Hésitations Vaccinales: Observatoire HESIVAXs

"A video posted to Facebook claims that the Amish “refuse all vaccines” and have “NO cases of autism [sic]”, adding that the “only cases” are among those who were adopted and did receive vaccines.
This is a common claim that has been circulating for many years, that we have written about before. But the evidence doesn’t support this.
Some claims point to a non-scientific article from 2005, but that article isn’t supported by genuine science, and reputable research shows that Amish people are vaccinated, and do have autism."
https://lnkd.in/gFrVm9Gw

Why Public Health Can’t Compete With Misinformation (Unless We Change Our Approach)

Why does a single misleading post online sometimes undo months of careful public health work?

A recent BMJ article reminded me just how powerful misinformation is — not just as content, but as a behavioral force. It showed that even brief exposure to false claims about vaccines can lower people’s willingness to vaccinate, including among those who had previously said they would “definitely” get the shot.

What struck me most was how little exposure it takes. We sometimes imagine hesitancy as the result of deep ideology or hardened beliefs. But often, it’s simply a moment of uncertainty created by a post that was easy to read, emotionally charged, or repeated often enough to feel familiar. That’s the behavioral edge misinformation has — it works with the grain of how human cognition is wired.

Negativity spreads faster. Repetition feels like truth. And emotionally vivid stories stick more firmly in memory than statistics ever will.

Meanwhile, public health messages tend to be careful, qualified, and slow — because they should be. But in a world where narratives compete for attention, accuracy and speed rarely live in the same place.

What this article reinforced is that misinformation doesn’t just distort facts; it creates new social cues. When people see confusion or skepticism in their feeds, it acts like a descriptive norm: “People like me are unsure.” And once a norm is felt, behavior follows.

Fact-checking alone isn’t enough. We need to design communication that works with human psychology rather than against it: prebunking, trusted messengers, emotional resonance, and repeated cues that show what most people actually do.

Misinformation moves at the speed of emotion. Our responses must do the same.

What strategies have you seen that effectively cut through the noise?

#behavioralscience #socialnorms #DisasterPreparedness #RiskCommunication #PublicHealth #BehavioralInsightsLab #vaccines #misinformation #AfricaBehavioralScienceNetwork #BehavioralInsightsLab

Childhood vaccines *do not* cause autism.

Let me reiterate this as a pediatrician, researcher, and parent. The scientific consensus is clear and unwavering.

Years of well-designed, large-scale epidemiologic studies across multiple countries, involving millions of children, have found no causal connection.

I joined WCVB Channel 5 yesterday to speak about the recent revision to the CDC website that linked childhood vaccines & autism. A move that, despite the absence of any credible evidence, has stirred confusion and concern.

Families deserve clarity. When public messaging changes without a corresponding shift in evidence, it undermines trust and creates distress for parents trying to do the right thing.

Clinicians and providers remain one of the most trusted sources of vaccine information: 83% of Americans trust their healthcare provider as the single best source of info on vaccines.

** To the career scientists at the CDC: Keep doing the rigorous work, keep communicating with honesty. We have your back.

** To current policymakers at HHS: Respect the boundary between solid evidence and political messaging. Let the public health narrative be grounded in what we know, not what you might wish is true. Families deserve better.

** To clinicians: You are trusted. Use that trust to meet families where they are, listen to their concerns, and offer them evidence-based answers with compassion.

** To parents: It’s absolutely valid to have questions. Ask them. And know that—based on robust research—the vaccines your children receive today do not cause autism.

Full clip here:
https://lnkd.in/eD5znBfP

CC: American Academy of Pediatrics

#health #healthcare #vaccines #publichealth #childhealth | 94 comments on LinkedIn

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#picphysicians

The CDC admits it doesn’t know how long the chickenpox vaccine protects against infection.

While early studies showed antibodies lasting 10–20 years, those were done before widespread use of the vaccine—leaving key questions unanswered.

The lack of clarity around long-term immunity makes it all the more important for parents to stay informed.

Learn more here: picdata.org/varicella-dis

#vaccines #publichealth

We were told of what would happen and how it would be done… And it was done. A politicallly driven order from RFK Jr that had only one objective : create fear, doubt and vaccine denial.

https://lnkd.in/e3CwAUXJ

Yup!

It hasn’t been ruled out.

Here in Bangladesh 🇧🇩 - the most densely populated (non-island) country in the world - access to immunisation services is apparently easy for the majority of women in urban slums and rural areas. 

Within the Maternal Immunisation Readiness Network in Africa and Asia programme we are guiding the co-development of a prospective national demand strategy for new (and current) maternal vaccines.

💡 Insights from researchers at icddr,b suggest that Access is simply not a perceived barrier for most women in urban slums or rural areas, thanks to the broad reach of Bangladesh’s multi-level primary health care (PHC) system.

💙 Nor is Acceptance currently a major challenge. Very high levels of trust in vaccines —measured with the Vaccination Trust Indicator (VTI) —are consistent with many other studies. This trust seems quite resilient, with strong social norms that mean a woman may be encouraged to vaccinate by family, community and health workers.

The challenge now seems to be to translate this broad access and social endorsement into behavioural Activation and sustained resilient demand. Stay tuned 📻

c Ridwana Maher Aniqa Tasnim Hossain Dr. Hellen Barsosio Michelle Groome Anna Seale
#MIRNA #6As #VaccineDemand #MaternalImmunization #Bangladesh #publichealth #BehavioralInsights #HealthEquity #SBC

Immediate action needed, public comments close Monday, November 24th at 11:59 PM.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) will meet virtually on December 4-5, 2025, to discuss and make important decisions regarding vaccine schedules that affect millions of children and adults nationwide. 

ACIP will review updates from its scientific workgroups and consider recommendations for vaccines that include COVID-19, hepatitis B, MMR, varicella, RSV, and more. They will also finalize parts of the vaccine schedule for 2025-2026. These decisions are not just lines on paper; they directly influence vaccine access, school health protocols, and community safety.
 
https://lnkd.in/efnMDJCi

1 in 2 parents of autistic children believe that vaccines are the cause. Do you know why? Because the custodians of data and science are resorting to the propaganda of fear and pressure.
Let’s unpack this.
1. First, the evidence bit (which has not changed)

Across multiple countries, huge cohort studies and meta-analyses have looked for a link between vaccines (MMR, thimerosal-containing vaccines, aluminum, etc.) and autism. They consistently DO NOT find a causal association.

#Autism advocacy and scientific groups ( Autism Science Foundation, Autism Speaks, The Johns Hopkins University, major pediatric societies) still clearly state that vaccines do not cause autism.

The recent CDC website change in the #US is political messaging, not new science, and many scientists and autism organizations are openly saying so. It is a serious breach of trust, but it has not been driven by new data.

2. Why so many parents still think “it was the vaccine”

A few things are happening at once:
- The first clear autism symptoms often emerge around the same age that children get several vaccines. To a parent watching a child change, post hoc (after-this) often feels like propter hoc (because-of-this). In epidemiology this is known as cause misattribution through temporal association or post-hoc fallacy.
- Once that narrative takes hold, confirmation bias and online echo chambers reinforce it. Studies show parents of autistic children are more likely to develop vaccine hesitancy than other parents.
- Parents of autistic children carry high levels of stress and self-questioning. Some will cling to a concrete, external cause – like a vaccine – because it feels less unbearable than “we do not fully know why this happened”.

3. Missteps by institutions

When health authorities responsible for communicating top down say
“trust us, you’re wrong”, minimise or dismiss parents’ feelings and change messages under visible political pressure, it does look and feel like propaganda.
The recent CDC U-turn is a textbook example of how to torch credibility in one move.

So, parents do not mistrust vaccines because of the lack of science, or by accident. They mistrust the institutions, their tone and their lack of certainty- as demonstrated so starkly and troublingly by #CDC

RFK Jr. gaslights parents about vaccines and autism (6-minute CNN clip) | 10 comments on LinkedIn

The man has to go. https://lnkd.in/evPCYs-U

Even as the anti-vax lobby erodes public trust in vaccine, scientists are publishing new evidence confirming that "immunizations against Covid-19, RSV, and influenza have shown consistent effectiveness and safety and are associated with a substantially reduced risk of hospitalization and severe disease across populations"

Jake Scott Nicole E. Basta Rochelle W. & team

Updated Evidence for Covid-19, RSV, and Influenza Vaccines for 2025–2026

https://lnkd.in/e9G-hrqz

Did you know which damage rumour can spread, and how Epidemiology models can explain rumour spreading in France 's Great Fear of 1789? https://lnkd.in/ervaJwku 🤢
We will never know who started the crazy rumour that circulated in Orléans, France and the surrounding area for two months more than 50 years ago. How, where, and why does a rumour spread? Where does it come from? Is it a conspiracy or a hoax? And how does what we now call an urban legend, such as the one that spread by word of mouth among high school and college students in Orléans at the end of May 1969, die out?
And how about this rumor about European witch hunts of circa 1450-1750, and their gender-selective aspects. Although both men and women were accused and executed for witchcraft in Europe during this era, roughly 75%-80% of those exposed to trial and execution were women.https://https://lnkd.in/eVKnU3cQ 🤢

We have seen at a recent Children's Health Defense claims ' of God being an anti-vaxxer made. But despite these anti-vaccine groups trying to hijack religion to their fallacious benefits, what does the Catholic religion tells us about vaccination ? And what does it say about all of the unjustified arguments being used by anti-vaccine groups, even in case of arguments of fetal tissue involvement in vaccine development ? The Catholic position on such is so clear: these immortalized cell lines are not fetal material anymore…

Let’s stop pretending… Sadly we are seeing our world not only being polluted by misinformation, but those doing such regarding vaccines have hijacked the upper echelons of our medical administration. We are trying to fight this with fact-checking, fact-correction, calling out the lies and providing truth based on the data. Still, this remains an uphill battle as we are being targeted by such anti-vaxxers, not only calling us out, reporting us for false reasons, and trying to silence us. Well, while they may succeed sometimes, there are too many of us not to continue tho defend science, the truth and health of children. In making that access to vaccines do remain, that parents have access to truthful information and calling out misinformation when it pollutes this platform. Even when our truth is being removed. We should remember that, while all of these misinformation might find their source in an individual at the helm of HHS, this is a politician appointment, and that a change of government will bring back more sensible minds in 2028. It might happen even sooner if the message against the actual administration seen in the latest elections in either NY, NJ, and other states translates into an even stronger movement for the mid-terms. Meanwhile, let’s accept that even an organization like LinkedIn might be missing the ball in removing truthful posts preferring the lies of the original post from an anti-vaxxer to the truth of us calling them out, and hope for better times soon. The facts do remain in our favor as the wealth of data shows absence of causality of vaccines regarding autism. The CDC is wrong on such and demonstrates that this message is politically-based and not evidence-based, and this false conclusion that Children's Health Defense celebrates here goes against the quality and quantity of data showing absence of such link. What we have seen the CDC publish was simply the political order of one person, one’s life mission rather than what science has been telling us for decades.