Jon Stewart Takes Down the "Mindful Stupidity" of the Anti-Vaxxer Movement

Impact

As the debate over vaccinations move from America's dining rooms to its press rooms, politicians such as Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Chris Christie have started weighing in on whether parents should vaccinate their children.

With so much recent attention, Jon Stewart took on the issue on Tuesday night's Daily Show, saying, "Vaccine ignorance seems to have created some strange hospital bed-fellows, uniting the fringe of left and right. You know, it makes me realize there is no red America, there's no blue America, there's just a needlessly sick America."

Take a look:

"You may ask: Why is measles, a disease that had effectively been eradicated through vaccination, suddenly back? Well, like most things, you can blame it on science-denying, affluent California liberals," Stewart said.

As Stewart points out, with the recent measles outbreaks in the United States and more than 50 recorded cases stemming from a contamination in the Disneyland in California, the problem has moved out of the online chat rooms and away from a single family's decision to a greater problem. But in many cases the anti-vaxxers are not necessarily the people you'd think.

"Mmm, this is Marin County. They're not rednecks, they're not ignorant," Stewart said. "They practice a mindful stupidity. If they want to get rid of measles, they'll just steam them out of their vaginas."

Despite the fact that vaccines have been shown to be safe and beneficial to our health, an increasing number of people are joining the anti-vaxxer movement and denying their children basic medical help. 

CDC

But as people continue to mistake anti-science ignorance for "freedom of choice" or "parents know best," the country will most likely continue to have to fight disease that was all but eradicated 50 years ago thanks to the measles vaccination.

"The only reason we're having this discussion is because of how well vaccines have worked, and they only work when we all do them," Stewart said.