Dr. Peter Hotez: Biden Battles a Triple-Headed Monster on Vaccines

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The Daily Beast
@thedailybeast
"The bad guys know we are a nation built on science and technology. The question is, are we willing to fight to protect American science from the three-headed monster?" asks Dr. @PeterHotez.

Biden Battles a Triple-Headed Monster on Vaccines
Beating back anti-vaccine disinformation will require a far more ambitious counteroffensive.
thedailybeast.com
11:39 AM · Jul 19, 2021

https://www.thedailybeast.com/biden-battles-a-triple-headed-monster-on-vaccines


More than 600,000 Americans have already lost their lives from COVID-19 and our epidemic is still far from over. The virus has an ally in the forms of defiance—defiance against social distancing, contact tracing, masks, and most recently, vaccines. Such opposition here concentrates mostly in deep red states in the South, the Heartland, and Mountain West regions—areas where COVID-19 is rising yet again, especially where vaccinations rates are low and the Delta variant dominates.

This week, the Biden administration recognized how misinformation contributes to the staggering public health impact of COVID-19, with Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issuing his first advisory, warning about the power of vaccine myths when they are amplified on social media sites, and the president himself warning about the spread of misinformation and calling on tech and social media companies in general, and Facebook in particular, to work harder to limit it.

But those calls are insufficient, and fail to acknowledge how the anti-vaccine movement has expanded and globalized into an anti-science evil empire. Taking this on will require something far more ambitious.

In fairness, the U.S. Surgeon General’s advisory is an important step for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In the past, when I have attempted to warn about anti-vaccine disinformation, including a 2017 article entitled How the Anti-Vaxxers Are Winning, their response was that by writing such an article I risked “giving oxygen” to anti-vaccine activities or providing undue attention. At least now, our public health leaders recognize the threats from misinformation and are willing to warn the American people of its dangers.

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