Vaccination is the administration of a vaccine to help the immune system develop immunity from a disease. Vaccines contain a microorganism or virus in a weakened, live or killed state, or proteins or toxins from the organism. In stimulating the body's adaptive immunity, they help prevent sickness from an infectious disease. When a sufficiently large percentage of a population has been vaccinated, herd immunity results. Herd immunity protects those who may be immunocompromised and cannot get a vaccine because even a weakened version would harm them. The effectiveness of vaccination has been widely studied and verified. Vaccination is the most effective method of preventing infectious diseases; widespread immunity due to vaccination is largely responsible for the worldwide eradication of smallpox and the elimination of diseases such as polio and tetanus from much of the world. However, some diseases, such as measles outbreaks in America, have seen rising cases due to relatively low vaccination rates in the 2010s – attributed, in part, to vaccine hesitancy. According to the World Health Organization, vaccination prevents 3.5–5 million deaths per year.
A vaccine is a biological preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular infectious or malignant disease. The safety and effectiveness of vaccines has been widely studied and verified. A vaccine typically contains an agent that resembles a disease-causing microorganism and is often made from weakened or killed forms of the microbe, its toxins, or one of its surface proteins. The agent stimulates the body's immune system to recognize the agent as a threat, destroy it, and recognize further and destroy any of the microorganisms associated with that agent that it may encounter in the future.
Diagnoses of autism have become more frequent since the 1980s, which has led to various controversies about both the cause of autism and the nature of the diagnoses themselves. Whether autism has mainly a genetic or developmental cause, and the degree of coincidence between autism and intellectual disability, are all matters of current scientific controversy as well as inquiry. There is also more sociopolitical debate as to whether autism should be considered a disability on its own.
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. Although adverse effects associated with vaccines are occasionally observed, 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.
Generation Rescue is a nonprofit organization that advocates the scientifically disproven view that autism and related disorders are primarily caused by environmental factors, particularly vaccines. The organization was established in 2005 by Lisa and J.B. Handley. Today, Generation Rescue is known as a platform for Jenny McCarthy's autism related anti-vaccine advocacy.
Jennifer Ann McCarthy-Wahlberg is an American actress, model, and television personality. She began her career in 1993 as a nude model for Playboy magazine and was later named their Playmate of the Year. McCarthy then had a television and film acting career, beginning as a co-host on the MTV game show Singled Out (1995–1997) and afterwards starring in the eponymous sitcom Jenny (1997–1998), as well as films including BASEketball (1998), Scream 3 (2000), Dirty Love (2005), John Tucker Must Die (2006), and Santa Baby (2006). In 2013, she hosted her own television talk show The Jenny McCarthy Show, and became a co-host of the ABC talk show The View, appearing on the program until 2014. Since 2019, McCarthy has been a judge on the Fox musical competition show The Masked Singer.
Michelle Cedillo v. Secretary of Health and Human Services, also known as Cedillo, was a court case involving the family of Michelle Cedillo, an autistic girl whose parents sued the United States government because they believed that her autism was caused by her receipt of both the measles-mumps-and-rubella vaccine and thimerosal-containing vaccines. The case was a part of the Omnibus Autism Proceeding, where petitioners were required to present three test cases for each proposed mechanism by which vaccines had, according to them, caused their children's autism; Cedillo was the first such case for the MMR-and-thimerosal hypothesis.
In the United States, an alternative vaccination schedule is a vaccination schedule differing from the schedule endorsed by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). These schedules may be either written or ad hoc, and have not been tested for their safety or efficacy. Proponents of such schedules aim to reduce the risk of adverse effects they believe to be caused by vaccine components, such as "immune system overload" that is argued to be caused by exposure to multiple antigens. Parents who adopt these schedules tend to do so because they are concerned about the potential risks of vaccination, rather than because they are unaware of the significance of vaccination's benefits. Delayed vaccination schedules have been shown to lead to an increase in breakthrough infections without any benefit in lower side effect profiles.
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.
Extensive investigation into vaccines and autism spectrum disorder has shown that there is no relationship between the two, causal or otherwise, and that vaccine ingredients do not cause autism. The American scientist Peter Hotez researched the growth of the false claim and concluded that its spread originated with Andrew Wakefield's fraudulent 1998 paper, and that no prior paper supports a link.
Children's Health Defense (CHD) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit activist group mainly known for anti-vaccine disinformation, and which has been called one of the main sources of misinformation on vaccines. Founded under the name World Mercury Project in 2007, it is chaired by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The group has been campaigning against various public health programs, such as vaccination and fluoridation of drinking water. The group has been contributing to vaccine hesitancy in the United States, encouraging citizens and legislators to support anti-vaccine regulations and legislation. Arguments against vaccination are contradicted by overwhelming scientific consensus about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. Its $15-million budget is funded through donations from individuals and affiliate marketing revenues.
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.
Del Matthew Bigtree is an American television and film producer who is the CEO of the anti-vaccination group Informed Consent Action Network. He produced the film Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe, based on the discredited opinions of Andrew Wakefield, and alleges an unsubstantiated connection between vaccines and autism. His frequent public speaking engagements and an influx of funding in 2017 have made Bigtree, who has no medical training, one of the most prominent voices in the anti-vaccination movement.
The Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) is one of the main anti-vaccination groups in the United States. Founded in 2016 by Del Bigtree, it spreads misinformation about the risks of vaccines and contributes to vaccine hesitancy, which has been identified by the World Health Organization as one of the top ten global health threats of 2019. Arguments against vaccination are contradicted by overwhelming scientific consensus about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines.
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 Stop Mandatory Vaccination website and associated Facebook group are some of the major hubs of the American anti-vaccination movement. It was established by anti-vaccination activist Larry Cook in 2015.
Misinformation related to immunization and the use of vaccines circulates in mass media and social media in spite of the fact that there is no serious hesitancy or debate within mainstream medical and scientific circles about the benefits of vaccination. Unsubstantiated safety concerns related to vaccines are often presented on the internet as being scientific information. A large proportion of internet sources on the topic are mostly inaccurate which can lead people searching for information to form misconceptions relating to vaccines.
Medical Racism: The New Apartheid is a 2021 video production that promotes conspiracy theories about COVID-19 vaccines. Distributed by the anti-vaccination group Children's Health Defense, it alleges the COVID-19 vaccination efforts are a cover to conduct experiments on the African American and Latin communities. Public health communication experts say the video presents past injustices committed against African Americans in order to make debunked anti-vaccination claims more believable.
COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in the United States is the sociocultural phenomenon of individuals refusing or displaying hesitance towards receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in the United States can be considered as part of the broader history of vaccine hesitancy.
Anti-vaccine activism, which collectively constitutes the "anti-vax" movement, is a set of organized activities proclaiming opposition to vaccination, and these collaborating networks have often fought to increase vaccine hesitancy by disseminating vaccine-based misinformation and/or forms of active disinformation. As a social movement, it has utilized multiple tools both within traditional news media and also through various forms of online communication. Activists have primarily focused on issues surrounding children, with vaccination of the young receiving pushback, and they have sought to expand beyond niche subgroups into national political debates.
