Sounds Like A Cult - The Cult of Anti-Vaxxers

Episode Date: September 23, 2025

This week, Amanda is joined by vaccine scientist Dr. Peter Hotez and cultural critic Jane Borden (@janebordan) to unravel the misinformation machine and identity politics that keep this movement alive. Together, we break down not only how the anti-vax community functions like a high-control cult, with its own martyrs, prophets, and sacred texts (looking at you, “do your own research”), but also what vaccines actually are and how they work, cutting through the noise of pseudoscience and fearmongering. Why do some people reject mountains of evidence in favor of YouTube rabbit holes? How did “mommy Facebook groups” metastasize into a full-on political identity? And what can we do to push back against the dangerous myths fueling this movement? From myth-busting to meaning-making, this episode pulls back the curtain on one of the most harmful cults of our time. Subscribe to Sounds Like A Cult on Youtube!Follow us on IG @soundslikeacultpod, @amanda_montell, @reesaronii, @chelseaxcharles.  Thank you to our sponsors! Earn points on rent and around your neighborhood, wherever you call home, by going to https://joinbilt.com/CULT Head to ⁠https://www.squarespace.com/CULT⁠ to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code CULT Please consider donating to those affected by the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Team SLAC are donating to the PCRF, a nonprofit organization providing vital medical care, food, and humanitarian aid to children and families in need. The Big Magical Cult Show is coming to Just For Laughs Toronto on September 27th. Get your tickets before they sell out!  London! Come see Sounds Like A Cult LIVE!! November 24th at Bush Hall. Get tickets before they're gone!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, Coltys. Sorry. I was going to try to do this promo in a British accent, and I've just now decided against it. Coltis is your host, Amanda Montel. And despite my cold feet about the accent, I am so excited to announce that sounds like a cult live is coming to London. A live version of this very podcast is coming to London's gorgeous Bush Hall on November 24th. It's going to be a night of culty conversations of juicy,

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So the best hapice in town might be in a new town altogether. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at Amex.ca. The views expressed on this episode, as with all episodes of Sounds Like a Cult, are solely host opinions and quoted allegations. The content here should not be taken as indisputable fact. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only. It's a community that, as far as I can tell, sees itself as righteous, independent, even heroic.

One of the things the anti-vaccine groups do is they keep moving the goalpost or you play this kind of parake-game of whackamol. They keep on switching up what they allege. a vaccination, then they're going to take away your guns and your Bibles. Trump and RFK want power, and this movement is a way to get it. It's a moral crusade, moral and scare quotes, of course. This is Sounds Like a Cult, a show about the modern day cults we all follow. I'm your host Amanda Montel, author of books including the New York Times bestsellers cultish and The Age of Magical Overthinking.

Every week on the show, we discuss a different zeitgeisty group or guru that puts the cult in culture, from Waldorf schools to van lifers, to try and answer the big question. This group sounds like a cult, but is it really? And if so, which of our three cult categories does it fall into? A live your life, a watch your back, or a get the fuck out. After all, cult-ish influence these days falls along a spectrum. I personally think that we're living in the most cultish era of all time, but not all modern-day cults are created equal.

Some groups truly reek of cult. They're members dress funky. They're all wild-eyed and passionate about the thing they're into, whether it's Disney or, I don't know, Trader Joe's products. But at the end of the day, even though they're full of zealotry that resembles classic cults from the 70s, when you look under the hood, the consequences and stakes of those groups aren't anywhere near as destructive as some more mainstream communities that engage in

us versus them mentalities and ends justify the means philosophies and all kinds of exploitation and abuse, but don't necessarily look like cults on the outside. That is what the show is all about, scrutinizing and even poking a little bit of fun at the ways people seek identity and meaning and purpose and answers in the modern age. Today, we're confronting one of of the most loaded and controversial communities we've probably ever covered on sounds like a cult, but that has amassed a lot of attention and power over the past few decades. We're talking about anti-vaxxers. Now, we could have a debate about even referring to this community that way, anti-vaxxers.

Some people call them the vaccine awareness movement. To simplify things, we're going to be using the term anti-vaxers today, referring to a sort of disparate group that has many sex with. within it, but whose beliefs are all rooted in some of the same culty stuff, and whose influence has genuinely posed a public health risk. Historically, anti-vaxxers have been framed as more of a conspiracy theory, but at this point I think it's safe to classify them more as a cult for reasons that we'll get into throughout today's analysis with our expert guests.

It's a community that, as far as I can tell, sees itself as righteous, independent, even heroic, as well as anti-establishment. These enlightened mavericks protecting their kids against the evils of the mad scientists in alleged cahoots with Big Pharma, no matter what the evidence shows about the not only safe but life-saving benefits of vaccinations. And yet, these beliefs are dangerous because not only are they rooted in mistrust and disinformation, but because it's attached itself to an identity that is hard to question and under the guidance of a few choice, cult-leadersish voices, which are varying degrees.

of charismatic. Now, in the spirit of being balanced, I guess, but also mostly just not more alarmist than I necessarily need to be, I do want to say that the majority of the American population is getting vaccinated against a host of diseases that we will enumerate shortly. But vaccination rates are declining. I know the anti-vax community doesn't like the CDC. I know they don't trust them. But if you can bear with me for this statistic real quick, the CDC did release some new federal data this past July showing that childhood vaccination rates dropped again during the 2024 to 2025 school year, with MMR coverage that refers to the measles, mumps, and rebella vaccine, falling well below the 95% threshold needed for cured immunity.

This decline also coincides with a record measles outbreak, the worst since the disease was declared eliminated in the year 2000, with over 1,300 confirmed cases in 2025 and three deaths. Okay, so I want to be super upfront. I am not a freaking scientist, okay? but we are going to have one joining us later. That said, I grew up in a household of scientists. I really vibe with science. I think vaccines are good.

Dare I say, I get them. Do I like getting poked in the armhole? No. Do I like the idea of protecting my fellow human from dying of some 1800s-ass disease? Why, yes, yes, I do. Do I think it's always super helpful to call the people who disagree with me a whole ass cult?

No. But we throw around that word real liberally here, on this show. And I just sometimes feel so mind-blown that something as empirically grounded and obviously like so, so so helpful to society with so much compelling evidence to support as vaccination has become the center of this polarized, culty-ass cultural debate. My goal with this episode is to unpack that and to do that in a way that feels convincing. I am so excited to be joined by not one but two expert guests today. The first is a top epidemiologist who's joining us to lay down some facts. No fearmongering, no pharmacist speak, just some bonafety

facts about what vaccines are, how they actually work, why they're important, but also why they've become such a controversial cultural lightning rod. That expert is none other than Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccine scientist, pediatrician, and global health leader. He showed up in a a bow tie to our interview. Okay, he was not here to play. Check it out on YouTube. Yes. Sounds like a cult also has a YouTube. And then we're going to get into a cool, more cultural and psychological analysis with an author named Jane Borden. Jane is a culture critic, a journalist, and most recently the author of a book titled Colts Like Us. And she's going to talk to us about the historical and cultural factors that led us to the anti-vax community as we know it today,

all the way from the Puritans to the Facebook echo chambers. So whether you identify as vaccine skeptical, allergic to the jab, or vax to the max, we, it sounds like a cult, really hope that you'll give this full episode a listen as we dig into one of the most divisive and high-stakes cult-like communities in modern memory. So before we get into our interviews, I want to rewind for a second. Because sometimes I think of anti-vax movements as being like, I don't know, 10, 20, years old, but they go almost as far back as the origins of vaccines themselves. So let's take a time travel journey, everybody, back to the 1700s, to the invention

of the very first vaccine. Back in the 18th century, that's when an English doctor named Edward Jenner, no relation to Chris, Kylie, or Kendall that I'm aware of, Edward Jenner noticed that milk maids, you know, maids that milk cows, who contracted cowpox, didn't seem to get smallpox, which was a way more deadly disease. He was like, huh, what's going on there with these milkmaids? So he did what any, you know, semi-unhinged mad scientist of the 18th century would do. He took pus from a milkmaid's cowpox sore, yum,

and scratched it into the arm of a young boy. And thank goodness for those whack-a-doodle physicians of yore, because this little experiment worked. That boy did not get smallpox. That cookie little idea led to the invention of the first vaccine. Vaccine named after the word vaca, Latin for cow, little etymology fun fact for you.

Jenner's method sparked a revolution in public health that would go on to save hundreds of millions of lives. Of course, since then, vaccines have evolved dramatically. We're not scratching puss into people anymore, okay? Now, traditional vaccines used live or inaction activated viruses to train your immune system. But today, we've got newer technology, everything from viral vector platforms

to cutting edge mRNA vaccines, like the ones developed for COVID-19. And don't worry, stick around. We're gonna explain what all of this means. All you need to know for now is that this new technology allows vaccines to be developed more rapidly than ever, while still undergoing rigorous safety testing protocols. Now, I mentioned, despite the fact

that medical professionals see vaccines as one of the greatest public health achievements of the 20th century, there have always been haters, skeptics, anti-vaxxers, so to speak. For example, in the 1800s, as soon as Edward Jenner started using cowpox to prevent smallpox, some people freaked out. Critics called it unchristian, unscientific, and a violation of personal liberty. Does this sound familiar? One UK protest featured a child's coffin and an effigy of Jenner.

They were not subtle. Of course, then smallpox. smallpox went on to be cured, eliminated. It was an incredible victory. But yeah, it had these early critics who found it blasphemous. Fast forward to the end of the 19th century, England and the U.S. saw the rise of unified anti-vax groups, including the anti-vaccination League and the anti-compulsory vaccination league. There was legal hullabaloo. Some parents literally chose to go to jail over vaccinating their kids. So shit is getting extreme by this point. Indeed, it lands the issue in

courtrooms. And the vaccine panic didn't die down from there. There was a whole ass mayhem in the 70s and 80s over the diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis vaccine, otherwise known as DTP, which could also stand for down to penetrate. Lull, sorry. A wave of concern over this vaccination caused media frenzies, lawsuits, and the formation of anti-vax advocacy groups, despite later studies showing that the vaccine was actually super safe. I, myself, don't know a single person who's ever forgotten tetanus and how nice that is. Now, in the 90s, that's when things really take a culty turn. Despite the overwhelming success of vaccines,

like eradicating smallpox, nearly wiping out polio, a truly dangerous myth started to spread. The year in question is 1998. That's when a now disgraced British doctor named Andrew Wakefield published a paper falsely claiming a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. That paper published in The Lancet was later, fully retracted and Wakefield was stripped of his medical license. As reported by the British Medical Journal, his study was not only riddled with ethical violations, but was proven to be

outright fraudulent. Dozens of peer-reviewed studies since then have proved. There is no link between vaccinations and autism, and we're going to talk about that a lot more with Dr. Hottes very soon. Still, the damage was done. Wakefield's claim lit a cultural match that started a major wildfire of sorts, and that fire continues to rage. When you combine that lingering distrust with social media echo chambers, political polarization, pandemic anxiety, and the desire to find someone, anyone, to blame for pain, illness, and suffering, you end up with something much bigger than a health concern. You end up with a belief system, with a dogma, with a cult, or at least something that sounds like a cult. Anti-vaxxers have a whole culture now, complete with special language.

For example, if you've ever scrolled through anti-vax type spaces on any social media platform, you might be familiar with some of this insidery language that helps divide people into insiders and outsiders, allies and enemies, it cultivates belonging, and that sort of like in the know versus sheep kind of vibe. Here's something that's especially disturbing. According to Vice, one of the more chilling terms that's caught on among anti-vaxxers, is pure blood. A nickname proudly used by unvaccinated people

to suggest that their bodies are somehow untainted or superior. And yes, it is a not-so-setted nod to Voldemort's eugenics-coated obsession with bloodlines in the cult of Harry Potter. Other buzz phrases and euphemisms include medical freedom, big pharma, characterizing the vaccines as poison, referring to them as the jab

in order to avoid getting flagged by the misinformation overlords online. overlords online. And then we have perhaps the most frustrating mantra of all time, the thought-terminating cliche, do your own research. Anti-vaxxers often inject, ha-ha, pun intended, this phrase into debates about vaccines in order to shut down conversations and encourage people to go down a self-reinforcing rabbit hole where conspiracy and confirmation bias drives the outcome. At this point, I do think it's safe to say that the anti-vax community functions more like a cultish subculture than this sort of loose network of skeptics. Multiple studies will link some reveal the sort of clear echo chamber dynamics, especially on platforms like Facebook and Twitter where the vaccine hesitant will cluster tightly,

mostly interact with like-minded content, the algorithm does what it does, and outside information, even if it's so empirically watertight, becomes demonized and ineffective at changing any minds. But even more cultish than that, vaccine skepticism has also become a marker of identity. I admit, I struggle to understand how this makes any measure of inherent sense, but longitudinal studies show that political conservatism consistently predicts vaccine hesitancy across racial groups, even when adjusting for socioeconomic status. Something that makes the anti-vax community so powerful, so emotionally compelling. Is there a use of emotionally charged personal anecdotes, where a mom will come online, make a YouTube video

or an Instagram Reels, whatever it is, and share a story about how her child was never the same after he got the vaccine. Even if slash, even though, that is a spurious correlation that's spreading misinformation and fearmonger. Fear is such a critical ingredient in this anti-vax recipe that comes through in memes, in testimonials from fringe experts in scare quotes. All of these techniques work to reinforce group loyalty and dismiss mainstream science as not only untrustworthy, but immoral and even evil. At a point, it almost feels like these dynamics, the echo chambers, the identity stuff, the narrative control, the moral absolutism, the inability to push back, parallel so many of the techniques that classic cults from history have used to recruit and retain their followings. They offer clarity and belonging and a sense of control and moral superiority during times of turbulence, meanwhile insulating members from dissent or critique.

And with that, I think it's time to get to these guest interviews. First, I am so honored to introduce Dr. Pete Hottes. He is co-director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine, and a professor of pediatrics and molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine, with decades of experience developing vaccines for parasitic diseases and coronaviruses. Dr. Hotez is iconic. He's known for having gone toe to toe on the Joe Rogan podcast and for offering to debate RFK about vaccines, to which the response was, uh, I'm good. No, I don't want to go up against this guy. He's just a sweetie lab nerd.

You'll hear him talk. He does not speak using the rhetorical strategies of a a cult leader, okay? He's just trying to friggin' help people not die of diseases for Pete's sake, pun intended. Stick around for after the break. When we get into a low-key, unprecedented type of conversation for sounds like a cold

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So thank you. Oh, thanks so much. Thanks so much for having me. So first things first, we'd love if you could really spell it out. What is a vaccine? How does it work and why are they important? And if you would, could you speak to me as if I am someone who is grotesquely skeptical of you thinks that you're trying to brainwash me?

Oh, in other words, you're on X. Yes, exactly. I would love to just, like, arm some of our listeners who have family members who hold that point of view with some information from you. Well, most vaccines are what we call biologics. They're either weakened forms of the pathogen that causes the disease or they're a component of the pathogen. sometimes produced through genetic engineering. That's designed to stimulate an immune response

that would protect you if you subsequently got exposed to the actual virus or bacteria or parasite or pathogen. When I was a pediatric resident in Boston back in the 80s, we vaccinated children against eight diseases, which were measles, mumps, rebella, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, polio, and I believe influenza at that time. And now we've doubled that. to about 16 diseases because over the last 40, 50 years, we've gotten very good also at vaccinating against the foremost common types of bacterial meningitis, which are horrible diseases. And then we have now vaccinated against two types of cancer that we weren't able to before, caused by hepatitis B and human papillomavirus, which causes cervical cancer and other

cancers. And then we have vaccines for rotavirus, which is a big cause of winter illness in the United States, and we have a vaccine for varicella as well as chickenpox. So that brings us roughly to around 16. And of course, we have COVID vaccines now. And we developed a low cost COVID vaccine in our laboratories at Texas Children's Hospital in Baylor with no patent, no strings attached that reached 100 million people in low and middle income countries. So I'm a pediatrician vaccine scientist. Could you explain for the absolute layman and in fact the skeptic? How do these vaccines work? Why are they safe? And why are they important? They work by training our immune system, either by making antibodies or by making a type of cell called a T-cell that will protect you

against any of these new pathogens. They kind of reproduce what would happen naturally in any case if you were actually exposed to this pathogen. But the difference is by having the vaccine, you basically eliminate the risk that that pathogen is going to kill you or severely damage you. So since COVID-19, terms like viral vector platforms and MRNA might sound more familiar to the general public, but could you explain or remind us exactly what these terms mean? Well, there are different types of vaccines. So for instance, the polio vaccine that all of us got as kids, you either got one of two different types of polio vaccines, actually a live virus that was weakened in the laboratory,

so it couldn't cause disease, or a virus that was inactivated by chemically treating the virus. So that's kind of the first-generation vaccines, like the smallpox vaccine. But then over the years, the community of scientists has found other ways to make equally good vaccines without requiring use of the whole virus. So this includes genetically engineering components of the virus or the pathogen, either in bacteria or yeast. So an example of that is hepatitis B vaccine. It's a recombinant protein hepatitis B vaccine. That was the first of its type. And then we come across sort of next-gen vaccines. And the one that Americans are most familiar with is the MRN8 technology, which has actually been in development for more than a decade,

but was able to be employed in a large scale and the U.S. population and elsewhere, what's nice about MRNAs you can make a piece of MRNA fairly rapidly. So in terms of cutting the time frame required to have that vaccine available against the new pathogen, the MRNA technology was quite useful for that. The problem with it is that there's a learning curve to make billions and billions of doses with a brand new technology. And that's where we came in. We made a COVID vaccine using an older technology similar to the one used for hepatitis B.

That took us a little longer to make the for MRNA. And we made that available without strings attached to low and middle income countries. So in many cases, now we've learned that for different pathogens, there's more than one way to do it. So you don't have to use the MRNA platform for COVID. It's just that that one was the one that was available the quickest to the American people. Yeah, hearing about how some of this technology has allowed vaccines to become accessible to millions of people who would not otherwise have access really reminds me of sort of what a privilege it is, an ignorant privilege to reject it. Yeah, my friend Alison Galvani, who's a professor at Yale,

she's an epidemiologist and modeler estimates that MRNA COVID vaccines save 3.2 million American lives. instead of 1.2 million Americans dying from COVID, which was a horrific tragedy, of course, it would have been 4.4 million. So that's an example of how important and powerful these vaccines are. Yeah. So when I think about the anti-vax community, ideology, big tent conspiracy, however you want to refer to it, a common argument that they make is that COVID vaccines actually caused deaths or heart issues. What do you make of that claim? Well, first of all, it's not true. you know, what people forget is the other name for the COVID virus is SARS 2, severe acute respiratory syndrome 2, because it genetically resembled another virus called SARS 1

that affected southern China and Toronto, Canada, and elsewhere in 2002. And that was primarily a respiratory virus, but it turns out that the virus, SARS 2, was first and foremost causing clots to form in the coronary arteries leading to heart attacks and in the arteries going to the brain leading to strokes. And that was the huge issue. So in fact, it turns out that vaccinating against COVID was one of the best ways to protect your heart health. And of course, the anti-vaccine community flips it on its side and says the opposite, and

it's not based on fact. It doesn't mean that there are not rare side effects of mRNA COVID vaccines. They do, especially in young males, can cause myocarditis and inflammation of the heart around one in 20,000 administrations. But it's an extremely rare side effect. and usually self-resolves, but it's really important to remember that it was COVID, the virus that was the killer, and the vaccines had an excellent safety profile, and as I said, save 3.2 million American lives.

Listening to you talk about these measured facts, which also include admissions that there are rare side effects, and you know precisely what they are. Such a comforting mode of speech, I guess, for me to listen to, because I grew up with two scientist parents, my mom is a cancer cell biologist, my dad is a neuroscientist. And when I would ask them questions as a kid and oftentimes wanted like a very succinct and splashy answer, they would like go on a tangent because they wanted to make sure that everything they said was perfectly true. And it's a reminder that oftentimes facts aren't that splashy. And people who have the truth aren't trying to like whip you up into an emotional state that compromises your

critical thinking. Yeah, I mean, communicating science takes time to learn. I mean, when I first started doing a fear bit of science communication going on the cable news channels, a lot of people said, well, you got to really dumb it down and talk to the American people like they're in the fourth grade or sixth grade. And I found that didn't work as my style. I didn't feel comfortable doing it. And I realized pretty quickly that the American people are willing to tolerate a pretty high degree of complexity if their lives dependent or the lives are their loved ones dependent. And I try to do that. I tried to talk to people like I would talk to one of my adult kids or my wife and as though you really want to help them and you really want to explain things. And you can get into a pretty

high level of sophistication provided you don't lapse too much into jargon. And that's where you can lose people sometimes or explain terms or explain acronyms. And sometimes it's hard, you know, when you've got Wolf Blitzer's producer in your earpiece saying wrap up, wrap up and you're trying to get as much in as you can. And I've had different degrees of success doing. But, you know, it's nice when people come up to me on airplanes or in airports and say, you know, thank you for helping us through the pandemic. Because most of the American people actually was like, hey, Doc, just tell me what I got to know. And if you can explain to me why to help me understand it, I'd really appreciate it. And that was true for most of the American people.

Then, of course, there was a subset that was deeply dug in and watching conspiracy podcasts and on websites. And those were the people that was, for me, it was frustrating not to be able to reach them. I find that people just want to feel respected and assuming that they can handle your explanations and that they can like hang on for a sophisticated conversation about vaccines probably makes the majority of people feel respected. And then of course there is the subset of people who for whatever reason feel more seen and I don't know, like more human when in this conspiracy theory mindset. And so in thinking about those people,

I was wondering if you could communicate some of the most compelling facts or statistics about vaccine effectiveness in history the way that you see it. And why don't you think those facts are able to reach the vaccine skeptical, shall we say? Yeah, I mean, if you look at the track record of vaccines, they're really impressive. So for instance, since 2000, that benchmarks the start of what's called the Gavi Alliance, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization. So going 2,000, for instance, an estimated 450,000 children under the age of five, died every year of measles. Now it's under 50,000, so 90% reduction and similar numbers for whooping cough or tetanus or diphtheria or hib meningitis or pneumococcal meningitis.

I mean, millions of kids' lives have been saved because of vaccination. But people don't know that story. And unfortunately, the anti-vaccine groups have different reasons for it, but they weaponize it. And, you know, they'll often find various facts and factoids and string it together in a false narrative, especially around COVID vaccines, but also you see this with our good friend, Mr. Kennedy, who's now head of health and human services, who has, you know, put out outright disinformation about the measles mumps rebella vaccine at a time when we're having a horrific measles epidemic in my state of Texas, starting in West Texas and the panhandle and spilling over to

Mexico, Oklahoma, and Kansas, a thousand measles cases, 100 hospitalizations, and two needless deaths among two school-aged kids who didn't have access to the MMR vaccine, the measles Mumps Rebella vaccine. And Mr. Kennedy puts out the string of false statements saying the hospitalizations were due to quarantine or saying the MMR vaccine is contaminated with aborted fetal bits, which is absolute nonsense. Or the vaccine is a leaky vaccine. He has said that when it's one of the most effective and safest vaccines that we have. When we're designing new vaccines, that's what I do as a pediatrician vaccine scientist. I look at the MMR vaccine as the gold standard. We aspire to make a vaccine as good as the MMR vaccine. And yet Kennedy and his associates weaponize it. It

creates a lot of damage. Where does he get this stuff? Like, where's he hanging out? Who's he talking to? I don't know. He assembles his group. You know, I used to have conversations with him back in 2017 at the request of the National Institutes of Health because he was claiming vaccines cause autism. And in addition to being a vaccine scientist, I have four adult kids, including Rachel, who has autism and intellectual disabilities, and now she's an adult. And based on those conversations with Mr. Kennedy, I wound up writing a book about it. It was called vaccines did not cause Rachel's autism. And it goes through the details, because one of the things the anti-vaccine groups do is they keep moving the goalpost, or you play this kind of parrot game of whackamol, they keep on switching up what they allege. So,

First, it was the measles mumps rebella vaccine, they said, was causing autism, and that thread still exists, but that started in the late 1990s. Then Mr. Kennedy himself wrote an article that was retracted in Rolling Stone magazine, claiming it was thymarisol preservative that used to be in vaccines, and then it was spacing vaccines too close together. And if you remember, you had Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy, you know, parading around a green t-shirt saying we have to green our vaccines. It's all BS. And then it was alum in vaccines. And so it became this kind of exhausting exercise. But the other point about the autism discussion is it doesn't address the causes of autism. Because the people would say, all right, now, Doc, I get it. You've clearly presented the evidence showing that vaccines don't cause autism. Hey, Doc, what causes autism? Very reasonable question, right? So then I go into the genetics of autism. You have 100 genes, all involved in early fetal brain development. The point is it's happening early on and well before the child is born. And it doesn't mean that there's no environmental effects linked to autism, but it's happening in early fetal brain development, early pregnancy. So let me give you an example.

If you're pregnant and not aware of it and on an anti-seizure medication called depocote, also known as valproic acid, that interacts with autism genes. That'll increase the likelihood that your child will be born with an autism phenotype. And I would actually have those discussions with Mr. Kennedy back in 2017. I said, Bobby, you know, I think most of the rise in autism is due to shifting diagnostic criteria and we can go into why, but it doesn't mean there's no environmental effects. Here's five or six chemical exposures that will do that in early pregnancy. I said, Bobby, you know, you're environmental attorney, right? This is your moment, man. This, you should be all over this. And he had no interest, right? Because, you know, he was all fixed on vaccines, which actually made no sense. So it was probably frustrating for both of us. I have my own thoughts about why people cling to the vaccines cause autism theory so tightly. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, obviously, but A, I think it has to do with the desire to be a good parent, specifically a good mother. And it's so emotionally charged and so when people are shouting from the rooftops that this thing is true, certain people will listen to that very carefully and seriously.

And then I also think that there's a cognitive bias here going on called proportionate. bias. I don't know if you're familiar with it, but it's our penchant to think that big events must have had a proportionally big cause. So it doesn't feel as satisfying to think that autism was caused by these, like, small, complex factors. It feels much more satisfying to the human condition that it was caused by this big conspiratorial idea. That's the false narrative, Kennedy and others want to promote. The false narrative says it's a child with no underlying conditions, then around 19, 20 months of age, or probably after getting a vaccine, suddenly they become autistic, right? But what's interesting about that, though, is the full clinical expression of autism is often

most apparent around that time, you know, in the second year of life. And that's when they often gain the attention of the pediatrician. They get referred for further testing and found to be on the autism spectrum. And what's also interesting is that full clinical expression corresponds to a big increase in brain volume expansion. And this has been documented by an excellent group at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. But when now they've gone back and do serial MRI, serial imaging, going back to birth, they can show that that brain volume expansion is actually happening since birth, but it only becomes more clinically apparent around, you know, 19, 20 months of age. But it's set into motion by the autism genes. And most people with some educational

background can understand that. But it's also not a 30-second UNICEF commercial either, right? Right. It takes a few minutes. It takes attention and it has some degree of complexity. And it's easier for the anti-vaccine activists just to exploit an alternative narrative. And that's what they end up doing. Thank you so much for explaining that. I myself have been so curious about that because I have heard people with children who have autism saying like, I don't know, I don't know. But I think it's because when he got his two-year-old vaccine or whatever. And they say it in a way that is so compelling and so. alluring. And I had been fascinated to know what the real answer was. Yeah. And then, of course, you know, they're downloading all this disinformation. And when you do it enough, it tends to put you in a different camp also. And then there's sort of selective memory. And I'm sure the psychologist can articulate this a lot better than I can. But the anti-vaccine narratives are very powerful. Let me give you another example. You know, our friend, the Florida surgeon general,

Dr. Latipo, comes out and says, MRI vaccines are causing turbo cancers because they're are getting into our DNA, okay? That's the statement. And so, you know, I get up there and say, well, let's think about this for a minute. First of all, there's no such thing as a turbo cancer. That's a completely made up term. It doesn't exist. Second, the MR. Lipinanoparticle that will put the MRNA and maybe some contaminating DNA components into the cell, past the cell membrane, doesn't get past the nuclear membrane into the nucleus. For that, we need a process called the electroporation, which is why we have no DNA vaccine. because they can't get it into the nucleus.

And then we have proteins of our innate immune system in the nucleus that will actually block incorporation of any residual foreign DNA that might get in there. Otherwise, every time we ate a hamburger, we'd have cow DNA integrating into our genome, and that doesn't happen. And the likelihood is going to happen next one. Oh, no, you're going to implant the next. Right. But, I mean, the problem is this.

I mean, I can go on CNN and MSNBC and say that. It's on blue in the face, but I'm not reaching the people I really. need to, which are, you know, those who have been targeted for political and financial reasons, you know, or watching Fox News or Rogan podcasts. And that's the frustration for me that not being able to reach the people I need to. I mean, I used to actually go on Fox News early on in the pandemic. And I was even going on Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity. And then I wouldn't go along with the hydroxychloroquine nonsense that was being pushed out of the White House. And then the invitation stopped. Oh, you have a strong stomach, sir. Well, look, it's dead.

devastating to see so many people. I mean, my estimate is that 200,000 Americans, for instance, needlessly died because they refused COVID vaccines when they became available in 2021, 2020 during the Delta B.A.1 wave, including 40 to 50,000 in my state of Texas. So that's why I care about this. And this is why I talk about it. Because in my view, you know, yes, I love being a pediatrician, MD, Ph.D.HD. Vaccine scientists making vaccines. But it's not enough because now almost as many people are dying from anti-vaccine activism as they are the diseases that were making vaccine. So this has created a parallel career path for me, and it takes me down very dark and scary places, and it's not fun, right? It's not fun to see death threats against you on X or other

social media platforms on a daily basis or threatening emails or I have in-person stockings, but that is the world we're in. And that's why, you know, when you asked me to come on your podcast, I jumped at the opportunity because it's a great way to communicate. And thank you for doing that as a public service. Trying and trying to do it with some lightheartedness because I do feel like that reaches a certain segment of the population that might not otherwise listen to. Yeah, no, I think that's important. As much as you can find humor in this.

Sure. No, totally. And it is a delicate dance. But yeah, it is so frustrating to hear that some of these public figures who are incentivized to spew nonsense for a host of reasons can get up there. And in 30 seconds, cause so much damage. that you have to spend months of your life and sacrifice so much time and so many emotional resources to clean up.

Well, the other component of this that's happened in the last couple of years is the rise of the health, wellness, and influencer movement. And what they'll often do is they buy up whatever generic things in bulk and then repackage it and sell it with a telehealth visit. And one of the things that's widely available and cheap are generic antiparacetic drugs. If you ever wonder, where did hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin and fenbendazole come from? So they're all low-cost anti-parasitic drugs they can buy in bulk. Then they'll repackage it and they'll pair it with a telehealth fizzins, charge thousands of dollars.

It's a whole scam, but it brings in millions of dollars. But part of the scam also requires them to discredit mainstream scientists or portray us as public enemies or cartoon villains. And that's what they do. And then they rev people up. So that's the industry. And now, unfortunately, what's interesting when I listen to Mr. Kennedy, he's kind of changed the way he talks about it as well, because now, you know, he's opportunistic. So what he's done is he now has adopted some of the language of the health and wellness influencer industry. So if you listen to him, he says, well, you can get the measles mumps rubella vaccine, the MMR vaccine, or you can get this useless cocktail of supplements, vitamin A and budesinide and clarithromycin and cod liver oil. And you're saying, well, where does that come from? Well, that comes from health and wellness, very corrupt health and wellness influencer industry. So he's paying attention to the sort of big mouth influencers. That's right. And then there's also the kind of the libertarian ideologies too. And that one's a little more complex because in their zeal to push back against

vaccine mandates during COVID, which you could kind of understand, you know, I don't necessarily agree with it, but I understood it. You know, you've got the CPAC Conference of Conservatives in Dallas in 2021. Okay, Matthew Cawthorne, the representative from North Carolina, says something to the effects. First, they're going to vaccinate you, then they're going to take away your guns and your Bibles and this gun. And you roll your eyes. And I can almost live with that. The problem was this, Amanda, what they then did at that CPAC conference of conservatives was they brought on all the most virulent toxic anti-vaccine activists to falsely discredit the effectiveness and safety of vaccine. And that's what Fox News did, too. And the result of pushback against the mandate stuff, which you kind of understand, you know,

you could at least have that discussion or debate. What they then did was bring on all the toxic anti-vaccine to discredit the effectiveness and safety of vaccine. And then, you know, you got Rogan podcast pushing Ivermectin. So, you know, if you're going down that rabbit hole and watching Tucker Carlson at that time and Laura Ingram and Sean Hannity every night and Rogan podcast, you kind of go down that rabbit hole and you make an executive decision, hmm, maybe these vaccines are not so great. And you'd say the hold off for wait. And unfortunately, that killed 200,000 Americans. Oh, yes. It is such a powerful echo chamber. And hearing it spelled out the way that you just did is pretty chilling. I just have a couple more questions. Some of them have to do with

language. So I talk in my work about cult language and some of the rhetorical and linguistic techniques that various cultish leaders will use to influence their followings. And one of them is the thought terminating cliche, a sort of semantic stop sign, a zingy stock expression that's aimed at shutting down independent thinking, questioning, or pushback. And I remember doing a few little book club visits right after my book cultish came out in 2021, where some people started asking me, do you think the phrase trust science is a thought terminating cliche? They were sort of hearing trust science as this like leftist cult mantra. I'm sure sure you've heard that phrase. Or science is settled and that kind of stuff. Yeah. So, you know,

it's really interesting. I can't tell you how many Zoom calls I've been into were the scientists in their hands, you know, have the American people lost their trust in scientists. And oh, geez, what do we do to screw this up? And one of the things that I say is, remember, the communication during the COVID pandemic was imperfect, as it will always be in a pandemic. But it actually wasn't that terrible. What you had, there were the bad actors that were seeking to weaponize it. And they were the ones who created the distrust in science, like the Fox News talking heads, you know, and did that. And then they're so disingenuous. Then they come and they say, oh, you see people, that's, people don't trust scientists. Well, they don't trust scientists

because those guys worked overtime to try to discredit the scientist. And as again, portrays as cartoon villains or public enemies. And that's part of the disinformation campaign. It's not only putting out a lot of pseudoscience, but the need to discredit the scientists, right? It's like what, you know, Kennedy in his book, what's called, the real Anthony Fauci, goes after me, and he says, first of all, he calls me a CNN doctor. Oh, burn. First of all, I'm a vaccine scientist and made a low-cost COVID vaccine reached 100 million people and say 300 to 500,000 lives. I'm not a CNN. I've been on CNN. I'm not paid by CNN. I'm not paid. And I've gone on MSNBC and Fox News and BBC. And all this kind of stuff. This is the way. Show some respect. This is what they need to do to peddle their garbage is to discredit scientists.

It reminds me so much of the way that Trump will come up with these really catchy villainizing nicknames to discredit his opponents, even if like the conversation at hand is not even about those opponents, like when he would call Jeb Bush, low energy Jeb. And they do this to me too. First of all, they talk about my teeth. Okay, my teeth aren't great. Or, you know, they'll say I'm obese, and I say, well, I'm not, I mean, I guess I could lose a few pounds, but I'm not obese, you know, I mean. How unbelievably irrelevant anyway. I know, but it's, it's anything they can do this. Or what they'll do is they'll say, I'm a shill for the pharma companies, when in fact, I don't take any money from big pharma companies with the opposite, right? We made a low-cost vaccine that provided proof of consent. We could bypass Big Pharma, but this is how the disinformation machine operates.

But anything they can to dehumanize the scientists who are willing to speak out, that that's what they'll do. There is so much mudslinging among just everyday people, but in the media and in the zeitgeist where political opponents are just like calling each other ugly. It's gotten really base. Well, a lot of it, you know, part of it is the manosphere thing. And, you know, they have this montage of me standing next to Kennedy and Kennedy's without his shirt and he's all jacked up. And I'm in a white coat and clearly not jacked up. So therefore, you know, that's where you should get your health advice from this kind of stuff. I could say so many things.

And yet I'm going to bite my tongue because I have one more question for you that is actually relevant to vaccines. Oh my God, the whole shirtless thing. It's very Putin-coded. Anyway. Well, I even said that. I said, is that what you want? You want a shirtless Putin on a horse? I mean, that's your paradigm.

Anywhoom, what do you think from your perspective? are the most compelling ways to combat dis and misinformation about vaccines. And so far as like, what can everyday people in conversation with their family over brunch or on social media? What can we do? Well, I think, you know, part of the problem is there's not, for instance, a one-stop shopping website that will refute all of the disinformation, you know, like when Latipode talks about turbocancers, right?

There should be a website. You could type in turbo cancer and say, why, this is BS, right? And here, here's the reasons why. And so the real vaccine information, it's out there on the internet, but it's scattered over across a dozen different websites. It's even hard for pediatricians and obstetricians to find. And I've said that. So we've got to give the docs, the tools when parents come in and say the stuff. And increasingly, the anti-vaccine groups have become more sophisticated or more sort of sciencey sounding. That makes it sound real. And so putting that out, I think, is important. I think the other thing I've done is I've created these kind of infographics that compare the risk of getting the illness versus the vaccine because one of the things the anti-vaccine activists do is they downplay the severity of like when Kennedy, you know, just says the hospitalizations from measles are due to quarantine or isolation. No, it's because they're sick and two kids lost their lives needlessly. So I think those are the things that we have to do.

And of course, the positive stuff about vaccines just doesn't have the bandwidth that the disinformation has. And that's by design, you know, on X and some of the other platforms. Well, I'm going to continue thinking about everyday solutions. Dr. Hottes, thank you so much for joining this conversation. And if folks want to keep up with you and the incredible work that you're doing, where can they do that? Well, I have a website. Looks like something you would see on a compact computer in the 1990s, but it's, but it has some information there. It's just Peter Hotez, one word.org. And then, you know, I'm on social media. I'm on and I'm on Blue Sky and LinkedIn.

And then, you know, I write books. So that I find meaningful as well. And I tried to write opinion, piece, articles, and journals. And those are listed, you know, on the website or on social media. Fantastic. Thank you so much. Thank you. The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox is an eight-episode

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behind vaccines is essential before we can dive into why vaccines have become so polarizing culturally. And make sure to pick up a copy of Dr. Hotez's new book, The Deadly Rise of Antiscience, a Scientist's Warning, out September 19th. So to help us unpack how the anti-vax movement of today parallels other cult movements of the past were joined by Jane Borden, a journalist, cultural critic, and author of the book, Cults Like Us. Jane's work explores the weird and wonderful and sometimes wildly dangerous subcultures of American history. She's written for outlets like Vanity Fair and The New Yorker and vice.

So without further ado, here's Jane. Jane, welcome to Sounds Like a Cull. Thank you so much for having me. So happy to be here. It's been a long time coming. We're friends. The listeners should know. You're the best. And I love what you do. Likewise. Okay. Let's get into it. Speaking of what we do, you have looked very closely into cult movements throughout American history. So from your perspective, how does the anti-vax movement overlap with other culty communities or ideologies that you've studied? I think the part of the anti-vax movement that most tracks with American cult-like thinking is the virtuous part of it. It's very much the same idea as being chosen. So the idea that like some of us are healthier than others and the people who are healthier are better and people have something inherently wrong with them if they are so compromised that they need the rest of all society to vaccinate themselves just to protect them. And some people are. are saying that out loud. Most people are not, but it's very much an undertone. Yes. Oh my God.

Who among us Americans does not have some exceptionalist delusion, particularly when it relates to something that we think we can control? It's like you talking about this virtuousness makes me think of self-help movements where people think that if they put these like very special steps in place, then they can save themselves from poverty, illness, whatever. it may be, even if that's truly not the case at all. Yeah, it's magical thinking. And that's like the mind cure movement and manifestation and all of it. Which is probably why the anti-vax ideology resonates so much in these kind of like new agey subcultures. Because they're already set up to believe that sort of thing. Yep. What would you say is the cult entry point to the

anti-vax community today in digital age society? And how would you say folks, gain membership, so to speak? You know, following a Maha influencer, I don't know that that means you're in the cult necessarily. I mean, I have acquaintances of mine who've posted pictures of them with RFK Jr. on social media. That's probably an entry point. But I think the part of the movement that looks the most like an actual cult to me is the school stuff, the anti-vax schools. I think if you're sending your kid, you've opted in, you've chosen to go to one of these schools. That's pretty clearly being an occult, it seems to me. Holy shit. Wait, can you talk more about these anti-Vax schools? Because that's news to me. So when I say the school stuff, I'm talking specifically about

this school in Texas. So there was a Yahoo News story about an Instagram video where a pastor of this mercy culture preparatory school had bragged essentially in an Instagram videos during a measles outbreak in West Texas, that their school had the lowest measles vaccination rate in Texas. He thought this was like a victory for freedom of health, even though public health officials had been sounding the alarm about rising cases and a child had died. Point of these schools is so that if your state has a law saying that in order to go to public school, you have to be vaccinated, if you're part of this movement, what do you do? Now these private schools are popping up saying, well, you can come here, be a part of the

movement here. Florida is now the first U.S. state in modern history, at least, to begin dismantling school vaccine requirements. It's significant. Even the state's own surgeon general said the decision was made without any supporting data or public health projections. So this is not just a policy shift. It's an example of how ideology is increasingly taking precedence over evidence in matters of public health. And they're very proud of it. And so they were very proud that they got name checked by the press for having the most unvaccinated kids under one roof, I guess. But when you're in that community, then it very much becomes part of your identity. And then if you leave, we're looking at some of the exit costs of leaving a cult, I think.

How does the community feel about you leaving? How do you think the community is going to feel about you leaving? And is that going to make you want to stay? Yeah, I imagine there's so much shame associated with questioning this really passionate, fringy point of view. It's like, I think they think of themselves as like us against the world. And that can feel really missional. And so if you reject this mission where you feel like you're standing up to power, I'm sure people will really shun you in their own way. Look, there's a lot of reasons why people are part of this movement. Some of it is just straight up conspiracy theory stuff, right? Or conspiracy theory adjacent kind of believes the idea that like mistrust of authority and people are out to get us, bucking authority, all that kind of

stuff. But I do think that there's this virtue signaling element of it. And some people have compared part of the movement to like eugenics light, this idea of not taking care of the most vulnerable among the community because there's something inherently wrong with them. Whoa. I mean, you know, and not to paint the whole movement that way, but there is some of that happening, I think. And RFK Jr. has said in his book that he's a fan of this guy Antoine Bechamp. He was a microbiologist in the 19th century. And his argument was that, that when you catch a virus, it's not the virus that makes you sick. You catch the virus because there's something wrong with you. Like the virus is just the symptom. And so, again, it's that

exceptionalism thing. You're so right that there are like a lot of different reasons to join this movement, call way of thinking, whatever you want to call it, because I can think of so many different people who have kind of nothing in common who could probably like stand shoulder to shoulder with one another against vaccines. I can think of super privileged Hollywood people who are up on their wellness game. I can think of certain religious communities. There are like a lot of people who have certain mistrust in the health care system,

the government, all these classic reasons to join a cult. And it just sucks because the demonization of scientists and the consequences of not vaccinating yourself or your kids are literally life and death. We have gotten so far with this technology and now we're rejecting it. It's just, it sucks. It's mind-boggling. Yeah. And I think ultimately the reasons people argue for why they are against vaccines are, I don't think that's ultimately what's happening, you know? Like the whole freedom argument, right? Sure, the government shouldn't be allowed to force a needle into your arm. No one's arguing for that. Do you know what I mean? We're talking about the greater good. It's not an individual thing. And so the freedom argument is very much

part of this American individualism. And it's, P.S., the great, great grandchild of the Puritan obsession with religious liberty, right, why they came here in the first place, which was not about freedom of religion. It was not about worshiping whatever you wanted. It was about they get to worship what they want and everyone else can get the fuck out. But this obsession with freedom is focusing on the individual. But specifically, vaccines are not about the individual. Like the whole purpose of vaccines is about community, is about heard. And so that argument I find really frustrating, but it gets used as an excuse. It's like, well, of course we should have freedom, right? So now I don't know how to argue with you anymore. But my counter argument is, but don't you have empathy for those

in our community who are immunosuppressed or too young to get vaccinated? And I think the reason the freedom argument is so useful to them is because they're able to say, of course we do. But we have to have freedom. My hands are tied. There's nothing I can do. It's anti-freedom and we have to have freedom. So therefore, it's like a thought terminating cliche. Yeah. Dare we say. Could you talk a little bit about this is like a ridiculous question because I'm going to ask you to condense like 400 years of history into like three sentences. But like could you talk about that timeline from Puritan values in like the early days of colonizing the United States to this anti-vax attitude now? like why does this make perfect sense that this is happening here in this way? I think it's ultimately

about power. I think it's a coup. I do, but let me back up. So the Puritans came here. They were fleeing Armageddon. They thought that because of the Catholic Church was in cahoots with Satan. They thought the Pope was the Antichrist. And so therefore, God was about to rain down terror on England. So they fled here to set up shop and worship the way they wanted to worship. And one of their goals was to bring back Jesus. That was like kind of the whole point. Set your sights high, Puritans, vision board. They were like, don't aim low. Aim high. I have a list of goals hanging up in my office. I feel like they're too small. They bathed their crystals in the sun. They were trying to manifest Jesus. Absolutely. And so they were trying to block out anything that they thought might keep Jesus from coming

back. And what happened, of course, is that the church magistrates really liked power. And And we see all of those dynamics play out of what happens in an isolated, high control group where the leaders get corrupted by power. And they were an exceptionalist community. They thought they were the chosen and that everyone else was going to burn. I mean, to be clear, they believed in predestination the idea that nobody knows who's chosen, but at the same time, they were like, we're pretty sure we are. And so we see this exceptionalism and this idea of like chosen people, chosen nation throughout American history. It shows up in our foreign policy. That's what eugenics was about.

So when we're talking about movements like the eugenics movement and the exceptionalism that went along with that, the reason it's about power is because the people at the top, the so-called exceptional people, usually the reason they feel chosen or the reason they have their health or their supposedly superior genes or whatever it is. It's just because they had power. That's why they had the means to be educated. That's why they had the time and opportunity to explore the arts. They had enough power to get in early and wield that power over other people. And so I think what's happening now is Trump and RFK want power. And this movement is a way to get it. And so again, as I've laid out, I see the chosen people thing happening in this idea of wellness as virtue, right? The healthier I am, the better I am of a human. And you poor people who need vaccines, well, you know, sorry, God assessed you and found you unworthy. And so I think when a group or a person wants power, all you have to do is invent a straw man, burn the straw man, and you have power. And so I think that's what vaccines and vaccine scientists are. I think they're the straw man that's allowing these people to take power. And they feel justified in doing so.

It's so disheartening to me because scientists are like the cutest. I grew up surrounded by them. And they literally are just like these sweet nerds. I mean, whatever. Yeah, like some of them are assholes like anyone. But mostly they are just these nerds. They have no political agenda. And so it just feels like a little cheap to go after these nerds. And they're not making a ton of money.

You know what I mean? Like they're really doing it for the love and because they want to make the world a better place. Okay. Let's talk a little bit about who the cult leader might be here today. I remember learning years ago when I first started this podcast about the disinformation doesn't, which is this group of 12 people that the organization, the Center for Countering Digital Hate, identified as the 12 people who are responsible for spreading the majority of anti-vaccination content across the internet. And before I was aware of RFK's vibe, before he was like in that. the zeitgeist and in political power. I saw that he was one of these disinformation doesn't. And I was like, a Kennedy? Like, how is that possible? Shocking. And lo and behold, here we are.

Could you talk a little bit about who you think is the cult leader here? Is it RFK Jr? Or are there sort of multiple cult leaders? Yeah, that one's tough. I think certainly RFK Jr. would be likely for the assignation. But even that's not super clear. I don't know that he's that charismatic. Not that a leader has to be, but calling it the Maha movement, conflating it with MAGA, I think makes Trump a nominee for sure. And I very much see him as a cult leader figure. I want to know who else was in this dozen. It includes RFK Jr., someone named Joseph Merkola, Ty and Charlene Bollinger. I don't know who these people are, but these are apparently these powerful people who continue

violate the terms of service agreements on Facebook and Twitter, and some of them have been removed from various platforms, but these are the people who this organization has identified. I mean, we've got to throw some Instagram influencers up there on the list, right? Some of these tradwives. Okay, so let's talk about that segment because we can talk about religious extremists or like ultra-libertarian types, and that's interesting. And I like talking about those people, But the people who are like closest to me in terms of geographic proximity, cultural proximity are like the wellness girlies. There is this sort of pipeline, this slope from wellness girly to full-blown conspiratialist.

For those who don't know, it's a portmanteau of conspiracy theory and spirituality. And those are the sort of pastel Q&Hour yoga antivax mommy types. Could you articulate what attracts those wellness gals who on the surface might even seem progressive to this cult of sorts? I think with the anti-vax movement specifically, the connector is purity, which first of all, to even believe that purity is possible is part of the American tradition of perfectionism. Purity meaning both the healthier I am, the less likely I am to need a vaccine, and also the idea of vaccine. as some kind of foreign agent that you don't want in your body. Oh, my God, my old neighbor, she's kind of a hippie, lives on the beach. And I talked to her on the phone, like, during lockdown.

And she was like, you know, I'm not getting the vaccine. You know me. I like to keep things natural and pure. She used that word pure, which is literally the root of the term Puritan. So there is a legacy here, honey. That makes a lot of sense. So culturally, how do you think the anti-vax community spreads and maintains loyalty? Well, they villainize science, which we've already talked about, the freedom argument, which we've

talked about. There's some persecution going on that, oh, the vaccine people are out to get us, right? First of all, they want to, like, fill you with this foreign agent. And also, they look down on us, they call us stupid, you know, whatever, all that persecution complex. I'm very fascinated by personal narratives that we hear from parents, the whole like, my child changed after the vaccine, my child was different. My child was never the same again. That's a powerful story, right? Totally. And for the most part, probably 100% or 99.5. I don't know what the stat is, but those circumstances are corollary, right, rather than causal. Yes. Oh my God. Those anecdotes, that is such a powerful tool in this community. Those like mom anecdotes. And they remind me a lot of when

evangelicals testify or like share their testimony. Yeah. They're a sort of like conversion story of how they found Jesus like from rock bottom or whatever. It's like this deeply emotional heartstring yanking personal story that is not rooted in anything empirical but like we are social beings. And so if someone is like bearing their soul about their religious experience, about their kid, whatever, we're going to be inclined to pay attention in a big way. Yeah. Save it. the children. I mean, I don't think it's a coincidence that that has been the rallying cry for a lot of anti-establishment conspiracy movements. Side note, I give monthly to a reputable organization called Save the Children. And I always wonder, like, are they so upset that

their name got co-opted by Q&O. That is the problem is that they've, like, taken sayings and phrases and rallying cries that were supposed to communicate the opposite thing as their own. Like, my body my choice and save the children. It's very sneaky. It's sneaky and it's really disorienting. And, you know, my kid barfed following the COVID vaccine both times that she got it. But that doesn't mean that I take that evidence as a reason to say that no one should be vaccinated for anything. Yeah. It misses the point again. And when someone is arguing in an effort to shut you down, rather than dialoguing in an effort to problem solve, that tells me that whatever we're talking about, that it's not really about that. It's about something else. So true. We need like a mediator here

because what I am hearing from all this is like individuals are very triggered or have had a bad experience and they're generalizing that one experience for everyone and for every vaccine. It's like people who were bit by one dog as a kid and now they hate all dogs. And beyond that, think that dogs should be illegal. It's like, no, like think outside of yourself for like one second. And it's hard. I think about like people whose family members were like violently murdered who live in a state where the death penalty is legal.

It's like if the person who killed the person who means the most to you in the world is up for the death penalty, like yeah, even if you were against capital punishment before, I mean, Maybe there's a party that's like, yeah, kill him. But humanity has never moved forward in a good direction by succumbing to our like basis, most violent, most selfish instincts. I think it's our responsibility to push past that in the current age. Yeah, because we don't live in small groups where you can focus on the individual more. We do live in these huge societies. And I believe that it is as a community our responsibility to care for everyone in the

the community. Empathy is under attack right now, right? As we know, which is, again, shocking. It's like you were saying where they take the phrase and turn it into something else. Like, they've turned empathy into a bad thing. Like when the Puritan said the Pope was the Antichrist, like what? It screws your mind backwards. But empathy is under attack right now. And that's what's at the base of vaccines. It's like we, together as a community, have decided that we're going to protect the vulnerable among us. That's the whole point, right? I mean, it's like, it's like healthcare. We need the healthy people to opt in in order to help the vulnerable among us.

And ultimately, the anti-vaccine movement is saying, we don't care. And the arguments that they proffer to support the anti-vaccine movement are all just ways to justify the fact that they don't care, I think. Yeah, I guess one of the issues is that it's become really difficult to identify who is actually in your community versus like who's a threat or an, enemy because we live in this uncanny time. Are your Instagram followers, your community? Are you and I in community right now? I don't know. Like we live in just this very disorienting time for the human mind and it becomes really hard to know who to trust, who's on your side. And we need more empathy, not less. Because look, if you decide that you don't want the vaccine for whatever reasons you have, maybe some of those are valid.

If you have valid reasons for not wanting a vaccine, that's not the same thing as going out and arguing against the movement in total. Like, what does that get you? Totally. It's a moral crusade, moral and scare quotes, of course. Yeah. And I guess, like, if you can also build some clout on it, on Instagram or whatever, as, like, a wellness influencer and even some money, then you'll be all the more incentivized.

Again, power. To keep going. Yep. Okay, Jane. Yes, Amanda. I have one final question for you. And it goes like this. Out of our three sounds like a cult categories, live your life, watch your back, and get the fuck out.

Which do you think the cult of anti-vaxxers falls into? I think if we're talking about like people who just kind of are casually following this, watch your back. but I think if you're in the actual cold, get the fuck out. Okay, so what does casually following it look like? Can you have a toe dipped into the anti-vax community or do you have to be all in or all out? Yes, I think you can have a toe dipped in. And I think a lot of these influence, these wellness girlies,

they have huge followings. I think a lot of people are following the anti-vax movement with some curiosity. And like I said, I think they might personally want to opt out of vaccines, out of fear, out of some of the indoctrination, they've received, or perhaps for valid medical reasons. But I think if you're, say, for example, a director of one of these schools that's bragging about the fact that you have more unvaccinated kids at your school than anywhere else,

I think that's a cold. And I think if you're a parent at one of those schools, you should think about getting the fuck out. Yeah. There are so many people in the anti-vax community who want others to be all in and are very good and well-practiced at getting other people all in. And so if you see one of those people online or even in your IRL neighborhood, speaking to you in a way that causes you to like stop asking questions, you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, okay, like I'm just going to listen to you and I'm going to feed off your emotional height and whatever, then that's a sign to get all your toes out of there. But at the end of the day, like, people are allowed to follow who they, I, back in the day, when I was writing cultish, I was.

following the most insane accounts ever. I don't know who my algorithm thought I was. So if you're curious, anthropologically or earnestly, whatever, like, it's a free country. We're also so obsessed with freedom and as we should be and it is a free country. But yeah, I think the cult of anti-vaxxers is a get the fuck out. Personally. Yeah, I agree. Jane, thank you so much for participating in this conversation. If folks want to keep up with you and your work, where can they do that? Janeborden.com or I'm at Jane Borden on Instagram. I'm on TikTok. You can find me. The book Colts Like Us is available anywhere you get books. Hell yeah. Well, that's our show. Thanks so much for listening. Stick around for a new cult

next week. But in the meantime, stay culty. But not too. Coltie. Sounds Like a cult was created by Amanda Montel and edited by Jordan Moore of The Podcabin. This episode was hosted by Amanda Montel. This episode was produced by managing producer Katie Epperson. Our theme music is by Casey Cole. If you enjoyed the show, we'd really appreciate it if you could leave it five stars on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It really helps the show a lot. And if you like this podcast, feel free to check out my book, Cultish, The Language of Fanaticism, which inspired the show.

You might also enjoy my other books, The Age of Magical O overthinking. notes on modern irrationality, and words slut a feminist guide to taking back the English language. Thanks as well to our network studio 71. And be sure to follow the Sounds Like a Cult cult on Instagram for all the discourse at Sounds Like a Cult pod or support us on Patreon to listen to the show ad-free at patreon.com slash sounds like a cult.