Study finds Japanese "anti-vaxers" tend to be left wing

A new study has been published by researchers from Tokyo University with the horrible title of “Anti-vaccine rabbit hole leads to political representation: the case of Twitter in Japan”. The authors set out their agenda from the first sentence of the abstract.

Anti-vaccine attitudes pose a threat to public health by impeding the development of herd immunity.

Stop laughing.

However, the proliferation and politicization of anti-vaccine discourse, exacerbated by the pandemic and the rise of social media, have not been fully elucidated.

In case you’re wondering what kind of tweets count as “anti-vaccine discourse” in this study, the supplementary material gives the following as an example.

I will never forget how several hospitals turned my mother away after she became ill from the vaccine. She cried beside herself and begged for help, not only experiencing physical pain but emotional pain as well. We urgently need an outpatient clinic for vaccine adverse reactions and aftereffects! Please spread the word by using the hashtag #vaccineadversereactions and RT!

Less biased researchers might’ve concluded from tweets like these that one major reason for the “proliferation and politicization of anti-vaccine discourse” was the unprecedentedly high number of adverse events caused by the mRNA jabs.

However, if you can stop rolling your eyes and groaning at the authors’ childish name-calling for long enough, you can learn some interesting information.

This study, using Japanese Twitter data, revealed that (a) anti-vaxxers are characterized by high political interest, (b) persistent anti-vaxxers were more ideologically left-leaning and had stronger ties to existing political parties, and (c) pandemic-induced new anti-vaxxers displayed low political engagement but a greater affinity for conspiracy theories, spirituality, naturalism, and alternative health practices, which served as gateways to anti-vaccination views.

As shown in the figure below, “persistent anti-vaxxers” (high-high; HH), who were vax-sceptics before the pandemic, tended to openly support left-wing political parties like Reiwa, the Japanese Communist Party (JCP), and the Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP). In contrast, “pandemic-induced new anti-vaxxers” (low-high; LH) are most supportive of the new right-wing populist party Sanseito.

Associations between major political parties/leaders and anti-vaccine accounts

Sanseito has only one seat across Japan’s two houses of parliament, but even that is one too many for the authors, who clearly think little of the party’s voters.

Sanseito made anti-vaccine discourse a central part of its election campaign…individuals with minimal political involvement and weak ties to established parties prior to the pandemic but a preexisting interest in health, spirituality, and conspiracy theories are likely to have been receptive to Sanseito’s electioneering efforts.

Sanseito’s actual position was opposition to the whole Covid response: business restrictions, masks, warp-speed mRNA jabs, the lot. The party isn’t calling for parents to stop giving kids BCG or Japanese encephalitis vaccines. But of course, being sceptical of any type of vaccine is enough to have you labelled an “anti-vaxxer”.

Although the authors get the vapours at the thought that anti-vax tweets have led to the election of one vax-sceptic right-wing MP, I’d say the problem the study actually shows is that there are many left-leaning vax-sceptics whose views aren’t represented by the parties they support. “Anti-vaxxer” accounts were clustered based on words in user profiles, and the results suggest there is a gap in the political market for a Japanese version of Robert F Kennedy Jr.

The second cluster exhibits strong leftist characteristics, as profile texts frequently mention the leftist party Reiwa and its leader Taro Yamamoto, expressing criticism and condemnation of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his administration, as well as hostility toward rightist parties such as Ishin. The third cluster demonstrates a high level of interest in issues typically supported by leftist parties, such as opposition to nuclear power plants, concern over radiation contamination in Fukushima, anti-war sentiment, the Okinawa US military base issue, and support for the Japanese Communist Party.

The authors also look at the types of users who tweeted/retweeted pro-vax sentiment and didn’t follow “anti-vaxxers”.

the most prevalent features for classification into the Low group pertain to cultural artifacts like games and anime, encompassing terms such as “adult” (mature content), daily life, TRPGs (table talk role-playing games), and Uma Musume (name of a game). No political keywords are present.

Whereas the authors see anti-establishment opinions as evidence of vax-sceptics’ irrationality, they draw no conclusions from the finding that pro-vax Twitter users tend to be apolitical nerds. There’s nothing wrong with having nerdy interests, but I get the feeling these people got the jabs because TV told them to and everyone else was doing so. Their lack of interest in the reasons for the government’s decisions suits the authors just fine.

These results aren’t too surprising. People without any interest in politics went along with the crowd. In contrast, people with pre-existing anti-establishment views were more likely to be sceptical of newly developed vaccine platforms and criticise the government for looking the other way when adverse events occurred. The difference in Japan is that the political establishment is the pro-business conservatives of the LDP, so the most vocal anti-establishmentarians tend to be leftists.

In summary, the mainstream media’s depiction of “anti-vaxxers” as far rightists is even more wrong than previously thought. But Japanese leftists who opposed the Covid response were badly let down by the parties they supported, which acted as cheer-critics calling for the government to implement tougher restrictions, conduct more tests, and roll out the jabs quicker, i.e., the same but harder.

But that applies to left-wing parties in most other countries too. A good opposition is hard to find.