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Why anti-vaxxers are rising again

In the midst of a health crisis when our only hope is a new vaccine, many have begun to wonder how those with anti-vaccination sentiments might respond to the current COVID-19 crisis. Many have guessed that the only natural, rational response would be for anti-vaxxers to change their minds and wholeheartedly embrace the prospect of a new vaccine. After all, there is a prevailing theory that anti-vaccine sentiment arises at least in part from a collective amnesia about the true scourge of vaccine-preventable diseases. Vaccines, so the argument goes, are a victim of their own success, resulting in a situation in which people do not remember why they are getting vaccinated because the diseases that the vaccines prevent against have been absent for so long. If this theory is true, then in a situation in which we are face-to-face with the ill effects of an infectious pathogen, we should all readily embrace a new vaccine.

It turns out that the anti-vaxxer response to COVID-19 and the prospect of a new vaccine, much like science denialism more generally, is much more complex than that. The response also seems to suggest that the idea that amnesia about diseases that have been largely conquered by vaccines is probably not the primary reason for anti-vaccine sentiments. So how have people with anti-vaccine tendencies responded to COVID-19? While it’s still too soon to have a complete picture of this, especially since no new vaccine has been rolled out yet, several interesting patterns have emerged.

Staunch anti-vaxxers still oppose vaccines, including potential new coronavirus vaccines, and are active at spreading misinformation. Those who have not made up their minds about whether vaccines are safe are now wavering more than they were previously. Whereas before they may have been slightly more inclined in the anti-vaccine direction, now they are questioning those viewpoints more. They do seem to remain amenable to being persuaded.

Public figures, such as politicians and musicians, who are staunch anti-vaxxers are facing more opposition now. Crisis situations have the tendency to bring certain background issues into high relief. People who may have found anti-vaxxers to be somewhat irritating but not a direct threat are now viewing them differently and thus more social pressure is being placed on anti-vaxxers to abandon their views and change their behaviors.

Still, anti-vaxxers are very active and very vocal, both about potentially refusing a new vaccine for coronavirus but also increasingly voicing conspiracy theories about coronavirus itself. These conspiracy theory claims run the gamut, from claiming the virus is not as bad as public officials note to warning people that public officials and government bodies like the CDC are not to be trusted.

Another very disturbing development is the migration of objections to a putative coronavirus vaccine away from a scientific and health basis and toward a more general political basis. Anti-vaxxers are now linking stay-at-home orders and the hoped-for vaccines as assaults on liberty and freedom. Although anti-vaxxers have always made personal liberty a part of their message, by incorporating objections to a coronavirus vaccine into the broader context of freedom, they have taken this link to an extreme.

Heidi Munoz Gelisner, a leader in anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown protests, told a reporter at the New York Times, “we have always been about freedom.” This adds a new dimension to our efforts to ensure that there is swift uptake of a coronavirus vaccine as soon as it becomes available. Targeting the pro-vaccine message on issues of vaccine safety and efficacy may not address this broader issue. Of course, the notion that vaccines involve a personal liberty aspect is faulty: it is long recognized that no one has the right to jeopardize the health of others, especially children, and therefore that democracies can legitimately enforce vaccine requirements. Nevertheless, Americans are perhaps more insistent about a broad range of personal liberties than citizens of any other country and therefore we will have to consider ways to address this aspect of anti-vaccination sentiment as well.

More than 90 vaccines against the virus that causes COVID-19 are now in various stages of development and the most optimistic predictions would give us a viable one in a year to 18 months. Research by Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, indicates that we can no longer rely on debunking myths about vaccines after they have been promulgated throughout the media. Rather, her work calls for “proactive messaging,” in which groups of experts begin to thwart anti-vaccination messages before a crisis promoted by misinformation begins. Thus, we need to start immediately to use evidence-based communication methods to preempt the different varieties of misinformation about a vaccine for COVID-19. There is no time to waste.

Featured Image Credit: Photo by pressphoto via Freepik

Recent Comments

  1. Constantinos Ragazas

    “it is long recognized that no one has the right to jeopardize the health of others, especially children, and therefore that democracies can legitimately enforce vaccine requirements.”

    That is a non sequitur! Such logic lead the Nazi Eugenics movement.

    “legitimately enforce vaccine requirements” does not follow, in the case of vaccines, from “Jeopardize the health of others” . Since vaccines, in principle, provide protection to the vaccinated individual from that disease.

    The right to our body is a fundamental right. Of course such faulty logic goes against all our democratic values.

    Instead of fighting “anti-vaxxers”, why doesn’t the pharmaceuticals seriously listen to their concerns and do the science raised by their objections.

    I am not an “anti-vaxxer”. Yet I find some of their concerns legitimate.

  2. Eric McCay

    Report condemns swine flu experts’ ties to big pharma (2010)

    Scientists who drew up the key WHO guidelines advising governments to stockpile drugs had previously been paid by drug companies which stood to profit, according to a report out today.

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2010/jun/04/swine-flu-experts-big-pharmaceutical

  3. Eric McCay

    EU to probe pharma over false pandemic (2009)

    The WHO’s false pandemic flu campaign is “one of the greatest medicine scandals of the century,” according to Dr Wodarg, The definition of an alarming pandemic must not be under the influence of drug-seller

    http://www.pharmatimes.com/news/eu_to_probe_pharma_over_false_pandemic_982876

  4. Eric McCay

    The pharmaceutical industry makes Mexican drug cartels look like choirs of angels.

    “Johnson & Johnson to pay $572m for fueling Oklahoma opioid crisis, judge rules

    The pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson ran a “false and dangerous” sales campaign that caused addiction and death as it drove America’s opioid epidemic, an Oklahoma court has ruled in the first judgement of its kind against the drug industry.

    In a damning 42-page decision, Judge Thad Balkman ruled that the company bore a wide responsibility for helping to create the worst drug epidemic in US history.

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/26/johnson-and-johnson-opioid-crisis-ruling-responsibility-oklahoma-latest

  5. Jack Gorman

    We appreciate all the comments about our blog and hope we can have a bit more conversation. One theme seems to be that vaccines jeopardize health and the other that pharmaceutical companies are not to be trusted. With respect to the latter, we hope no one thinks that we are defenders of the pharmaceutical industry. So let’s focus on the issue of vaccine safety. We are certainly with you on the strong desire to protect health and safety, so can you say more about the problem? thank you

  6. Constantinos Ragazas

    “Sara Gorman is a public health specialist at a large multinational healthcare company…”

    “…we hope no one thinks that we are defenders of the pharmaceutical industry.”

    These are potentially contradictory statements, in my view!

    “One theme seems to be that vaccines jeopardize health and the other that pharmaceutical companies are not to be trusted”

    These are inextricably linked! Can’t really discuss one without the other!

    “So let’s focus on the issue of vaccine safety.”

    Just safe is not enough. Safe and necessary is the issue.

    What is the proof vaccines as currently administered are universally safe and necessary in all instances and not just in some? Studies done by the very same companies that make the vaccines don’t count!

    More specifically, have there been independent studies showing there is no link between the MMR injections and the alarming rise of autism?

    Further, why not allow parents to make that decision to vaccinate or not? Compulsory coercion by law only gives pharmaceutical companies cover and more profits. Indemnifying vaccine manufacturers from liability by law only encourages greed and abuse of the public trust.

    If vaccines provide protection against the disease for the vaccinated, why insist and coerce others to similarly be vaccinated? But if all others must be too, doesn’t this then raise questions of a vaccine’s efficacy?

    We’re in a “catch 22” here! With vaccine manufacturers on top of this dilemma.

    Is it true that children naturally immunized by having the measles have a greater protection against measles than children vaccinated for measles? And the children that do get the measles have in fact been those vaccinated for the measles! So where is the protection? But we know where the profits are!

    Overuse of vaccines may be making us overall weaker not stronger. While at the same time making pharmaceuticals stronger and more powerful and more controlling of our lives and of our airwaves and politicians! Similarly with the overuse of antibiotics and opioids.

    What can happen when private greed drives public policy. We need real independent scientific research to give us reliable answers to these legitimate concerns. Not scare tactics and intimidation.

    Kostas

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