Time - USA (2022-05-23)

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ntivaccine sentiments have been simmer-
ing in the U.S. since at least 1998, when the Lan-
cet, a prestigious medical journal, published—and
later retracted—a fraudulent paper falsely linking
vaccines to autism. They’ve grown stronger in the past two
years, thanks to disinformation about the COVID-19 vac-
cines. Though the development of the shots happened at an
accelerated pace, they’ve been rigorously tested and have
proved safe and efective. Nevertheless, falsehoods about
them—that they contain microchips, that they alter the DNA
of recipients—march on.
Public-health experts feared that those groundless
claims would exacerbate mistrust among people who al-
ready doubted vaccines, or serve as a gateway into vaccine
skepticism among people who previously had no such
concerns. Now it appears those fears might have been
well placed. In April, the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) published a
study showing that during the
2020–2021 school year, rates of
routine vaccinations among the
nation’s 3.52 million enrolled
kindergartners fell below the
95% level necessary to ensure
herd immunity. The average
drop from the rates during the
2019–2020 school year was just
over 1% for each of three vac-
cines. But that is enough to allow
viruses to gain a foothold in the
overall community of kids, many
of whom may be unable to be
vaccinated for medical reasons.
The researchers cited mul-
tiple variables that might have
contributed to the drop, includ-
ing skipped well-child visits dur-
ing the height of the pandemic
and the shuttering of schools,
most of which require vaccina-
tions for students to attend. But anti-COVID-19 vaccine
beliefs most likely played a part, many experts say.
“I think that segment of the community who’s al-
ready mistrusting of the medical community has been re-
energized for sure,” says Dr. Gary Kirkilas, a Phoenix- area
pediatrician and spokesman for the American Academy
of Pediatrics (AAP). “We’ve had this politicization of the
[COVID-19] vaccine that just leads to more mistrust.”
So far, the U.S. has been lucky that subpar vaccination
rates haven’t yet triggered a rise in routine childhood ill-
nesses. “We haven’t seen outbreaks, and that’s probably
representative of the fact that families were staying home
during the pandemic,” said Dr. Georgina Peacock, acting
director of the CDC’s immunization services, at a press
brieing about the indings. But now that most kids are
back in classrooms, experts worry that epidemics like the
national 2019 measles outbreak are increasingly likely.


The recenT cDc sTuDy looked at the change in child-
hood vaccination rates from 2019–2020 to 2020–
for three routine shots: measles, mumps, and rubella
(MMR), for which the rates fell from 95.2% to 93.9%;
diphtheria, tetanus, and acellular pertussis (DTaP), which
fell from 94.9% to 93.6%; and varicella, or chicken pox,
which fell from 94.8% to 93.6%. Those seemingly small
drops are troubling, especially when it comes to measles,
which is so transmissible that even a point below the 95%
herd- immunity rate is enough to get the disease spreading
among the unvaccinated. “Measles is an incredibly con-
tagious disease, which carries a serious risk of lifetime in-
jury,” says Dr. Gerald Harmon, president of the American
Medical Association (AMA).
Troubling as the national vaccine numbers are, they
are far worse in some states. Maryland saw its vaccina-
tion rate plummet from an aver-
age of 95% for all three vaccines
in the 2019–2020 school year to
87.6%, 89.7%, and 87.3%, respec-
tively, for the MMR, DTaP, and
varicella vaccines the following
year. Wisconsin saw a 5 percent-
age point drop to about 87.2%
for all three shots.
Since the CDC last tallied vac-
cination rates in 2021, schools
have reopened—with mandates
for the shots in place—and visits
to pediatricians have increased.
Those factors could mean that
vaccination numbers will re-
cover, but the AAP noted earlier
this year that routine immuni-
zation rates hadn’t quickly re-
bounded. Harmon and Kirkilas
are not alone in worrying that
the damage done by misinforma-
tion regarding COVID-19 vac-
cines could have a lasting impact
on the uptake of other vaccines.
Says Francesco Pierri, a postdoctoral student at the
Polytechnic University of Milan and lead author of an
April study in Nature Scientific Reports that correlated
COVID-19 vaccine misinformation on Twitter and nega-
tive attitudes in surveys about the shots: “You can assume
some spillover efect. The activity around this kind of ma-
licious content has increased, [leading to] an increase in
the prevalence of misinformation of vaccines in general.”
Harmon, the AMA president and a former major gen-
eral in the Air Force Reserve and the Air National Guard,
says the most efective antidote for misinformation is
more information—the genuine, scientiic variety. “One
of the things I learned in the military was that the way to
overcome resistance is to maintain overwhelming compe-
tence,” he says. “I take these vaccine- hesitant individuals
and try to answer their questions, to stay on the side of
the science.” 

The Brief is reported by Eloise Barry, Madeleine Carlisle, Tara Law, Sanya Mansoor, Ciara Nugent, Billy Perrigo, Simmone Shah, Olivia B. Waxman, and Julia Zorthian


THE BRIEF OPENER


‘We’ve


had this


politicization


of the vaccine


that just leads


to more


mistrust.’
—DR. GARY KIRKILAS,
SPOKESMAN, AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS

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