In her work at hospitals or in-home healthcare, Parker explained she has often talked to patients about the importance of vaccines. Some listen. Many don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
While Parker has seen plenty of misinformation and disinformation over the years, she said the COVID-19 pandemic made matters worse.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a petri dish there just waiting for that mess to proliferate,\u201d she said in reference to vaccine scepticism.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then the right wind came along, and it blew those spores all over the place: the spores of ignorance and misinformation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rekha Lakshmanan observed something similar. She is the chief strategic officer for The Immunization Partnership, a Houston-based nonprofit that aims to eradicate preventable diseases.<\/p>\n
She argued that Texas has long been a site of vaccine misinformation. But the pandemic \u201cmade the nation catch up with Texas\u201d.<\/p>\n
False rumours flooded the internet, warning that vaccines could alter DNA or render people infertile. Some conspiracy theories even posited that the vaccine could be used for implanting chips into patients\u2019 bodies for surveillance.<\/p>\n
Not all vaccine sceptics believe the misinformation. The way Lakshmanan sees it, vaccine hesitancy falls on a continuum. At the far end, there are those who cannot be convinced to get a vaccine, regardless of the data you present. Unfortunately, she said, that\u2019s the loudest group.<\/p>\n
Yet, others can be convinced.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to take a step back and see that there\u2019s a bigger part of that continuum that\u2019s parents, and they just have questions,\u201d Lakshmanan said.<\/p>\n
She explained that parents are often sifting through reams of misinformation, trying to understand what is real and what isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
For example, the anti-vaccine organisation Children\u2019s Health Defense recently published a website that bore a striking resemblance to materials published by the CDC.<\/p>\n
But its site was riddled with disinformation about vaccines. Kennedy, who served as a leader at Children\u2019s Health Defense before joining the government, ultimately ordered the organisation to take the site down.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe challenge with misinformation is that it could look legit,\u201d Lakshmanan said, \u201cwhich is why we have to approach these conversations with empathy.\u201d<\/p>\n
That includes arguments about \u201cparents\u2019 rights\u201d, which she says is entirely misleading. Anti-vaccine leaders like Kennedy have accused the government of forcing vaccination on parents.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one has ever said we should take away parents\u2019 rights,\u201d Lakshmanan told Al Jazeera. \u201cIt\u2019s a red herring.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In her work at hospitals or in-home healthcare, Parker explained she has often talked to patients about the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[32,126,105,12,285,16,15,49,286],"class_list":{"0":"post-277","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-features","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-politics","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-us-canada"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}