{"id":220986,"date":"2020-11-27T08:36:07","date_gmt":"2020-11-27T08:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=220986"},"modified":"2020-11-30T07:19:26","modified_gmt":"2020-11-30T07:19:26","slug":"why-vaccine-hesitancy-is-growing-during-a-deadly-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=220986","title":{"rendered":"Why vaccine hesitancy is growing during a deadly pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lisa M. Kreiger \u2013 Mercury News Oct 30, 2020<\/strong><\/h1>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

We\u2019re all desperate for a magic bullet that will restore our pre-COVID lives.<\/p>\n

But even some of science\u2019s most ardent fans say they\u2019re reluctant to roll up their sleeves and participate in the pandemic\u2019s first wave of inoculations, unnerved by reports of a rushed timetable, politicization and poor communication.<\/p>\n

There isn\u2019t a vaccine yet \u2014 and with initial supplies very limited, such apprehension may not pose an immediate problem, say experts. But persistent distrust could spell trouble for the nation\u2019s ambitious Operation Warp Speed campaign to protect all Americans.<\/p>\n

These aren\u2019t your usual \u201canti-vaxxers,\u201d the traditional tinfoil-hat conspiratorialists or fear-mongering celebrities like Jenny McCarthy and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.<\/p>\n

Rather, they are \u201cvaccine hesitants,\u201d a broad and diverse spectrum of Californians whose real world experience of the pandemic so far \u2013 and lifelong interactions with government or healthcare systems \u2013 has sown distrust.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not anti-science that\u2019s driving it. Instead, it\u2019s questioning the integrity of the scientific research. It\u2019s a socio-political issue \u2014 whether our current infrastructure is promoting the interests of the public, or the power interests, financial interests, corporate interests,\u201d said\u00a0Maya J. Goldenberg of Canada\u2019s University of Guelph, author of the forthcoming book Vaccine Hesitancy: Public Trust, Expertise, and the War on Science.<\/em><\/p>\n

Some so-called \u201chesitants\u201d are liberals who are suspicious of President Trump\u2019s cheerleading; others are anti-government libertarians. If affluent, they\u2019re happy to wait at home until there\u2019s more research. If poor, they are frustrated that vaccine manufacturers seem to be wooing Wall Street investors, not hard-hit minority communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe in vaccines. They\u2019ve helped my family and reduced the mortality of poor people,\u201d said Margaret Gordon, a great-grandmother and co-director of the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, a community-based organization that monitors air quality.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we need more evidence. We have no assurance they\u2019ll work,\u201d she said. \u201cThere hasn\u2019t been any real public education.\u201d<\/p>\n

As deaths mount, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration says it will consider historic \u201cemergency use authorization\u201d of a vaccine that shows safety and efficacy. This means looking at interim results of trials that would ordinarily take years, so data will be preliminary and incomplete.<\/p>\n

To be sure, many Americans say they would welcome anything that offers hope.<\/p>\n

In the hard-hit Latinx community, \u201cwe have to do something. I think people will be ready. We have people dying from this,\u201d said Ignacio De La Fuente, a business consultant and former Oakland city councilman.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reality is, where we are today and what we are experiencing, it will be necessary to get the vaccine,\u201d agreed Oakland Councilman Noel Gallo, whose district includes the Fruitvale, with more infections than any neighborhood in Alameda County, the Bay Area\u2019s hardest-hit county.<\/p>\n

But surveys show overall diminishing support. Between May and September, the number of Americans who said they would \u201cdefinitely or probably\u201d get the vaccine fell from 72% to 51%, according to a Pew poll. In California, two-thirds of those polled said they were concerned about vaccine approval moving too fast.<\/p>\n

Predictably, the \u201canti-vaxxers\u201d have seized the moment, alleging that the Moderna vaccine contains a dangerous chemical, the Astra Zeneca vaccine transmits virus and the government is using a secret defense contractor to deploy vaccines and create a surveillance state.<\/p>\n

But distrust has broadened to include many others.<\/p>\n

Those suspicious of Big Pharma saw early press conferences with industry CEOs as proof that \u201cthe bottom line is about shareholders,\u201d said UC Riverside professor of public policy Richard Carpiano. \u201cThere was not really much science\u2026 It was industry types, using \u2018corporate talk\u2019 about earnings reports.\u201d<\/p>\n

The live-free-or-die Libertarian crowd, already angered by mask mandates and business closures, sees vaccines as another government overreach, he said, with the military-sounding Operation Warp Speed campaign \u201cfeeding into a nightmare scenario of forced vaccinations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then there are those on the opposite end of the spectrum: Liberals who believe so firmly in public health that they want to see data \u2014 lots of data. And no political drama.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe concern is that the vaccine studies are too small,\u201d said Berkeley-based health activist Karuna Jaggar. Because rare side effects may not show up in small or short trials, \u201cwe want to make sure that there are enough people, and that those people are diverse enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

The power struggles between the administration and regulators worsens anxieties, said Jaggar. \u201cWe deserve an FDA that puts public health before politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Black community feels ignored, said Dr. Owen Garrick of Oakland\u2019s Bridge Clinical Research, which works to engage minorities in medical research. To counter distrust built from decades of discriminatory health care, he suggested better communication from manufacturers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would have expected something that said: \u2018Here\u2019s our strategy \u2014 help us think through the best ways to engage.\u2019 But there\u2019s been very little of that,\u201d he said. \u201cSo people think either you made a conscious decision not to include them, or you didn\u2019t think enough of them to bother.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Portola Valley, Kathleen Bennett is a fierce believer in vaccines, but has decided to wait it out, safe in her comfortable home, until more safety data accumulates.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am quite \u2018sheltered in place,’\u201d said Bennett, founder of The Girls\u2019 Middle School. \u201cI don\u2019t feel I have to rush to get the very first COVID-19 vaccine. I don\u2019t want to be among the first guinea pigs.\u201d<\/p>\n

But with a two-week family vacation to Hawaii planned for next winter, she\u2019ll reconsider her decision next autumn, when there is more and better data.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy hope is by next September, the first or second vaccines will have rolled out, and they have begun to see if they are safe and efficacious,\u201d said Bennett.<\/p>\n

That wait-and-see approach, combined with better outreach, could slowly build trust across the nation, said Goldenberg.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully, we will see that we have an excellent product,\u201d she said. \u201cThe more data we accumulate, and the more we share those findings with the public, the more willing people will be to get the vaccine for themselves and for their family.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver time,\u201d she said, \u201cthat will bring more people in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Between May and September, the number of Americans who said they would \u201cdefinitely or probably\u201d get vaccinated fell from 72% to 51%, according to a Pew poll<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[105,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-220986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coronavirus","category-Health"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=220986"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":221279,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220986\/revisions\/221279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=220986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=220986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=220986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}