The medical industry is losing control of the vaccine narrative, according to participants in a webinar moderated by Chelsea Clinton and organized by Unity Consortium — a group of pharmaceutical companies and pro-vaccine organizations.
Vaccine makers GSK, Merck and Sanofi, along with Big Tech platforms Reddit and Snapchat, and Spanish-language media giant Televisa Univision sponsored Wednesday’s event: “Who Influences Young People’s Health Choices? The New Conversations About Vaccines.”
Unity Consortium lists Pfizer, Merck, GSK and Sanofi among its members. Vaccine inventor Dr. Paul Offit is a member of its board of directors.
During the hour-long conversation, Clinton and the panelists criticized the growing number of parents and teens who are starting to question the safety of vaccines. They blamed the trend on increased access to what they characterized as online “misinformation” — and on organizations like Children’s Health Defense (CHD).
“What’s different today … is that people have access to a lot more information,” said Dr. Margot Savoy, chief medical officer of the American Academy of Family Physicians. “The part that makes me nervous is that, more and more, we’re getting into this odd space where people are feeling a little more polarized.”
Jessica Steier, founder and CEO of Unbiased Science and author of “The Playbook Used to ‘Prove’ Vaccines Cause Autism,” said pro-vaccine voices are “losing the PR and communications battle.”
Elisabeth Marnik, Ph.D., executive director of The Evidence Collective and author of “I Grew Up Unvaccinated. Now I’m an Immunologist,” said the circulation of and public access to such information is “one of the hardest parts about social media.”
“The more somebody sees these false claims circulating, the more likely they are to start to question their own understanding. And that’s one of the dangers of social media,” Marnik said. She said that parents’ decisions not to vaccinate their children are “a product of [this] information ecosystem.”
Clinton suggested that the ecosystem acts as a barrier to sustaining trust in the medical profession and public health. “The algorithms are part of the challenge of both … the corrosion of trust and … the barriers to replenishing and sustaining that trust,” Clinton said.
According to Marnik, the public health establishment is losing public trust because “public health and science aren’t always good storytellers.” The “anti-vaccine side” is “really good at spreading these stories that are really compelling and very scary and [that] can motivate people in ways that are harmful.”
Hellbound and Down 