Nothing New Under the Sun: Anti-Vaccine Sentiment Is as Old as Vaccination
From the smallpox vaccine to the mRNA vaccine, the anti-vaccine talking points have not changed… they’ve only gotten louder and more dispersed.
In 2021, as mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 were deployed, the anti-vaccine community started spreading misinformation and disinformation about those vaccines. This was expected. Anti-vaccine organizations and individuals have always been quick to attack vaccines. Even with a new vaccine modality (mRNA), they did not need to come up with new attacks. All they seemed to do was look back to history and copy/paste their arguments.
For example, Andrew Jeremy Wakefield was quick to label mRNA vaccines as “gene therapy” that would alter a person’s DNA. You may remember Andrew from the retracted 1998 Lancet paper, where he and his colleagues failed to conclude that the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine caused autism. Nevertheless, Andrew went on a press tour to state that it was his opinion that the vaccine caused autism, and that he would not use it. The study would be retracted later, when it was found to be “fraudulent.” For that fraud, Andrew was struck off the medical register in the United Kingdom.
