Science- Jennifer Boeder said she saw a friend share anti-vax conspiracies on Facebook and is cutting ties.
- More people are reconsidering longtime relationships as the pandemic rages on.
- Boeder told Insider she feels ethically responsible for moving on from the
friendship .
When Jennifer Boeder logged onto Facebook on April 6, she immediately knew a decade-long friendship she cherished was over.
In a post to her Facebook followers, Boeder's friend wrote she believed the FDA and doctors were not to be trusted. Boeder asked to keep her friend anonymous to protect her identity.
Boeder, a writer in Los Angeles, already knew she and her longtime friend didn't agree about
According to Boeder, her friend was obsessed with finding alternative healing techniques and avoiding the doctor. Whenever Boeder vented about her chronic pain, her friend would suggest swapping out medications for plant remedies or meditating more.
Boeder said she could handle individual differences and came to terms with sharing less about her
"I was like, you know what? I can't follow you. I can't look at this. Ethically, I can't be friends with you. This is dangerous disinformation and you're so not living in reality," Boeder told Insider of her thoughts at the time.
'She had an agenda that was more important than a friendship'
The decision to end relationships over differing vaccine views has become increasingly common. According to a recent Insider poll of 1,053 people, one in five Americans are staying away from loved ones due to differences in vaccination status.
Though Boeder hasn't had COVID-19 herself, she spent two weeks caring and worrying for her brother, who was home sick with the virus. According to Boeder, that experience made her friend's anti-vaccine post sting more.
In the early 2000s, Boeder said she and her friend spent time around people with anti-vaccine views. It didn't feel as precarious at the time, Boeder said, because vaccine hesitancy seemed more like a personal choice than a public health crisis.
But as the years passed, Boeder said her friend's increasing vaccine and healthcare system fears pushed them apart.
"Whenever anything came up that was health-related, it very much felt like she had an agenda that was more important than a friendship," she said.
Boeder considered confronting her friend, but hasn't yet
When her friend shared the fateful Facebook post, Boeder said she wasn't in a place to explain why she was cutting off the friendship, as she'd been recently laid off from her job.
Her friend ended up getting the COVID-19 vaccine, but Boeder is still upset because the public social media posts are "sowing mistrust."
"It's very much about the preaching of vaccine suspicion. She wasn't necessarily even saying don't get it," Boeder said.
Now, Boeder considers explaining herself in the hopes of changing her friend's anti-vaccine actions.
"Maybe ethically, if I want to feel like I'm part of the solution, I should be like, 'This completely upset me. This has major consequences."