Spreading even faster than the measles outbreak is the controversy over vaccinations and people who choose to opt out of them. Is it a Left vs. Right issue? Conservative siteĀ NewsbustersĀ says that left-leaning coverage of this issue labels conservatives anti-vaccination, while plenty of liberals have chosen not to vaccinate. The headlines on left-leaning Huffington Post today are pro-vaccine, but back in 2011Ā The Huffington Post published a detailed analysisĀ of the issue that gives some credence to concerns about vaccines. As always, we present multiple views and let you be the judge.Ā
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Snippets from the Left
New York Times
"The vaccination controversy is a twist on an old problem for the Republican Party: how to approach matters that have largely been settled among scientists but are not widely accepted by conservatives.
It is a dance Republican candidates often do when they hedge their answers about whether evolution should be taught in schools. It is what makes the fight over global warming such a liability for their party, and what led last year to a widely criticized response to the Ebola scare."
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Snippets from the Right
The Blaze
"'Everybody has a choice. But you canāt take away peopleās choice to augment or change their body,ā Beck said. āI mean, āUS out of my uterus.ā How about the āUS out of my armā? You donāt have a right to inject me with things.āBeck reminded those attempting to turn the matter into a political issue that President Barack Obama had largely the same stance in 2008.āThe left is now trying to claim the high ground on this whole thing,ā Beckās co-host Stu Burguiere added. āBut the biggest, most visible anti-vaccination people over this entire period have been on the left. RFK Jr. is the biggest anti-vaccine guy out there. Jenny McCarthy is no conservative.'"
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Snippets from the Center
Vaccination foes on the defensive
Politico
"Richardson said thereās a misperception about many parents who choose to opt out of vaccines. āAll it takes is being off schedule for one vaccine, and you need an exemption,ā she said. Some parents want to wait until children are older before being immunized against some infectious diseases, she continued, while others may want an exemption for one specific shot but not the whole roster of school-enrollment requirements.
A couple of the proposed measures to curb exemptions were in the works before the first red-splotched child was linked to exposure at Disneyland ā but as the count rises, itās increasing lawmakersā sense of urgency."
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- John and the AllSides team
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