The Anti-Vax Movement Isn ’t Going Away. We Must Adapt to It

America’s immunization policies are facing a bleak future. Political polarization about vaccine policies is likely to cause outbreaks of previously controlled infectious diseases. If we cannot prevent these disasters, we should pivot our focus towards managing them. Resistance to vaccination is not a new problem, but the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated it. It should be clear by now that neither persuasion nor coercion is sufficient to change the minds or the behavior of people who are determined to refuse vaccines. Education and research cannot defeat coordinated misinformation. And government efforts—at federal, state, and local levels—are stymied by a combination of inadequate power, insufficient political will, and a lack of perceived legitimacy by vaccine refusers. One of America’s core lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic is that a heavy-handed response to vaccine refusal can make things worse. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Many U.S. states have ended their COVID-19 vaccine mandates. But America’s childhood vaccine mandates for school entry are also vulnerable. As researchers of vaccination social science, ethics, and policy, we have sometimes encountered an optimistic view that immunization in America will soon snap back to a pre-pandemic “normal.” But this hope ignores the cracks that were already present in America’s immunization social order before the pandemic, cracks that COVID-19 only widened. State...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized freelance Source Type: news