My Own Research

Although the time periods have changed, the emotions and deep-rooted beliefs—whether philosophical, political, or spiritual—that underlie vaccine opposition have remained relatively consistent since Edward Jenner introduced vaccination.

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1. Does History Repeat Itself?

 

1798: the year in which the United States Navy and Marine Corps were established, the Naturalization Act was signed by President Adams, the platypus was first discovered in Europe, and the year in which Edward Jenner published An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolæ Vaccinæ, describing the smallpox vaccine, in London. 

 

The history of immunization doesn't start in 1798 with the invention of the smallpox vaccine, however. It doesn't even start in 1776 when Jenner made a breakthrough by recognizing its potential synthesis. It begins as early as 200 BCE in China and India with a primitive yet relatively effective form of inoculation. This process was more gruesome than we know today. Instead of the quick prick of modern vaccines, the ancient process of inoculation was done in a few different ways: the inhalation of ground smallpox scabs or the scratching of smallpox matter into the skin. This was practiced for centuries across the Middle East and elsewhere before it was introduced to England where it was before it was introduced in England where it was endorsed by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, the wife of the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, in the 18th century after witnessing the practice performed in Turkey. 

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Read: The History and Effects of Smallpox, Inoculation, and Vaccination

 

The practice of inoculation, while similar to vaccination, wasn’t nearly as controlled and the patient would still contract the disease of varying severity which could result in an outbreak if it wasn’t properly handled. It was, however, easier to manage than naturally contracted smallpox and those who were inoculated could quarantine immediately after. Of course, there was debate and concern regarding the safety of inoculation at this time also - around 3 percent of patients who were inoculated died, caused an outbreak or caught another disease as a result of inoculation. It’s also easy to imagine how the act of inoculation could be stressful for both parents and children. After all, it required the scoring of the child's skin followed by infected scabs being rubbed into the wound, and at a time when using local anesthetic wasn’t a common practice. 

The first introduction of smallpox to the Americas came from across the ocean along with the colonists. The native populations had never been exposed to these types of viruses before and there was little they could do to treat or prevent infection. Smallpox killed around 10% of the European population but ravaged Native populations and had a mortality rate of roughly 50%. This, among many other reasons, contributed to growing hostility towards the colonists who were moving onto their land. 

Smallpox also played an important role in the Revolutionary War. British soldiers had better immunity to smallpox than did the colonial troops. In Quebec, of a regiment of 10,000 continental soldiers, 5,000 became sick due to smallpox and it’s suggested that the outbreak was intentionally caused by a British commander. George Washington, commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, subsequently order mandatory inoculation for any soldiers who hadn’t been previously infected. This was the first organized program put into place to prevent smallpox. Historians have even suggested that had inoculation been mandatory sooner, the Revolutionary War could have ended sooner and could have added Canadian land to the United States. 

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Read: Smallpox in Washington's army

 

Fast forward to 1796, there was something interesting known in regards to smallpox: milkmaids were often immune. Edward Jenner a British doctor and scientist developed a hypothesis: that the introduction of the cowpox disease caused immunity to smallpox. To test this theory, Jenner inoculated an 8-year-old boy with cowpox material. Cowpox was very similar to smallpox, but significantly less dangerous to humans. He later infected the same boy with smallpox, to which he was now immune. The Royal Society refused to publish Jenner’s discovery and he was forced to self-publish his findings in a small pamphlet titled An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolæ Vaccinæ. This was the foundation of vaccination and word would continue to spread throughout the early 1800s. 

By 1840 the government and doctors started to promote vaccination over inoculation for patients and of course, along with this practice came criticism. From the clergy, there were concerns that the vaccine was “unchristian” because it came from an animal. There were others who, very similar to modern naturopaths and proponents of alternative medicine, believed vaccination was yet another form of toxic medicine being pumped into their bodies. This is ironic considering that many of the treatments they were taking at the time actually were toxic. Others didn’t approve because they believed that they were being used as guinea pigs to test the effectiveness of vaccination. 
 

It really wasn’t until 1853 when the Vaccination Act was passed that organization of a proper anti-vaccination movement began. The 1853 Act ordered mandatory vaccination for infants up to 3 months old, and the Act of 1867 extended this age requirement to 14 years, adding penalties for vaccine refusal. Tensions rose significantly as people demanded individual autonomy and autonomy over their children. Across the Atlantic, tension was also growing in the U.S. as smallpox outbreaks lead to more vaccine campaigns. British anti-vaccination William Tebb leader visited the U.S. and prompted the establishment of the Anti Vaccination Society of America in 1879. Two other leagues were established not long after, the New England Anti Compulsory Vaccination League (1882) and the Anti-vaccination League of New York City (1885). These leagues waged legal battles against several states that had put vaccination laws in place.They also established newspapers, ran advertisements, and created political cartoons to express their displeasure and distrust of mandatory vaccination.

In 1902 a smallpox outbreak in Cambridge, Massachusetts prompted a mandate that required all residents to be vaccinated. One resident, Henning Jacobson, refused on the ground that it violated his right to care for his own body and that he knew best. The city filed criminal charges against him and he lost his court battle locally. Jacobson then appealed his case to the U.S. Supreme Court and in 1905 the Court ruled in favor of the state. This set the precedent that a state could enact compulsory laws in order to protect the public in the case of public health. 

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Read: Jacobson v. Massachusetts: impact on informed consent and vaccine policy
 

 

In the years following this case, governments began to loosen mandates and permit exemptions. This almost entirely brought an end to the anti-vaccination leagues and the organization of the movement. It also helped that as the 20th progressed, many people had more trust and respect for organized medicine and doctors. It was also during this time that the polio vaccine was introduced, which brought about much less resistance than the smallpox vaccine. Even so, at the time a lot of communities were underserved, ignored, and victimized by the health care system specifically Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color. 

 

The most infamous case was the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment. In 1932 researchers for the United States Public Health Service began monitoring hundreds of Black men with syphilis but never treated their disease, even when penicillin, effective treatment for syphilis, became more readily available. The study continued until 1972, many years after a revision to the medical code of ethics would have made the establishment of this study inadmissible. The mistreatment of Black Americans in the medical field goes back for centuries and into slavery. The most well-known example involves “the father of modern gynecology,” J. Marion Sims, who would perform invasive and painful research on enslaved women. Even today the highest rates of maternal mortality are among Black Americans. Communities of color have a complex and tenuous history with the medical field which often leads to more distrust and resistance. 

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Read: The continuing legacy of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study

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During the 20th century, several other viruses took to the spotlight. Polio was one of the most infamous given its propensity to result in paralysis at a rate of 1 in 200. It disproportionately affected children and many had to live their lives in an iron lung. Next to an atomic bomb, polio was what American’s feared the most.

 

In 1952, 57,628 polio cases were reported in the United States, more than 21,000 of them paralytic cases. This was the same year in which vaccine testing began. The vaccine began testing only two years later in 1954. At the time, the trails have deemed a success. More than 200,000 children were vaccinated against polio, but soon after reports began coming in reporting strange paralytic cases of polio in children who had received a vaccine. A key element was the beginning of paralysis in the arm, a very uncommon characteristic of polio. In total, there had been 40,000 cases of polio which had left 200 children with some degree of paralysis and 10 dead. It was discovered that all these children had been vaccinated with a sample manufactured by the California-based family firm Cutter Laboratories. 

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It was discovered that some lots of the Cutter vaccine contained live poliovirus in what was supposed to be an inactivated virus vaccine. An inspection by the surgeon general discovered that there had been nothing wrong with Cutter’s production methods. Concerns had been raised previously to the organization that had certified the Cutter vaccine, there had been reports of paralysis in some inoculated monkeys. Several civil lawsuits were filed against Cutter in the years following the Cutter Incident. Cutter was determined not negligent but was liable for breach of implied warranty and the plaintiffs were awarded monetary damages. Prior to this, there was a system in place to compensate those harmed by vaccines. The incident also lead to effective federal regulation of vaccines which has caused vaccines to have a current safety record unmatched by any other medical product. 

 

This was also around the time, the late 1960s when the World Health organization began taking initiatives to increase the rates of vaccinations worldwide with the ultimate goal of eliminating diseases such as smallpox, polio, and measles. These viruses were endemic in many countries and territories, especially those in eastern and southern Africa, Asia, and Brazil and so WHO designed a program with two components: to utilize mass vaccination using freeze-dried vaccines, and develop systems that would better help these countries deal with cases and contain outbreaks. In practice, these programs were criticized by human rights activists because they used corrosive tactics to encourage vaccination. These programs also did little to curb the fear and mistrust of vaccinations tied to theories that Western nations were utilizing these programs to sterilize or infect the communities being targeted by vaccination efforts. The methods used did little to curb the fear, and some organizations actively fed this fear-such as in Tanzania, when a missionary spread concerns about tetanus vaccination that sparked rumors and stopped the vaccination campaign. One of the worst came from Africa when a British journalist published an article that speculated that receiving the polio vaccine allowed for AIDS transmission. This claim not only affected efforts overseas, but it also sparked a significant amount of media attention and has continued to persist in conspiracy theories. 

There are also many religious and political objections that have been raised, specifically in Muslim fundamentalist nations with distrust of the polio vaccine. Cultural differences and fear require increased communication and collaboration between public health and medical officials and the public. Religious organizations within the United States have also raised concerns regarding vaccination. Many of these concerns mirror the previous concerns mounted in the 1800s with the formation of the three anti-vaccination Leagues. It was in 198They cite similar concerns: individual liberty and autonomy, fear of safety, religious objections, and other more philosophical claims. For those who are religious, these concerns are based on ethical dilemmas based on using human cells to create vaccines and the belief that the body is sacred and should be healed by god or natural means and should therefore not receive chemicals or cells from animals. Officially, the Catholic Church recognized the importance of protecting public health, but claims members should seek alternatives to cell line vaccines. Certain sects of Christians believe that all medical intervention is unnecessary and they instead rely on prayer for purposes of healing. It is important to also recognize that outbreaks can spread very quickly through communities with low vaccination rates. A single unvaccinated community member can cause a significant outbreak that can spread past the initial community rather easily.

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In 1998, a British doctor Andrew Wakefield published an uncontrolled study of 12 children (40 participants is an appropriate number for most quantitative studies) in which he suggested a link between the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine and autism. This paper received significant publicity and MMR vaccination rates dropped because parents were becoming increasingly concerned about the risk of autism and other neurological conditions. 

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Almost immediately studies were conducted and published that refuted the suggested link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Not only were there methodological issues with Wakefield's study (small sample size, uncontrolled design, speculative conclusion) and the way in which data was selected but there were also conflicts of interest with Wakefield's report. Wakefield had been funded by lawyers who had been engaged by parents in lawsuits against vaccine-producing companies. Wakefield’s medical license was revoked and the journal that originally published the paper formally retracted it. Despite this, the study sparked significant online conversations, and media outlets covered it with extreme enthusiasm and credulity. This was the necessary spark for the modern anti-vax movement we’re all familiar with. 

The 90s were also a time in which the internet was growing rapidly and evolving into a tool for social interaction and the spreading of information. Since this time, anti-vaccine disinformation and other conspiracy theories have spread quickly and efficiently over social media platforms. It allowed information to spread in a way it had never been able to before, and it informationally was happening just as objections regarding vaccines were spreading and the media was excited to write headlines like: "HPV vaccine leaves another 17-year-old-girl paralyzed."

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2. The Influence of Social Media

 

A perfectly curated feed: home renovations, coffee, family photos, pumpkins, the occasional sponsored post promoting a dietary supplement or detox tea, gardening, and stylized Martin Luther King Jr. quotes, all tied together by a rose-colored filter. A caption attached to a picture of a toddler holding some fruit in an orchard reads, “Just some country kids excited about their apples.” Comments on this post have been limited. Several lines above another perfectly posed candid shows a woman walking toward the camera. The caption reads, “Currently unbothered. #freedomfighter  #freedomkeeper  #medicalfreedom  #truthseeker”. Comments on this post have been limited. The Instagram highlights: disney, rv life, remedies, vax info, c0v!d, mk ultra, symbolism, masks & kids, natural living, homeschool, all lowercased for aesthetic value and accompanied by an unrelated image of an illustrated flower. This account belongs to the travel, fashion, lifestyle, and parenting influencer Kasey Giles, whose posts are regularly shared with roughly 11,000 followers. 

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One post on Gilles’ page, a pretty blush box with text reading “Research Guide” and a delicate illustration of a syringe below, is a post providing the names of various books, documentaries, and websites, to vaccine resources. Many of these resources have been debunked and are known for providing misinformation. Any comments made questioning the content or its intent are followed by a respectful “I just want people to do their own research.” A few other comments appear on the post: “Thank you for the resources,” “This is great, thank you!! saving it to send when someone asks!” and another that is just two clapping hands. Kasey Gilles herself isn’t the sole proprietor of misinformation and conspiracy content on the internet, but her page does highlight a new role that these influencers are playing. Influencers like her are repackaging conspiracy rhetoric (of which vaccines and medical misinformation is a part) and making it more palatable to the general public. They seem harmless enough: young moms posting about their kids, new recipes they found on Pinterest, maybe even their pregnancy and post-partum journeys, and sure, maybe there are a few detox teas here and there, but that's hardly a crime. 

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The Vaccine Confidence Project recently found that even a small amount of online exposure to vaccine misinformation reduces the number of people willing to get vaccinated by up to 8.8 percent. In total, anti-vaccine activists on Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, and Twitter reach up to 59 million followers.

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These bloggers, while responsible for repackaging this content, aren't the ones who made it in the first place. The research group Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) found that 12 people, a group they’ve dubbed the Disinformation Dozen, account for up to 65% of anti-vaccination content. This was based on the analysis of over 812,000 posts from Facebook and Twitter between February 1 and March 16, 2021. It suggests that while many people are sharing anti-vaccine content over social media, the content itself comes from a much more limited range of sources. 

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Read: The Disinformation Dozen by the Center for Countering Digital Hate

 

Included in the Disinformation dozen is Sherri Tenpenny, an osteopath physician who uses her social media to spread anti-vaccine disinformation and who made significant claims about the safety of masks. When first seeing her on social media, she appears innocent enough: a friendly-looking white woman in her 60s. People are also naturally inclined to trust someone who has a medical degree, especially one who confirms their bias. It doesn’t matter if the majority of doctors disagree, finding one that does solidify even beliefs that have been proven medically inaccurate. On June 23, 2020, Tenpenny tweeted that masks suppress the immune system and that the longer someone wears a mask the more unhealthy they become. On Instagram, Tenpenny posted Live with Andrew Wakefield in which they discussed Covid-19 as an “alleged plague” and claimed that a vaccine “has killed more children than it has saved from the targeted disease.” This video remains available. 

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There are many elements of social media such as memes, videos, photos, and emojis that are precessed fast and accepted without question, and are remembered more easily than text. It’s also not uncommon to see the same or very similar visuals with similar statistics multiple times, which further cements it into the brain, whether or not the person who sees it realizes it. These visuals are everywhere, especially on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter where the majority of anti-vaccine content is circulated. People also use social media as sources of news, we saw this during the election a few years ago and with the Supreme Court hearings, and as sources of health-related information. Studies have found that engagement with anti-vaccination content has a negative impact on an individual's intentions to get vaccinated but their engagement with pro-vaccination content had to significant impact. 

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The Disinformation Dozen and other anti-vaccination groups also utilize propaganda techniques that have been used for decades in political campaigns. They blame pharmaceutical companies for “cutting corners” to produce vaccines rapidly and define the issue of vaccine safety. They also question morality by suggesting there is a coalition of corrupt politicians and profit-driven medical industries and that by rejecting vaccines, people are helping to mend this issue. 

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The chain of information foes as follows: docotors, researchers, etc. produce data related to vaccines, their safety, and efficacy, others like Wakefield take this data or produce their own to fit a desired narrative, media outlets run with claims and stories, some debunking them others giving them equal authority and around the same time people like the Disinformation Dozen take this data and turn it into visuals or post on social media, people with social media followings or influence than share these and it begins to spread across social media where the mojority of people see them, some interact and share, others simply become familiar with the information. 

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Analysis of the effects of TikTok has highlighted issues with social media algorithms. This is an element of social media designed to tailor an individual's social media experience to their own interests and make them more likely to come back and continue utilizing whatever site it is. This is an issue with disinformation because the more someone sees and interacts with disinformation the more likely they are to be fed more. If a millennial mom likes a post about vaccine disinformation and resources she can look into, the more likely he is to see similar posts in the future. This desire to make people happy and to show them only what they want to see leads to confirmation bias and the belief that what they are seeing is the overwhelming consensus and even small amounts of disinformation have an effect.

 

TikTok has a highly sophisticated and easily manipulated algorithm, the fast-paced scrolling of the platform allows for a lot of information to be fed into the algorithm in less time than on other platforms. This creates a highly unique and specialized platform for each person. The danger of this became more apparent during the Covid-19 pandemic with the spreading of vaccine misinformation and alternative treatment methods such as ivermectin. Many people were making videos advocating for the use and even posting tutorials on how to use the drug. TikTok’s guidelines prohibit the promotion of medical misinformation and yet it is a major issue on the platform. There are people on TikTok working to debunk these claims, but it is nearly impossible for a few people to refute every claim. It can't just be the responsibility of people on the platforms to hold others accountable, as argued in the Disinformation Dozen, the platforms themselves must take responsibility for the misinformation spread on them.

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3. More Psychology

 

There are a lot of reasons people align themselves with the anti-vaccine ideology and other conspiracy beliefs, and with just about anything, it’s oftentimes complex. Everyone has certain traits that make them susceptible to disinformation, but only a handful of people actually align themselves with it, why? 

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Read: The psychology of conspiracy theories

 

One important characteristic that all humans share is the tendency to see patterns where there are no patterns. Humans naturally want to find patterns in things such as data or a graphic pattern, and will oftentimes make one up even if one isn’t there. This is seen a lot in conspiracy thinking. People will connect dots and data, making patterns and connections where there aren’t any. This was seen in the report made by Wakefield, he aligned the data of vaccination rates and rates of diagnosed autism, which were correlated. However, the conclusion failed to consider explanations for the correlation. Even today, people see the data and even though it has been debunked by other medical professionals, they see the pattern and connection and cannot bring themselves to disagree. There is also evidence to suggest that disasters and other high-stress situations lead people to see nonexistent patterns and evoke conspiratorial explanations. Situations such as a global pandemic and mandatory quarantine could likely be classified as such an event. 

 

People also naturally make cognitive shortcuts in order to make decisions faster. These are most often used when responding to stress or in complex time-limited situations. Every day this can be seen as buying the same thing at the grocery store if you’re short on time or making the same decision as to the people around you. These aren’t necessarily bad things, but they can lead to people believing more in misinformation, especially when they are subject to stress. It can also be easy to start believing something that you have seen over and over again, even if you didn’t necessarily believe it the first time. In many cases, the brain often mistakes familiarity for the truth.

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People naturally tend to follow the lead of those they view either consciously or unconsciously as their leaders. This can include political leaders, religious leaders, etc. Groups, in general, tend to share common beliefs, but these beliefs are often influenced by those who are the leaders or at least the most prominent members of the group. Many people who believe in conspiracy seek a savior, they desire to find someone who will protect them from enemies. For many of these reasons, group identity can contribute significantly to beliefs. 

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A concept known as “collective narcissism” is described as a group's inflated view of its significance or importance. It’s suggested that collective narcissists are prone to looking for fake enemies and utilizing conspiracy explanations that blame them. This is demonstrated by the tendency of anti-vaxxers to create an enemy in “big pharma” and corruption in the health care system. This happens less on an individual level but influences individuals to act on behalf of the collective.  

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When people believe something, it's nearly impossible to change their minds. This is oftentimes an unconscious phenomenon that lingers and results in an emotional response even once we know that something is false. In addition to creating familiarity on social media, the news and more traditional media source also contribute to increased familiarity with the voices of a minority. A recent study found that during the pandemic specifically, media reports (even if they were intended to disprove the claim) can unintentionally “advocated unproven cures, denied what is known scientifically about the nature and origins of the novel SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, and proposed conspiracy theories which purport to explain causation and often allege nefarious intent.” 

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People also don’t like not knowing things. They don’t like feeling like they’re uninformed about issues and as a result people commonly form opinions on thing they don’t actually understand. A lot of times too, they form opinions based on what they believe is the overwhelming majority or what they see as the truth. This interpretation is based significantly on what they see most often and what the people around them say. If their leaders, the people they follow on social media, their church, their family, and their community hold an opinion, even if it isn’t based on fact, they are more likely to believe it. People form their opinions on their experiences and that is significantly dependent on their surroundings and community. 

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All of these considered together allows for the spreading of misinformation across social media platforms and traditional media outlets. Everyone has cognitive bias’ to some extent, they help us live our lives efficiently but they can harm us when it comes to discerning and analyzing the hundreds of different snippets of data and headlines we are fed each day. Some people are more conscious of them and some use them more than others, but we all still have them, and even people who don't subscribe to conspiracy theories can still be subject to "collective narcissism" and a tendency to make patterns where there are none and are more likely to take the words of group leaders more readily than they should. An important element of combating these effects are educating people on how misinformation can spread and how to properly identify misinformation. But, it can’t just be up to an individual, there need to be changes in how we receive our information and in what’s allowed in spaces such as social media.

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4. What Now?

 

You’re probably now asking yourself the same questions I’ve been asking myself the entire time of been writing and researching this topic: “Why is knowing all of this important? What difference will knowing this make? So what? What now?”

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Social media has played a significant role in the spreading of vaccine misinformation, historically news and such information spread through the news and among individuals in a community. They weren’t nearly as overwhelmed with information or exposed to it as often as people often are today. The evolution of the internet into what it is today aligned with a growing distrust of vaccination and medicine. The important thing to note, however, is that while people are bombarded with more and more information today, it's also easier to reach them than it was historically. In the 1800s if someone heard something bad about vaccination, the only way to correct or address this was if they were addressed individually or a retraction was printed in the newspaper. While they were given fewer opportunities to receive the information, there were also fewer ways to counteract it. Today people spend so much time online, and it's much easier to reach them. One proposed method of combating misinformation is the flagging of posts and media that contains misinformation, while good in theory, these posts are often flagged after a significant amount have people have seen them. One solution would include notifying people who interacted or saw media that was flagged after they saw it. This solution would require social media platforms to take more responsibility for the information spread on their site. 
 

Some social media platforms have taken action to counteract misinformation. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter have banned, or at least partially removed people who are known to spread misinformation. However, as determined by the Disinformation Dozen report, these platforms aren’t doing enough. Many issues with social media regulation come with restrictions on free speech. We already have those limits in our everyday lives, like the classic, don’t scream fire in a crowded movie theater, but many people are concerned about online censorship. 

Solutions proposed by the CCDH include a clear threshold of enforcement for the spreading of misinformation. Creating a system that flags repeat offenders and restricts their accounts: going live, posting video content without review, could “allow for efficient balancing of harm reduction with the preservation of free speech on a large scale.” Other solutions target those viewing the media: displaying corrective posts on people's feeds and adding warning screens when users click on misinformation sites. Another proposed solution would institute an Accountability API. This would allow experts on topics like vaccine hesitancy to perform human analysis that can help make AI flagging systems more effective and offer education and guidance for users who want to “debunk information without running afoul of enforcers.” Lastly, they propose a ban on private and secrete anti-vaccine Facebook groups. Many anti-vaccine groups rely on the privacy of these groups to spread misinformation without accountability. These solutions target issues seen on social media. The primary goal is to protect freedom of speech as much as possible but to hold people accountable for what they do post online. 

Beyond issues of social media, it's also important to consider the reasons some people have a hard time trusting health care and medicine. There are groups throughout history, both within the borders of the U.S. and outside who have been mistreated and abused for the sake of medical research. It takes an effort on the part of medical institutions to work actively to mend this relationship and rebuild trust with these communities. 
 

Even though the modes and methods used by anti-vaccination groups have changed, whether they are private Leagues gathering on the streets of New York in 1882 or it's a private anti-vaccine Facebook group, they continue to hold many of the same beliefs and concerns. People also remain disconnected from the medical community in large part, it's hard to trust someone you don't feel connected to and whom you don't believe has your best interests at heart. That's one of the reasons propaganda about doctors and payouts from big pharma are able to persist so readily. Having a personal relationship with doctors and other healthcare workers can play a critical role in a person's perception of medicine and vaccination. Unfortunately, the percentage of people who have a primary care doctor has dropped in recent years, and conversations about vaccination are important to have one-on-one. This allows patients to express their concerns and for those concerns to be heard by someone who is an expert and who has their best interest at heart.

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As for the rest of us, it's important to be aware of how misinformation spreads and why it spreads. It allows us to talk to the people in our lives who have concerns and to approach it from a place of understanding instead of a place of frustration. Refusing vaccination is dangerous. It doesn't just hurt those who choose not to get vaccinated, it hurts their children who aren't able to make the decision, and it hurts people who are unable to get vaccinated: people who are chronically ill, immunocompromised, or undergoing treatment. While 1,813,188 COVID-19 deaths were reported in 2020, recent WHO estimates suggest excess mortality of at least 3,000,000. 

 

Read: The true death toll of COVID-19: estimating global excess mortality