Vaccine hesitancy is a delay in acceptance, or refusal, of vaccines despite the availability of vaccine services and supporting evidence. The term covers refusals to vaccinate, delaying vaccines, accepting vaccines but remaining uncertain about their use, or using certain vaccines but not others. The scientific consensus that vaccines are generally safe and effective is overwhelming. Vaccine hesitancy often results in disease outbreaks and deaths from vaccine-preventable diseases. Therefore, the World Health Organization characterizes vaccine hesitancy as one of the top ten global health threats.
Vaccination and religion have interrelations of varying kinds. No major religion prohibits vaccinations, and some consider it an obligation because of the potential to save lives. However, some people cite religious adherence as a basis for opting to forego vaccinating themselves or their children. Many such objections are pretextual: in Australia, anti-vaccinationists founded the Church of Conscious Living, a "fake church", leading to religious exemptions being removed in that country, and one US pastor was reported to offer vaccine exemptions in exchange for online membership of his church.
A vaccination policy is a health policy adopted in order to prevent the spread of infectious disease. These policies are generally put into place by State or local governments, but may also be set by private facilities, such as workplaces or schools. Many policies have been developed and implemented since vaccines were first made widely available.
The Australian Vaccination-risks Network Inc., formerly known as the Australian Vaccination-Skeptics Network (AVsN), and before that known as the Australian Vaccination Network (AVN), is an Australian anti-vaccination pressure group registered in New South Wales. As Australia's most controversial anti-vaccination organisation, it has lobbied against a variety of vaccination-related programs, downplayed the danger of childhood diseases such as measles and pertussis, championed the cause of alleged vaccination victims, and promoted the use of ineffective alternatives such as homeopathy.
Tanya Davies is an Australian politician who has served as a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly representing the Liberal Party since 2011. She is a member of the conservative faction of the Liberal Party.
The Health Australia Party (HAP) was a political party in Australia, founded in 2013 as the Natural Medicine Party. It adopted its current name in 2015.
The Northern Rivers Vaccination Supporters (NRVS) is a vaccination advocacy group formed in 2013 by people who were concerned about low vaccination rates in the Northern Rivers region of the Australian state of New South Wales. Rachel Heap, one of the group's core administrators, has said the organization's primary goal is to spread the word that people shouldn't be afraid of vaccines, but instead, "you should be amazed at how extraordinary they are as a public health measure".
California Senate Bill 277 (SB277) is a California law that removed personal belief as a reason for an exemption from the vaccination requirements for entry to private or public elementary or secondary schools in California, as well as day care centers. The final version of the bill was enacted by the California Legislature in 2015 and was signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown on June 30, 2015.
Texans for Vaccine Choice (TFVC) is an anti-vaccine Facebook group turned political action committee in Texas which advocates for personal belief exemptions to vaccination requirements, based on "a collection of fake news, half- truths, and conspiracy theories". Andrew Wakefield, the disgraced former medical researcher and originator of the MMR autism hoax, and infectious disease specialist Peter Hotez, both describe TFVC's lobbying as very effective, with the rate of Texas students opting out of at least one vaccine at least doubling in around five years and over 50,000 Texas schoolchildren not being vaccinated.
In early months of 2019, a measles outbreak occurred in the Portland metropolitan area, including the Clark County, Washington suburbs, in the United States. At the time, the outbreak was the largest outbreak in more than two decades; outbreaks in 2019 in areas including Brooklyn and Rockland County, New York have since seen far greater numbers of cases.
No Jab No Pay is an Australian policy initiative which withholds three state payments – Child Care Benefit, the Child Care Rebate and a portion of the fortnightly Family Tax Benefit part A per child – for parents of children under 20 years of age who are not fully immunised or on a recognised catch-up schedule. No Jab No Play is a related policy that disallows unvaccinated children from attending preschool and childcare centres, and imposes fines on childcare centres that admit unvaccinated children. The system allows exemptions for children who cannot be safely vaccinated for medical reasons.
Anti-vaccinationism in chiropractic is widespread, but there are notable differences within the trade. Chiropractic is a form of alternative medicine founded on the idea that all disease is caused by disruption of the flow of "innate" in the spine, by so-called vertebral subluxations – a pseudoscientific concept. Over time chiropractic has divided into "straights" who adhere to the subluxation theory and "mixers" who adhere more closely to a reality-based view of anatomy. "Straight" chiropractors are very likely to be anti-vaccination, but all chiropractic training tends to reduce acceptance of vaccines.
Vaccine Choice Canada (VCC) is Canada's main anti-vaccination group. It was founded in the 1980s under the name Vaccination Risk Awareness Network (VRAN) and adopted its current name in 2014. The group has been contributing to vaccine hesitancy in Canada, encouraging citizens to forgo immunization and legislators to support anti-vaccine regulations and legislation.
Measles was declared eliminated from the United States in 2000 by the World Health Organization due to the success of vaccination efforts. However, it continues to be reintroduced by international travelers, and in recent years, anti-vaccination sentiment has allowed for the reemergence of measles outbreaks.
The 2019 New York City measles outbreak was a substantial increase in the number of measles cases reported in the state of New York, primarily in New York City and neighboring Rockland County, New York in 2019, relative to the previous year.
Vaccination policy of the United States is the subset of U.S. federal health policy that deals with immunization against infectious disease. It is decided at various levels of the government, including the individual states. This policy has been developed over the approximately two centuries since the invention of vaccination with the purpose of eradicating disease from the U.S. population, or creating a herd immunity. Policies intended to encourage vaccination impact numerous areas of law, including regulation of vaccine safety, funding of vaccination programs, vaccine mandates, adverse event reporting requirements, and compensation for injuries asserted to be associated with vaccination.
Taylor Winterstein is an Australian-Samoan online influencer and conspiracy theorist best known for her public anti-vaccination stance. Winterstein has been heavily criticised in several South Pacific, and Australasian countries for her anti-vaccination rhetoric and her seminars have been called "irresponsible" by the Australian Medical Association and a "public health threat" by the Samoan Ministry of Health. She claims she has not encouraged non-vaccination, rather, "informed consent" and "freedom of choice".
The general COVID-19 vaccination in Australia program began on 22 February 2021 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the goal of vaccinating all willing people in Australia before 2022. Front-line workers and aged care staff and residents had priority for being inoculated, before a gradual phased release to less-vulnerable and lower-risk population groups throughout 2021. The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) approved four vaccines for Australian use in 2021: the Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine on 25 January, the Oxford–AstraZeneca vaccine on 16 February, Janssen vaccine on 25 June and the Moderna vaccine on 9 August. Although approved for use, the Janssen vaccine was not included in the Australian vaccination program as of June 2021.
A religious exemption is a legal privilege that exempts members of a certain religion from a law, regulation, or requirement. Religious exemptions are often justified as a protection of religious freedom, and proponents of religious exemptions argue that complying with a law against one's faith is a greater harm than complying against a law that one otherwise disagrees with due to a fear of divine judgment. Opponents of religious exemptions argue that they mandate unequal treatment and undermine the rule of law.
