Menschen, die Medien der „Neuen Rechten“ mit konservativer Voreingenommenheit verfolgen (Breitbart, Newsmax, Zero Hedge), waren mehr als doppelt so häufig impfzögerlich. Sie verlassen sich auch auf alternative Gesundheitsanbieter, Social-Media-Gesundheitsinfluencer und alternative Gesundheits-Newsletter (Children’s Health Defense).
https://hub.jhu.edu/2026/04/28/new-right-news-sources-vaccine-hesitancy/
12 Kommentare
WHERE PEOPLE GET THEIR NEWS INFLUENCES THEIR BELIEFS ABOUT VACCINES
New survey finds significant link between ’new right‘ outlets and vaccine hesitancy
People who follow „new right“ media outlets are more than twice as likely to be vaccine-hesitant compared to those who never engage with those outlets, a new Johns Hopkins University study finds.
Researchers surveyed nearly 3,000 adults in 2025, as measles cases hit record highs in the United States, asking participants about their sources for news and health information and how they felt about the measles-mumps-rubella, or MMR, vaccine. The findings revealed how specific media habits are strongly associated with attitudes toward vaccines.
The study found:
People who regularly engaged with „new right“ media outlets, meaning digital news outlets with a strong conservative political bias including Breitbart, Newsmax, and Zero Hedge, were more than twice as likely to be vaccine hesitant.
Hesitant adults were more likely to rely on non-authoritative sources for health information, like alternative health providers, social media health influencers, and alternative health newsletters, such as Children’s Health Defense.
For those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0264410X26003762
Kind of doing them a favour by giving into their own framing and calling them „vaccine hesitant.“
My aunt was so „vaccine hesitant,“ she hesitated till she died of COVID. Guess if COVID had’ve been slower, she might have hesitated all her hesitation away and eventually got the shot, right?! (Nope)
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I think the most valuable information here is the direction of causality, if it’s possible to establish it.
Do people look for and promote ‚alternative‘ health media because they’re vaccine hesitant? Or do people become vaccine hesitant because they consume misinformation?
Working out which direction this goes affects whether you tackle the problem with positive information and educational campaigns or by regulating the spread of misinformation.
It does not appear that they controlled for intelligence, which would be ideal and a major third variable.
It’s almost like the Fairness Doctrine was a well thought out solution to a very real problem.
Wouldn’t it be more useful to study the belief systems of „*People who follow „new right“ media with conservative bias*“, rather than pumping out an endless series of clickbait stories about readily predictable correlations?
And even more useful to even scratch the surface of whether „new right“ media merely *correlates* with such beliefs, or actually *c*reates them?
This is not incremental science that leads to a greater understanding of anything. It has the form of science, but none of the content.
It is mad how ‘separation between State, Market, Justice and Faith’ turned into ‘hate the State’
This study is a bit like going to a used car lot and finding it full of people who want to buy a used car. The folks who gravitate towards those sources are the people who are skeptical of mainstream medicine and who are looking for the news sources that talk about vaccine injury and so forth. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if they were 10 times as likely not to want vaccines. 100 times as likely.
I’m shocked it’s only 2x
We can appreciate their efforts to keep this mistake as short-lived as possible, just wish they weren’t taking out some of us with them.
I unfortunately got lumped into this group as I had a permanent adverse reaction to the Covid vaccine and elected not to take the second dose. Same thing happened to my mom so it’s definitely a genetic link for us. I had people telling me I should be in a camp or dead and calling me an anti-vaxxer, assuming my politics. People forgot what Science truly is in those dark times. Assume nothing.