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Monday, March 18, 2024

Vaccine Misinformation

 Many posts have discussed myths and misinformation -- especially about COVID and vaccines.

  Kwasi Gyamfi Asiedu at Poynter:

COVID-19 vaccines were quickly developed, with U.S. patients receiving the first shots in December 2020, 11 months after the first domestic case was detected.

Experts credit the speedy development with helping to save millions of lives and preventing hospitalizations. Researchers at the University of Southern California and Brown University calculated that vaccines saved 2.4 million lives in 141 countries from January 2021 to August 2021 alone. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows there were 574 U.S. deaths attributed to COVID-19 the week of March 2, down from nearly 26,000 at the pandemic’s height in January 2021, as vaccines were just rolling out.

But on social media and in some public officials’ remarks, misinformation about COVID-19 vaccine efficacy and safety is common. U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. built his 2024 campaign on a movement that seeks to legitimize conspiracy theories about the vaccines. We made that our 2023 Lie of the Year.

PolitiFact has seen claims that spike proteins from vaccines are replacing sperm in vaccinated males. (That’s False.) We’ve researched the assertion that vaccines can change your DNA. (That’s misleading and ignores evidence). Social media posts poked fun at Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce for encouraging people to get vaccinated, asserting that the vaccine actually shuts off recipients’ hearts. (No, it doesn’t.) And some people pointed to an American Red Cross blood donation questionnaire as evidence that shots are unsafe. (We rated that False.)

Experts say this misinformation has real-world effects.

A Nov. 2023 survey by KFF found that only 57% of Americans “say they are very or somewhat confident” in COVID-19 vaccines. And those who distrust them are more likely to identify as politically conservative: Thirty-six percent of Republicans compared with 84% of Democrats say they are very or somewhat confident in the vaccine.

Immunization rates for routine vaccines for other conditions have also taken a hit. Measles had been eradicated for more than 20 years in the U.S. but there have been recent outbreaks in states including Florida, Maryland and Ohio. Florida’s surgeon general has expressed skepticism about vaccines and rejected guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about how to contain potentially deadly disease spread.

The vaccination rate among kindergarteners has declined from 95% in the 2019-20 school year to 93% in 2022-23, according to the CDC. Public health officials have set a 95% vaccination rate target to prevent and reduce the risk of disease outbreaks. The CDC also found exemptions had risen to 3%, the highest rate ever recorded in the U.S.




Sunday, March 17, 2024

Declining Ranks of Irish Americans

In 2017, Drew DeSilver reported at Pew:
In 2015, 32.7 million Americans, or one-in-ten, identified themselves as being of Irish ancestry, making it the second-largest ancestry group in the U.S. after Germans. In addition, nearly 3 million Americans claimed Scotch-Irish ancestry, or just under 1% of the entire population. (The Scotch-Irish were mainly Ulster Protestants who migrated to the British colonies in the decades before independence, while Irish Catholics didn’t begin arriving in large numbers until the 1840s.) By comparison, the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland have a combined population of about 6.6 million. 
The ranks of both Irish and Scotch-Irish Americans have fallen a lot in the past two-and-a-half decades, and the trend does not appear likely to reverse. Two decades ago, in 1990, 38.7 million Americans (15.6% of the total population) claimed Irish ancestry, and 5.6 million (2.3%) identified as Scotch-Irish.

Both ancestral groups are older than the U.S. population as a whole. In 2013, the median age of those claiming Irish ancestry was 40.5, and 52.1 for those of Scotch-Irish ancestry, versus a median age of 37.8 for the entire population. Nor are the Irish immigrating to the U.S. in anything close to the numbers they used to: In fiscal 2015, according to Department of Homeland Security statistics, just 1,607 Irish-born people obtained legal permanent residency.

The trend has continued.  From the Census:

30.7 million or 9.2% The number and percentage of U.S. residents who claimed Irish ancestry in 2022. Source: 2022 American Community Survey 1-year estimates

112,251 The number of foreign-born U.S. residents who reported Ireland as their birthplace in 2022. Source: 2022 American Community Survey 1-year estimates

And in fiscal 2022, the number of Irish people obtaining legal permanent residency was just 1,407. 


 



Saturday, March 16, 2024

Prosecutors and Appearances


Many posts have discussed prosecutors.

 Jessica Levinson at MSNBC:

Appearances matter when it comes to members of our government, and perhaps even more so when it comes to criminal prosecutors. This is why Fulton County, Georgia, Judge Scott McAfee ruled Friday morning that while there is not an actual conflict of interest preventing District Attorney Fani Willis from pursuing the election interference case against former President Donald Trump, there is the appearance of one. McAfee therefore ordered either Willis or Nathan Wade, her appointed special assistant district attorney and former boyfriend, off the case.

Wade stepped down Friday afternoon.

McAfee’s ruling is a strong rebuke of Willis, of the lack of judgment she exercised in this instance and of her conduct. And that’s only appropriate. She fell short of acting in a way that acknowledges the enormous responsibility that she has been entrusted with. And McAfee was right to tell her so.


Friday, March 15, 2024

Working Class Lawmakers

Robbie Sequeira at Stateline:
Just 116 of the nearly 7,400 state legislators in the United States come from working-class backgrounds, according to a biennial study conducted by Nicholas Carnes and Eric Hansen, political scientists at Duke University and Loyola University Chicago, respectively.

The researchers define legislators as “working class” if they currently or last worked in manual labor, service industry, clerical or labor union jobs. They found that 1.6% of state lawmakers meet that definition, compared with 50% of U.S. workers. Only about 2% of Democrats and 1% of Republicans qualified as working class.

Ten states — Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Virginia — have no working-class state lawmakers.

The dearth of working-class legislators raises concerns that economic challenges such as wage stagnation and the rising cost of living will get short shrift in state capitols.

Thursday, March 14, 2024

Myths and Misinformation About the Measles Vaccine

While most of the public correctly view the false claim that “The measles vaccine is more dangerous than the disease itself” as false, the findings echo previous KFF research showing that a majority express at least some uncertainty in their beliefs related to health claims. More than half of U.S. adults say this claim is either “probably false” (41%) or “probably true” (16%). Few (3%) say it is “definitely true” while four in ten (38%) are confident that the claim is “definitely false.”

Across partisans, levels of educational attainment, and race and ethnicity, fewer than five percent of adults say the claim is “definitely true,” meaning there are few ardent believers of this piece of misinformation. However, independents (37%) and Republicans (21%) are less likely than Democrats (59%) to be certain that the claim is “definitely false.” Those without a college degree (29%) are also less likely to say that the claim is definitely false than those with a college degree (55%).

While few adults say that this piece of misinformation is true, the public is split between saying it is “probably false” (41%) or “definitely false” (38%). Parents of children under age 18 are especially likely to say that this piece of information is “probably false” (50%). Having such a sizable group lean towards the correct answer, but be uncertain, may present an opportunity for intervention. Clear, accurate messaging from trusted sources, such as pediatricians, regarding the safety of the measles vaccine may solidify the public’s — and parents’ — correct inclination that the measles vaccine is not more dangerous than contracting the disease. This would allow parents to be more confident in their decisions when it comes to vaccinating their young children.

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Congressional Capacity

number of posts have discussed congressional capacity Despite large increases in federal spending and administrative rulemaking, Congress now has less capacity to oversee the executive than it did decades ago.


Tuesday, March 12, 2024

LGBTQ Americans

 From the Public Religion Research Institute:

Throughout 2023, PRRI interviewed more than 22,000 adults as part of its American Values Atlas, allowing for the ability to provide a detailed profile of the demographic, religious, and political characteristics of LGBTQ Americans. As in years past, this analysis measures Americans’ attitudes on LGBTQ rights across all 50 states on three key policies: nondiscrimination protections, religiously based service refusals, and same-sex marriage. This year’s report also includes new analysis of the intersection between Christian nationalist views and LGBTQ attitudes in each state.

LGBTQ Americans skew younger, more Democratic, and less religious than other Americans.
  • More than one in five young Americans (18-29 years) identify as LGBTQ (22%). One in ten people ages 30-49 (10%), 6% of people between 50 and 64 years, and 3% of people 65 years or older identify as LGBTQ. Twenty-four percent of Gen Z Americans (aged 18 to 25) identify as LGBTQ.
  • A plurality of LGBTQ Americans are Democrats (46%); nearly six in ten LGBTQ Americans consider themselves liberal politically (58%).
  • The majority of LGBTQ Americans identify as religiously unaffiliated (52%), nearly twice the rate of the general U.S. population (27%). More than a third of LGBTQ Americans identify with a Christian faith (35%) and 5% belong to non-Christian religions.
LGBTQ identification and support for LGBTQ rights differ by state.
  • Geographically, the proportion of residents who identify as LGBTQ ranges from 4% in both Alabama and South Carolina, respectively, to 16% in New Mexico.
  • Since 2016, LGBTQ identification among those under 30 has increased by about 15 percentage points in blue states and battleground states (from 10% to 25% and from 9% to 23%, respectively) and by more than ten percentage points in red states (from 9% to 20%).
  • More than seven in ten residents of red (71%), battleground (75%), and blue (79%) states favor nondiscrimination laws; however, residents of blue states are far more likely to strongly favor LGBTQ nondiscrimination laws compared with their red state counterparts (43% v. 34%).
  • Opposition to religious refusals is lowest among red state residents (54%) while two-thirds (66%) of residents in blue states oppose service refusals; 58% of residents in battleground states oppose such refusals.
  • While majorities across almost all states support same-sex marriage rights, there is wide variation across the country. In states where same-sex marriage would continue to be legal if the Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell decision were overturned, 72% of people favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry legally compared with 64% in states where same-sex marriage would no longer be legal if Obergefell were overturned.
Strong majorities of Americans — including most people of faith — support nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ individuals, but overall support has declined.
  • More than three-quarters of Americans supported policies that protect LGBTQ Americans from discrimination in housing, employment, and public accommodation (76%) in 2023, a decline from a high of 80% the previous year, in 2022.
  • While support for nondiscrimination protections among Democrats stayed steady from 2022 to 2023, support dropped among Republicans by seven percentage points (from 66% to 59%).
  • Many religious groups — though not all — registered small drops in support for nondiscrimination protections in the past year.
  • Americans aged 18-29 show a gradual decrease in support for LGBTQ nondiscrimination laws over the last three years, declining from a peak of 83% in 2020 to 75% in 2023.
Opposition to religiously based service refusals dropped five percentage points in the past year, from 65% in 2022 to 60% in 2023.
  • A majority (59%) of independents and more than eight in ten Democrats (82%) oppose allowing small business owners to refuse service to LGBTQ people based on their religious beliefs; opposition to such refusals has declined among Republicans, from 40% in 2015 to just 34% in 2023.
  • A majority of members of most religious groups oppose religiously based service refusals; however, just 30% of white evangelical Protestants oppose religiously based service refusals, down from 37% in 2022.
Support for same-sex marriage has declined among Americans in the last year, dropping from 69% to 67%.Majorities of most religious traditions favor allowing same-sex couples to marry legally. Yet some religious groups show a decline in support from the last year, including Hispanic Catholics, whose support declined from 75% in 2022 to 68% in 2023.
Fewer than half of Latter-day Saints, Hispanic Protestants, white evangelical Protestants, Muslims, and Jehovah’s Witnesses support same-sex marriage.
Older Americans are less supportive of same-sex marriage than younger Americans. However, support among young Americans (18-29) has seen a gradual decline since 2018, when 79% of young Americans supported this right, to 71% today.

LGBTQ rights drive voting decisions of Democrats more than Republicans, younger Americans more than older Americans.
  • A plurality of Americans (38%) say that LGBTQ rights is one of various factors they will consider, 30% say they would only vote for a candidate who shares their views on this issue, and 29% say they do not see LGBTQ rights as a major issue.
  • A plurality of young Americans (38%) and members of Gen Z (38%) say they would only vote for a candidate who shares their views on LGBTQ rights.
  • Democrats are the most likely to say they would only vote for a candidate who shares their views on this issue (38%), compared with Republicans (29%) and independents (25%).
Christian nationalism Rejecters are more likely to support LGBTQ rights than Skeptics, Sympathizers, or Adherents.
  • Christian nationalism Rejecters are nearly unanimous (93%) in their support for laws that protect LGBTQ people from discrimination in housing, employment, and accommodation, including more than seven in ten (72%) who strongly favor nondiscrimination laws. Only among Christian nationalism Adherents does a majority (52%) oppose nondiscrimination laws.
  • Just 32% of Christian nationalism Adherents oppose allowing religiously based refusals compared with 85% of Christian nationalism Rejecters.
  • Just 22% of Christian nationalism Adherents support same-sex marriage, compared with 93% of Christian nationalism Rejecters.
Across all 50 states, scatter plots show a clear pattern: support for Christian nationalism is negatively correlated with support for the three policies discussed in this report.