You may be mis-parsing the parent comment. The phrase… Thanks to all the anti-vaxxer "do your own research" garbage people. …can also be interpreted as… Than

You may be mis-parsing the parent comment. The phrase… Thanks to all the anti-vaxxer "do your own research" garbage people. …can also be interpreted as… Thanks to all the anti-vaxxer people and their "do your own research" garbage. That is, the garbage is the "do your own research" rejection of expertise, not the people themselves. Participating in group discussions requires charitable reading, so if a 1st way of reading the comment makes you so disgusted you must storm out in protest, but a 2nd way of reading the comment lets you continue to participate, you should consider adopting the 2nd interpretation. But perhaps, given the existence of 'garbage people' as a separately-occurring slur, you've read it as the writer intended. [And indeed I now see a confirmation from the original author, that labeling anti-vaxxers as 'garbage people' was their intent.] Still, it's a throwaway bit of word-choice to indicate the speaker's anger and disgust at the situation. They (and their up-voters) likely believe, and with some justification, that the choices of these anti-vax people have put their own health at risk. A bit of anger is natural in that situation, and language only has so many ways to express anger against others' practices. Every way of expressing that anger will in some way be seen as a slur against those people, lowering their relative-status, rejecting their choices, and rallying others to take corrective actions. As long as those corrective actions don't include actually treating people like 'garbage' – destroying/disposing them – such adjectival choices should usually be forgiven as concise rhetorical flourishes. Most of the world communicates in such sloppy, emotional ways. Enforcing a standard of clinical precision and coolness, and careful word-choice against any ugly implications against any humans, would in fact exile many people, with valid perspectives, from your conversations.