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Justtryme90 t1_izpn43u wrote

Reply to comment by five707 in An analysis of 4511 vaccine-related tweets show that anti-vaccine messaging tends to focus on the "harmful" nature of vaccines, based on personal values and beliefs rather than hard facts. Anonymity did not affect the type of content posted, but did affect volume of content. by glawgii

It's more like no evidence over empirical evidence.

Anecdotes are often based in fact and reality, they are just not verified with sufficient rigor. What we have with the anti vax position, is wild claims based on layer upon layer of misunderstanding.

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compchief t1_izq0y7b wrote

I'm curious, what are the usual anti-vaccine wild claims regarding the vaccine?

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Baud_Olofsson t1_izslbor wrote

The most popular one right now is claiming that people are dropping like flies from their COVID vaccines (simply made up, but "evidence" is presented by ascribing any and all deaths, regardless of actual cause of death, to vaccines). Other ones include:

  • "mRNA vaccines are gene therapy" (based on a complete misunderstanding of what mRNA is and what it does in our bodies).
  • "COVID vaccines cause AIDS" (simply made up).
  • "The vaccines contain tracking chips/5G chips/nanites" (simply made up, physically implausible/impossible).
  • "Vaccines make you magnetic" (simply made up, and physically impossible - but "proven" by sticking metal objects to skin (they stick because of sweat and oils on the skin; it has nothing to do with magnetism or any vaccines)).
  • "The vaccines shed to other people" (an actual but generally insignificant thing for some attenuated ("live") vaccines - of which there are none for COVID-19).
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