.
In other states the same phenomenon is observed - the percentage of private school students who opt for exemptions is much higher than in of public school students.

University-educated parents were 2.1 times more likely to refuse vaccinations compared to parents with a high school education. Jewish parents were 4 times more likely to refuse to have their children vaccinated compared to Muslims, and Christian parents were 3.29 percent more likely to refuse than Muslim parents.
The older the mother, the more likely the refusal to vaccinate. (Israel)

Mothers who don't vaccinate are older and more educated than mothers who do. (United Kingdom)

Having more education was associated with a decreased having a daughter receive the HPV vaccine. (Canada)

A systematic review of 28 studies showed the higher was the level of parents' education, the higher was the likelihood of them refusing the HPV vaccine.

The higher the level of education, age and income, the more likelihood of parents refusing the MMR, and choosing a monovalent measles vaccine. (United Kingdom)

Parents with higher education and conservatives rarely allowed their daughters to get vaccinated against HPV. Higher percentage of parents who did not complete high school, Catholics and liberals, allowed their daughters to have this vaccination. (California, United States)

More educated mothers and mothers with higher incomes often refuse to vaccinate their newborn child against hepatitis B. (Colorado, USA)

After Australia passed a law obliging parents to vaccinate children to receive child benefits ("no jab, no pay"), parents living in rich areas of Melbourne began to vaccinate even less. Parents who are more educated, many with a science degrees, more often doubt the safety and the need for vaccinations.
Only 20% of those parents who did not vaccinate before this law was introduced, began to vaccinate because of it. 10% of Australian parents believe that vaccines are associated with autism. More: [1]

Vaccine-safety related sentiment is particularly negative in the European region, which has seven of the ten least confident countries. Countries with high levels of schooling and good access to health services are associated with lower rates of positive sentiment, pointing to an emerging inverse relationship between vaccine sentiments and socio-economic status.

Most of these studies have come to the same conclusion. Parents who do not vaccinate their children are older, wealthier and more educated than the average. Please stop treating them like idiots. [1], [2], [3].

And here are a few more of those exceptionally important studies that were important enough to spend the taxpayers' money on:

If the doctor says "we will do the flu vaccine today," 72% of the parents agree. But if the doctor asks, “are we going to be vaccinated for flu today?”, only 17% agree.
If a doctor recommends a flu shot along with any other vaccine, then 83% of parents agree. And if the doctor offers the flu vaccine separately, then only 33% agree to it. The physicians should be aware.

The authors of this study analyzed YouTube, Google, Wikipedia and Pubmed, and came to the conclusion that the higher the degree of freedom of speech on a resource, the more the association between vaccines and autism is discussed. On YouTube the degree of freedom of speech is highest, on Google it is less, and on Wikipedia and Pubmed it is very low. This leads to the fact that on YouTube 75% of the relevant videos link vaccinations with autism, on Google 41% of the search results do so, on Wikipedia - 14% of the articles, and on Pubmed 17% of the articles link the vaccines with autism (more than on Wikipedia!).

But the worst thing is, per the authors, that anti-vaccine activists use scientific arguments (!), doctors (!), famous people and personal stories to establish trust! The problem is, they write, that YouTube, unlike Google, does not give priority to scientific authorities in search ads.
Medical doctors participated in 36% of the anti-vaccine ads, and only in 28% of the pro-vaccine ads.
The authors of the study propose to moderate the Internet, and also urge medical institutions to be more proactive online.

The authors of this study analyzed comments on Mark Zuckerberg's post on Facebook. They concluded that anti-vaccination comments were more analytical, and were more on point. Pro-vaccine comments were characterized by increased anxiety.
In another study the authors analyzed the anti-vaccination movement on Facebook, and concluded that the majority of participants in anti-vaccination groups are women.

In this study, the authors analyzed 22 anti-vaccine sites, and concluded that these sites are… against vaccinations.

In 43% of vaccination-related queries, search engines showed anti-vaccination sites in the top ten. On Google, 100% of the sites in the top ten were anti-vaccine. More than half of those sites quote medical doctors who speak out against vaccination. 75% of those sites quote scientific sources.
The authors conclude that there is a high probability that parents will be exposed to anti-vaccination materials on the Internet.

When parents are told about a child having almost died from measles, it only strengthens their belief that the MMR vaccine leads to serious side effects.
When parents are shown photographs of children with measles, this only strengthens their belief that vaccines lead to autism.
When parents are told the horrors of diseases, this does not affect their intentions to not vaccinate their children.
When parents are told that MMR is not related to autism, they agree, but their intentions to vaccinate their children only decreases.

When people are told that a flu vaccine cannot cause flu, they believe it, but their intention to get vaccinated only decreases.

When parents are told that whooping cough is more dangerous than a vaccine against it, they believe it, but their intention to vaccinate their children only decreases.

Existing "misinformation correction" strategies are ineffective and lead just to the opposite effect, reinforcing unfounded beliefs about vaccination and decreasing the intentions to vaccinate.

Parents who know someone whose child has suffered from vaccination adverse effects rarely vaccinate their children, and postpone vaccination until a later date more often.
Many parents doubt physicians' recommendations, because they know that they have to achieve a certain vaccination coverage, and have a financial interest in vaccinating.

There are a lot of studies similar to the above. Here are a few more, for those who want to further research this hilarious subject: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9].

Professor of Pediatrics Dr. Carol J. Baker offers a simple solution to the anti-vaccination problem. Since anti-vaxxers are mostly white and educated, she suggests getting rid of the white people in the US.

Grants had been provided for all these studies. But there is no money for adequate vaccine safety studies, those that would last more than a few days, and would use a real placebo.
But you hang in there. Best wishes! Cheers! Take care!

(*** The last phrase is a reference to Russian PM Medvedev 2016 Crimea visit, where he said it regarding people's complaints about inadequate pensions)