The Misguided Scientific Basis for the Anti-Vaccination Movement

​In light of the recent ​outbreak of measles at Disneyland and other states, there's been a lot of talk about vaccinations.

The discussion is firmly planted into two sides: the antivaxxers and the rest of us. The former group's rallying cry is that vaccines are believed to be linked to long-term health issues, such as autism, even though there is no scientific evidence of that.

And then there's everyone else. You know, those who would like to see that infectious diseases remain eradicated here in America so we can be healthy and relatively happy.

However, unlike us, YouTube personality Hank Green isn't so judgey and is here to explain that there's actually a methodology behind the antivaxxers' beliefs.

In this edition of "SciShow," Green says while it's proven that vaccinations save millions of lives each year, he sees the anti-vaccination movement "to be a phenomenon to be understood" that's rooted in science.

There's no known case for autism, Hank explains, and since there's no hard science, that leads people to form their own beliefs and form something called cognitive bias.

In this case, when parents notice their kids aren't developing quickly as their peers, they blame a recent event.

"It's not surprising that parents of children with autism, especially parents who notice a sudden loss of previous development, will search for a possible cause," Hank says.

"And when the most significant recent event in the health of the child was a vaccination…we might identify that as a potential cause and deem that link worthy of further examination."

That's logical, Hank exclaims. Meanwhile, there's a loud community online that shares those parents' views and serves as an echo chamber for their beliefs. And when you try to convince someone that their belief is wrong, research shows you're only increasing their personal affinity for it.

So, to summarize: the beliefs of antivaxxers boil down to the fact that there is no clear scientific explanation for what causes autism, combined with the helpless feeling of parents of autistic children who simply want to know why.

"This is not an antivaxxer problem," Hank says. "This is a human problem."