Anti-vaxxer trolls on Facebook are not who you might think: the majority are mothers who either support Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders.
The US is in the midst of measles outbreaks, which are striking 15 states, and driven by growing anti-vaccine sentiments.
Social media has helped the movement to gain momentum, and anti-vaxxers often flock to any content related to shots and attack, leaving a slew of comments objecting to the scientifically-proven preventative measures.
The contemporary anti-vaccine movement may have begun with a now-debunked study suggesting shots cause autism, but the new University of Pittsburgh study reveals that anti-vaxxers concerns have evolved.
Anti-vaccination trolls on social media spread misinformation wide and fast - and most of them are mothers who support establishment-wary politicians like Trump and Sanders, study finds
In order for vaccines to protect a population from diseases, between 90 and 95 percent of that group needs to have gotten their shots.
But in 2017, just 70 percent of toddlers between 19 and 35 months old had received all of the vaccinations recommended by that age by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Vaccines are one of the greatest advances of modern medicine, rendering life-threatening disease that could reach epidemic proportions into rarities in the US.
And now the undoing of that progress is considered one of the greatest threats to public health in the US.
Just as diseases like measles spread from person to person as they come into contact with one another misinformation acts as a social contagion, and the internet puts fringe groups in closer contact than ever.
Anti-vaxxers can quickly thwart the efforts of public health experts and officials to educate the public about the importance of immunizations.
In 2017, a Pittsburgh-area pediatrics practice made an informational video about the HPV vaccine, featuring its doctors encouraging the public to get the shots to help reduce their risks of HPV-related cancers.
It took a month for anti-vaxxers to find the post on Facebook, but once they did, thousands flocked to the page, leaving anti-vaccination comments.
The practice, which is connected with the University of Pittsburgh, reached out to its research arm, hoping that studying these comments would give some insight into who anti-vaxxers are, and how to counteract the information the are receiving and disseminating.
Looking at a random sample of almost 200 of the posts, the research team found that the majority of the posts came from mothers.
Although political affiliations were not always clear, 56 percent of anti-vaxxer comments on the HPV video came from Donald Trump supporters.
Trump himself has said that he's not anti-vaccination, but
