Understand | Why do so many people say no to vaccines?

What makes people say no to vaccines? At a time when measles is making a comeback in Quebec, anthropologist Ève Dubé offers different sources to understand the phenomenon of vaccine fatigue, which manifested itself after the pandemic and its numerous booster doses.

Did you say “vaccine fatigue”?

What is vaccine fatigue? “It’s a relatively new concept in science,” emphasizes Ève Dubé, professor at Laval University, who is interested in the social, cultural, historical and religious dimensions of infectious disease prevention.

“It’s this idea that after a certain number of booster doses, when we are not in a logic of annual vaccination, like the flu, people disengage from vaccination,” she explains.

Several factors are involved: information saturation, misinformation, distrust of public health authorities and governments, weariness and the perception of a low personal risk of contracting the disease.

“When I think of vaccine fatigue, I don’t think of young people, I think of my mother who has had five doses and three times COVID, and who says, it’s over, I’m getting out of your business because It doesn’t do anything! », explains Ève Dubé.

To find out more, M^me Dubé suggests consulting a study by the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec (INSPQ) on the acceptability of a booster dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Consult the INSPQ study

Consult a list of resources on vaccination in Quebec

The pandemic and other vaccines

Does vaccine fatigue in the wake of the COVID pandemic have an impact on other vaccination campaigns?

“This is the question we ask ourselves and for which we do not always have the answer because we do not have an annual vaccination program against COVID,” indicates Ève Dubé.

For COVID, “we are still in a situation with doses that are recommended for certain people. But there seem to be issues of shaken confidence in vaccination in general. Greater polarization, too. People who were against it became very against it. So it looks like COVID has had an impact. Will this have an impact on people aged 50 and over for whom certain vaccines are recommended: shingles, flu, pneumococcus? Are these people also going to opt out of these vaccines? We are still studying the issue. »

Agence Science-Presse, an independent scientific media founded in Montreal in 1978, has several articles on vaccines, including one which focuses on the problem of those not vaccinated for measles.

Consult the articles devoted to vaccines by Agence Science-Presse

Read the article “Measles: the problem of the unvaccinated”

Vaccine Science Explained

“We must distinguish vaccine hesitancy from the concept of vaccine fatigue, which we see in people who have relatively confidence in vaccines, who have had two or three doses of COVID vaccine, and who say: I am tired of vaccination, I no longer feel like hearing about it, recalls Ève Dube. Those are two different things. »

To explore the question further, the anthropologist suggests watching Sonya Pemberton’s documentary, Jabbed: Love, Fear and Vaccines (Love, fear and vaccines, in French), which is aimed at worried parents. This review reviews the science using new medical discoveries to deconstruct and explain cases of suspected vaccine side effects. The film is available for rental online.

The magazine Being born and growing up also produced a file to better understand vaccination hesitancy, which paints a picture of the situation in Quebec and offers answers to parents’ questions about vaccines.

Consult the film sheet Jabbed: Love, Fear and Vaccines on the website of its production company (in English)

Consult the file “Better understanding vaccine hesitancy” from Being born and growing up

A comic against disinformation

Also read, to combat misinformation about vaccines, the online comic strip produced by the Pharmachien, Five misinformed opinions about vaccines.

“You have probably heard of the Hollywood stars who campaign against vaccination in the United States,” writes the author, Olivier Bernard. They are not the only ones. Across the planet, tens of thousands of people oppose vaccines. Many of them are intelligent, highly educated and know the subject like the back of their hand. Some of them are health professionals, including doctors! »

Among these “ill-informed opinions” we find: “Vaccines weaken the immune system!” », “Vaccines are put on the market before we even know if they are safe! » or even “Vaccines are an invention of the pharmaceutical industry to make money!” “.

Check out the comic Five misinformed opinions about vaccines

Who is Ève Dubé?

• Professor of anthropology at Laval University, Ève Dubé also holds the Research Chair in Applied Public Health on the anthropology of vaccination issues, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
• She is a member of the Infectious and Immune Diseases Research Axis of the Quebec University Hospital Research Center and a researcher at the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec (INSPQ).
• Since 2014, she has led the human and social sciences research network of the Canadian Immunization Research Network.