vaccination

The Anti-Vaxxer Vote

Caty Taborda on February 9, 2015
Image via US Army Corps of Engineers.
Image via US Army Corps of Engineers.

California’s measles outbreak  has refueled heated debates about mandated childhood vaccinations. With little known about the political leanings of anti-vaxxers, many politicians are carefully toeing the line to avoid alienating potential voters. In a recent Star Tribune article, though, sociologist Kent Schwirian said:

There is a long history to the fight against vaccination, and it does seem to break down along liberal versus conservative lines.

Schwirian argues that political conservatives are more likely to be anti-vaxxers than their liberal peers. The Ohio State University professor bases his claim on his own 2009 study of the swine flu scare, in which he found that conservatives who distrusted government were more likely to oppose vaccinations than were others with higher levels of trust or more progressive politics.

For more, see “There’s Research on That!“

Candidates, Cancer, and Public Health in the Public Eye

Suzy McElrath on October 5, 2011

Representative Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) has gone on record against the Gardasil vaccine preventing cervical and possibly throat cancer, calling it “dangerous” during and after the CNN-Tea Party Republican Debate in mid-September.  Medical experts quickly objected (two bioethicists even offered up $10,000 if Bachmann could produce scientific evidence that the vaccine had, as Bachmann claimed, caused mental retardation in one patient), and Bachmann backpedaled, admitting that she is neither a doctor nor a scientist.  Yet, as a recent New York Times article notes, the effects of Bachmann’s disparaging remarks against the vaccine will likely outlive this election cycle.

[T]he harm to public health may have already been done. When politicians or celebrities raise alarms about vaccines, even false alarms, vaccination rates drop.

“These things always set you back about three years, which is exactly what we can’t afford,” said Dr. Rodney E. Willoughby, a professor of pediatrics at the Medical College of Wisconsin and a member of the committee on infectious diseases of the American Academy of Pediatrics. The academy favors use of the vaccine, as do other medical groups and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Although the vaccine has been proven to prevent cervical cancer and has been declared safe by the Institute of Medicine (a government advisory group), and despite backing from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the vaccine has been slow to catch on, lagging behind vaccines licensed at the same time, such as one to combat meningitis.

“This vaccine has been portrayed as ‘the sex vaccine,’ ” said Dr. Mary Anne Jackson, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and a member of the infectious disease committee of the American Academy of Pediatrics. “Talking about sexuality for pediatricians and other providers is often difficult.”

Recent research published by Siegwart Lindenberg, Janeke F. Joly, and Diederik A. Stapel, social scientists in the Netherlands, has confirmed that “star status” can really boost a cause (Social Psychology Quarterly, March 2011). Unfortunately, in this case, Bachmann’s public status lends credibility to her scientific missteps and will likely, the New York Times says, set back HPV vaccination efforts by years.