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" On the pro-vaccine side - and not everyone does this, but I saw it enough for it to make me really uncomfortable - is a tendency to accuse people who are wary of vaccination of being stupid and not understanding science. "

Eula Biss

Science

Stupid

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Eula Biss

Research

Risk

" In the case of Pakistan, the CIA actually used a fake vaccination campaign to try to locate Osama bin Laden, so now vaccination is associated with espionage. "

" There's a cultural expectation that everyone will be immunized, in part to protect the entire population. When people refuse that expectation, they're indulging in a certain kind of political or social immunity. "

" I think there's a temptation to try to think of people who don't vaccinate as a homogenous community, but I'm not convinced that's true. I'm not even sure that the word 'community' is totally accurate there, you know. "

" I guess I could say that I pursue questions that interest me in ways that interest me on the page, but that's awfully vague. "

" What I saw when I was doing research is that in pursuit of a middle ground, people will kind of split the difference between the two extremes that they're hearing. And I think what's problematic is that people are seeing vaccinating on schedule, on time, as an extreme position. "