Full-Court Press Needed on Vaccinations
January 23, 2019
Portland, Oregon, is now the latest measles hotspot linked to parents’ refusal to vaccinate their children. Such outbreaks prompted the New York Times to call for a concerted campaign to promote vaccinations that would be “as bold and aggressive as the one being waged by the anti-vaccination contingent.” Highlighting the challenge, a philosopher who studies public scientific controversies recently laid out in Issues the difficulty of changing parents’ minds, noting that their opinions about vaccines often bypass science and reflect deep social disagreements about risk and the role of experts.