Leaving aside the idea that 26% to 30% of a group could be described as fringe, what we see is a conflation of opposition to vaccines with opposition to forced government vaccination. Here might be another example.

What does “mandatory” vaccination mean? Does it mean something that allows that the “power of health policing is not absolute” as the Courts might say? Or does it mean we fine and jail parents who choose not to vaccinate their children? Does it mean we take children away from parents who don’t vaccinate? Or does it mean we don’t allow non-vaccinated children in public schools?

Does it matter why parents are choosing not to vaccinate their children? Is it because they have moral objections to using vaccines developed from aborted babies? Is it because their child has medical problems that would be compounded by a vaccine injection? Is it because they’re philosophically opposed to medicine? Is it because they believe discredited studies about a link between autism and vaccines? What lines should be drawn?

I get that the media really want to do some bullcrap horse-race point-scoring partisan sniping right now. But these are actually important questions. And “gotcha” reporting may get you butt-slapped by your fellow reporters at the bar, but it’s actually really dangerous.