Mary Wilson
Well-known member
Published: January 8, 2025
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0004020
Peter Hotez
AFFILIATION: Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, Departments of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology and Microbiology, National School of Tropical Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, United States of America
Introduction
Antivaccine sentiments have been expressed throughout American history. However, in this century, the antivaccine movement gained momentum around false claims that vaccines cause autism in the 2000s, followed by “health freedom” protests versus childhood immunization mandates in schools in the 2010s [1]. Starting in 2020 with the introduction of COVID-19 vaccines, health freedom extended to adult immunizations and became a signature feature of political activism on the far-right. This politically charged movement organized and convinced countless Americans to shun COVID-19 immunizations in 2021–22 resulting in an estimated 200,000 deaths from COVID-19 among the unvaccinated U.S. population. Antivaccine activism became a major lethal force in America.
As COVID-19 begins to dissipate and new hospitalizations decline, antivaccine activism has pivoted to childhood immunizations. Like COVID-19, there is a partisan disparity among vaccination coverage, with an August 2024 Gallup Poll finding significantly higher rates of vaccine hesitancy among parents identifying as Republicans [2]. Such parents reported that pediatric vaccines were either unimportant or they presented higher risks due to vaccine side effects than the illnesses the vaccines were designed to prevent. These findings coincided temporally with recent and ominous increases in childhood illnesses, including a five-fold rise in pertussis cases in the U.S. from 2023 to 2024 [3], and the occurrence of 15 measles outbreaks in 2024 (versus four outbreaks in 2023) [4]. Poliovirus was also detected in New York state wastewater following a case of paralytic polio in a 20-year-old unvaccinated man in 2022 [5]. ...
https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgph.0004020
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0004020
Peter Hotez
AFFILIATION: Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, Departments of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology and Microbiology, National School of Tropical Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, United States of America
Introduction
Antivaccine sentiments have been expressed throughout American history. However, in this century, the antivaccine movement gained momentum around false claims that vaccines cause autism in the 2000s, followed by “health freedom” protests versus childhood immunization mandates in schools in the 2010s [1]. Starting in 2020 with the introduction of COVID-19 vaccines, health freedom extended to adult immunizations and became a signature feature of political activism on the far-right. This politically charged movement organized and convinced countless Americans to shun COVID-19 immunizations in 2021–22 resulting in an estimated 200,000 deaths from COVID-19 among the unvaccinated U.S. population. Antivaccine activism became a major lethal force in America.
As COVID-19 begins to dissipate and new hospitalizations decline, antivaccine activism has pivoted to childhood immunizations. Like COVID-19, there is a partisan disparity among vaccination coverage, with an August 2024 Gallup Poll finding significantly higher rates of vaccine hesitancy among parents identifying as Republicans [2]. Such parents reported that pediatric vaccines were either unimportant or they presented higher risks due to vaccine side effects than the illnesses the vaccines were designed to prevent. These findings coincided temporally with recent and ominous increases in childhood illnesses, including a five-fold rise in pertussis cases in the U.S. from 2023 to 2024 [3], and the occurrence of 15 measles outbreaks in 2024 (versus four outbreaks in 2023) [4]. Poliovirus was also detected in New York state wastewater following a case of paralytic polio in a 20-year-old unvaccinated man in 2022 [5]. ...
https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgph.0004020