The antivax movement got its start from Andrew Wakefield's Lancet article of 1998, which has not only been widely discredited it was actually retracted. That took 11 years, however, and in the interim Bobby Kennedy wrote a piece tying vaccines to autism in Rolling Stone, Jenny McCarthy set up a PAC against vaccination and white liberal women in wealthy areas of Los Angeles managed to bring back measles. http://tallguywrites.livejournal.com/148012.html I call the anti-vax movement a "disease of the left" because I see it every day. My wife is a midwife for the affluent in Los Angeles. She makes a not-insubstantial amount of money every month holding seminars on vaccines. These women are her clients, and not a one of them has ever voted republican. Ever. Those are the facts. There's nothing absurd about them. If you think there is, it indicates that your understanding is lacking.