Two workers make openings in chicken eggs in preparation for production of measles vaccine.

There is a myth running amok among rational progressives that groups like anti-vaxxars are solely a problem on the left. While there is a kernel of truth to this, vaccination requirements come from government, and have found allies with those who suddenly discovered a hatred for government with the election and re-election of President Obama. Other notions, like homeopathy and concerns over genetically modified plants and animals, have indeed found some scattered support on our side of the aisle.

Sadly, the Green Party, led by Jill Stein, appears to be providing aid and comfort to those anti-science forces. Lawrence Krauss writing at Patheos opines:

Stein’s answer is deeply disturbing. She gave a long winded and evasive answer to a simple and straightforward question. As a physician, and a scientist, her answer should have been clear and unequivocal: Vaccines work; homeopathy is bullshit. Instead, her answer is a confused and muddled hash invoking big pharma conspiracy theory buzz: a convoluted political double-speak that would make the most jaded and cynical politician proud. … Stein is pandering to the worst elements of the anti-science lunatic fringe on the far left by preserving the illusion that discredited schools of thought promoting homeopathy and questioning the safety and efficacy of vaccines may have some merit.

Vaccines, along with modern sanitation and antibiotics, are part of the triad that has probably saved more lives and prevented more suffering than any other human endeavor. While we should demonstrate compassion for those with serious medical problems which cannot be relieved by modern medicine, any attempt to downplay the nature of quackery, or efforts to write that material into an official party platform, is something we’d expect to see done by the usual suspects in a very different party. And it’s precisely this sort of thing that provides the punditry with their cherished false equivalence.