Due to the covid19 pandemic there's been a lot of conversation regarding vaccines
this includes discussion on which vaccines people should take whether
it's safe to mix vaccines and whether we will need booster shots among this discourse there
is a subset of individuals who are hesitant to get vaccinated while vaccine hesitancy
may seem to be a novel concept to some and associated with far-right political extremism
sentiments of governmental and scientific mistrust are as old as the institutions themselves
historically these apprehensions have led to polarization and the refusal of helpful resources
due to the source that is providing them past vaccine hesitancy occurred through this same
stream of thinking people are typically more concerned with the producers and distributors
of the vaccines rather than the contents of the medication as the general population tends to not
know this information first major example came very soon after the popularization of smallpox
vaccines in the late 1700s when the process of administering the vaccine virulation was used
on the king of britain's sun despite the one to two percent fatality rate of the procedure
minuscule compared to the 30 fatality rate of smallpox king george the third son passed
away from a complication causing mass fear and promoting the notion that vaccines are unnatural
another famous example came in the late 1900s where smear campaigns in the media were used to
push anti-vaccine ideologies in 1982 a documentary titled dpt vaccine roulette was released linking a
child's history of suffering seizures and brain damage to being given the diphtheria produces
tetanus vaccine this led to the formation of the organization dissatisfied parents together
which is one of the most influential anti-vaccine organizations in the usa to understand vaccine
hesitancy it's important to investigate where it stems from especially in our modern day societies
according to surveys conducted by the public health agency of canada seventy percent of
canadian parents surveyed were concerned about potential side effects of vaccines
and 38 believe that a vaccine could potentially cause the disease that it was supposed to prevent
one source that has generated a lot of vaccine hesitancy especially in recent years
has been the study published by andrew wakefield in a landsat linking receiving the measles mumps
rubella vaccine and autism wakefield falsified data misquoted patients and secretly invested in
a competing vaccine company his deceit was not caught for 12 years while the misinformation
about vaccines and autism became widespread when parents were surveyed regarding whether having a
difficulty making the decision to vaccinate their children eight percent raised concerns about the
potential links to autism this demonstrates the lasting effects of this study even now years after
the study has been disproved and retracted from the lancet journal a huge factor that contributes
to vaccine hesitancy is the source of information that parents refer to it was found that 63 percent
of parents look for information about vaccination on the internet this is very concerning since
information about vaccines online especially on social media is often inaccurate or negative
also a large number of anti-vaccine websites exist that propagate a range of anti-vaccine messages
likewise getting information from family or friends can also be inaccurate and misleading
researchers found that parents who received information about vaccines from physicians
were less likely to have vaccination concerns than those who received information from family members
or friends this demonstrates the need for accurate and reliable sources to prevent misinformation
and mistrust surrounding vaccines another reason for vaccine hesitancy is fostered by how medical
professionals have failed minority communities and have also exploited them in the past although the
pandemic has impacted everyone the burden of kogan 19 disproportionately falls on members of ethnic
minority groups black indigenous and other people of color are nearly three-fold more likely to be
hospitalized due to coven 19 and approximately twofold more likely to die from the disease
compared with white non-hispanic individuals using the frame of vaccine hesitancy mistakenly places
the responsibility on minoritized groups to become less hesitant rather than on public health systems
to become more trustworthy and accessible for example a uk study that included data from a 2
600 people survey and qualitative interviews showed that twice as many asian and black
respondents have faced discrimination when accessing local services such as the police
than the white population the study also indicated that past experiences of such discrimination
example respondents stating that services actively make my life more difficult are associated with
lower vaccine uptake there are also concerns related to historical practices of minoritized
groups being unethically exploited in medical experiments black indigenous and other people
of color might question whether pharmaceutical companies and public health services are fully
informing and protecting them knowing that this was not the case in past programs such as the u.s
tuskegee syphilis study this is an infamous study that occurred from 1932 to 1972.
it initially involved 600 black men 399 was syphilis and 201 who did not have the disease
participants informed consent was not collected what the men in the study didn't know was that
penicillin which is the treatment of choice for syphilis was available by 1943 but participants
in the study were not treated the study only ended in 1972 because an advisory panel declared it to
be ethically unjustified as there was no reason to withhold treatment just to study the effects
of syphilis ultimately investments in health information will be most effective when the groups
that information is tailored for trust health services more than they trust other non-medical
sources of advice while it is reasonable for people to be hesitant due to many of the
reasons listed earlier it's important to know that vaccine use and implementation have health effects
not only for themselves but also for the health of the greater community vaccinations work by
introducing the body to a small amount of the live pathogen with an example of pathogens being
smallpox or cobin19 this would allow the body to learn to defend itself without having a person
get really sick and only experiencing small side effects generally through this process
the immune system learns how to properly respond to being introduced to the live pathogen again
and provides preventable measures to ensure the body is safe and protected from sickness
this process provides safety individually and is a safe process both proven through decades
of research and success in eradicating diseases of the past saying this viruses and pathogens can
mutate and learn to adapt leading to new outbreaks and rendering the body's immunity useless
and it does not know how to defend itself from the mutation this is why herd immunity is important
herd immunity occurs when a substantial amount of population becomes vaccinated against a certain
disease thus giving the pathogen no ability to mutate without the possibility of mutation the
disease slowly begins to find less and less suitable hosts to survive in and eventually
becomes obsolete in the population herd immunity is key for protecting at-risk populations
both from a geographical and physiological perspective this process has been shown to be
effective and is a key reason why diseases such as tuberculosis and smallpox have become so rare as
most of the population has been vaccinated against them and thus are able to kill the live pathogen
before infection and disease can follow through vaccinations community protection is established
thus protecting the whole and not just the individual through a group vaccination like we are
currently seeing in the cobia 19 pandemic active cases morbidity and mortality begin to shrink in
thus ending the viral threat for the greater good when discussing vaccination stance and status it's
important to create a form of open dialect in which a person feels heard and understood
by listening to concerns and hesitancy and understanding the situation from their perspective
you can best explain the benefits in easy to understand terms and get your message across
most successfully by attempting to educate them in a common collective manner
individuals will better be able to understand your point of view addressing their concerns and
providing them with evidence and statistics that helps to debunk false information will help you
best be able to discuss vaccinations and help them consider other perspectives regarding this topic