How to cure America’s vaccine paranoia
Sonali Kolhatkar and Independent Media Institute
By Clay Bennett, Chattanooga Times Free Press
The end is in sight, we are told.
The cavalry has arrived in the form of safe and effective vaccines for COVID-19
on the verge of approval and being manufactured for widespread distribution.
The stock market has surged in
response to every pharmaceutical company's press release of its latest successful
clinical trial. Americans are expecting an end to this traumatic chapter of our
history and are ready to turn the page on the year 2020.
Except that if the United States has led the world in per capita infections and
deaths because of deep skepticism from an intransigent population toward even
the mildest of safety precautions, do we expect the same people refusing to
wear a face mask to take not one, but two doses of a
brand-new vaccine?
We may have safe and effective vaccines soon enough, but
through a cruelly ironic twist of our nation's perverted political climate,
society may simply refuse to save itself.
Several key segments of the American population have varied reasons for vaccine
skepticism. Among Black and brown communities, there is a deep-seated and
justifiable mistrust due to historical government-sanctioned medical abuse that
is reflected in new polls about
the COVID-19 vaccine.
On the American left, mistrust of large pharmaceutical
companies putting profits above the public health—again
justifiable—is driving cynicism about the motives of private corporations that
have had piles of taxpayer cash thrown
at them.
Among liberal elites, the growing popularity of "clean eating,"
"wellness," and
taking personal responsibility for
one's health through expensive diets and rigorous exercise regimes has seeded
an insidious movement that strives for purity as a pathway to well-being and
health.
Part of that movement includes prizing natural remedies over chemical ones, including for such life-threatening diseases as cancer. It has also fueled the idea that medications including vaccines are "dangerous" contaminants to our bodies.
Quack doctors like Andrew Wakefield,
celebrities like Jenny McCarthy, and
political figures like Robert Kennedy Jr. have
caused serious damage to trust in vaccine safety. Before the pandemic, one of
the biggest fears among public health experts was the resurgence of
measles fueled by falling vaccination
rates.
On the right, a similar vaccine skepticism has emerged as anti-vaccination
activists court conservatives as allies,
creating an unlikely coalition.
Republican Senator Ron Johnson went as far as inviting an anti-vaccine doctor to
testify before a Senate committee recently.
Also prevalent is the notion that
"herd immunity"—which is a term used to describe the threshold of
safety that vaccines achieve if enough people take them—can be achieved simply
by enough people catching the
disease. President Donald Trump has been one of the chief proponents of
this thoroughly debunked idea.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Charlestown's state representative Blake "Flip" Filippi also expressed his support for "herd immunity," suggesting that all but the frail elderly should be allowed to catch coronavirus. - W. Collette
Scientists have estimated that at least two-thirds of the population need to be vaccinated in order to stop the spread of COVID-19. In August, less than half of the population was willing to take a vaccine—an unsurprising number considering the widespread mistrust of vaccines in general.
Republicans are more skeptical than
Democrats, which is also not surprising given that a majority of GOP voters still
support Trump—a president whose relentless lies and science skepticism form the
basis of his leadership. A nation so steeped in misinformation that it ushered
in a charlatan to take power for four long years is naturally susceptible to
suspicion of vaccines.
Some of the fear stems from disbelief that an effective vaccine could be
produced in such a short period of time. Indeed, past efforts at developing
effective vaccines have taken many years. In that
context, the federal government's "Operation Warp Speed"
vaccine project has sparked fear.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, explained, "People don't understand that, because when they hear 'Operation Warp Speed,' they think, 'Oh, my God, they're jumping over all these steps and they're going to put us at risk.'"
But in fact, decades of critical medical research formed
the foundation upon which companies like Pfizer and Moderna have developed the
mRNA type of vaccines that have thus far exceeded scientists' expectations in
clinical trials. Fauci explained, "The speed is a reflection of years of
work that went before."
There is another insidious obstacle to a vaccination program. We live in a
nation enamored by libertarian ideals. The concept of collective action to
protect the common good flies in the face of "individual liberty" and
the Ayn-Rand-inspired notions that
each American is solely responsible for their own happiness and well-being.
This idea forms the basis of our health care system—or lack thereof.
The coronavirus pandemic hit the United States at a time when we have no publicly funded universal health care system to speak of. The U.S. government's message to Americans is essentially that, unless you fall below the poverty line, have a disability, or are over the age of 65, you are on your own to seek health insurance and health care wherever you can find it.
Once the novel coronavirus
entered the picture, the frailties of
this disjointed, disorganized, profit-based, and frankly cruel system were
exposed like never before in recent memory.
Now, this same flawed system is expected to undertake a mass vaccination
program to a skeptical public while at the same time struggling to treat
ever-growing numbers of COVID-19 patients needing hospitalization.
True herd immunity can
only be achieved when enough of the population has been inoculated that
vulnerable populations (infants, adults with vaccine allergies and elderly
people) are protected.
Vaccines don't just protect the individuals who take
them; they offer collective safeguards for society as a whole. A population
that has been conditioned to think about health as a solely individual concern
has been hard-pressed to swallow such an idea. Think about the obstinate mask-refusers among
us.
As a journalist, every time I address vaccine skepticism on my broadcast
program, I receive vitriolic hate mail claiming that I am a shill for "big
pharma" or simply too stupid to see the light. But we cannot let
misinformation, fear, and individualistic thinking discourage reporting on this
issue.
In some ways, vaccines have become a victim of their own success.
Because we have lived (until this year) in a world relatively free of
preventable but horrific diseases like smallpox and rubella—achieved through
mass vaccination—many Americans have taken for granted the quality of life made
possible through inoculation efforts.
The good news is that new polls show growing support for vaccination amidst
an unfathomable rate of COVID-19
infections and deaths. According to one new survey, 63 percent of Americans are
now willing to get vaccinated—close to the minimum threshold that could curb
the spread of the disease. Outreach and education efforts on accepting
vaccinations in Black and Latino communities
that have been hardest hit by the disease are underway.
Unfortunately, the vaccine refusers
among us will likely continue to benefit from living in a largely vaccinated
community, mooching off of the herd immunity they refuse to contribute to.
This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.
