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Skepticism about the health effects of vaccines on children is evenly distributed among Canadians of all demographics, with no significant patterns of gender, age, income or education, according to an unusual survey that tried to cast a sociological eye on “anti-vaxxers.”

“There’s no profile for these individuals… It’s everybody. It’s you and me,” said Quito Maggi, president of polling firm Mainstreet Technologies, which did the survey. “It could be your neighbour. That’s the scary thing. Without asking someone, without asking other parents at your kids’ schools or asking people at your daycare, you’re not really going to know.”

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If anything, there is a slight bias toward highly educated people, which fits with the impression that people who refuse to vaccinate their children do not lack access to scientific information so much as reject it on various grounds.

Other than that, the only obvious trends to emerge are that a clear majority of two thirds of anti-vaxxers do it for “health concerns,” a smaller contingent of 19% do it for religious reasons, and 8% do it for philosophical reasons.