WEBVTT - Doubt, Part Three: The Happiest Place on Earth 0:00:01.400 --> 0:00:04.360 Rhet Qualit was just two and a half years old 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:09.640 when he was diagnosed with leukemia. It was two thousand 0:00:10.520 --> 0:00:14.560 and Rhetina's family were living in court Madera, California. It's 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:16.800 a little town just over the Golden Gate Bridge from 0:00:16.800 --> 0:00:22.360 San Francisco in Marin County. When ratt was first diagnosed 0:00:22.360 --> 0:00:26.040 with cancer, we lived in the hospital for eight seven nights. 0:00:26.079 --> 0:00:28.880 Like my wife and I traded every twenty four hours. 0:00:29.200 --> 0:00:32.560 I mean he was sick, Okay, he couldn't go home 0:00:32.640 --> 0:00:37.239 or anything. That's Carl Red's dad. Cormadera is the kind 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:41.120 of place you might describe as crunchy. People shop at 0:00:41.120 --> 0:00:45.920 the farmers market, the organic and many of them also 0:00:46.040 --> 0:00:50.560 choose not to vaccinate their kids. Carl and his wife, 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:55.560 Jody knew vaccination rates were lower there. Rhet's doctors had 0:00:55.600 --> 0:01:00.000 even warned them about it. The reason Rhet's parents were 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:04.959 concerned about this had to do with his cancer. Chemotherapy 0:01:05.040 --> 0:01:08.720 had wiped out any immunity Red had from previous vaccines 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:11.760 and also made him too weak to get new ones. 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:15.760 If he caught something like the measles, he likely wouldn't 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:20.479 be strong enough to keep receiving his cancer treatments. Carl 0:01:20.520 --> 0:01:24.680 and Jodie really started to worry about vaccination rates when 0:01:24.680 --> 0:01:29.319 Red's older sister was about to go to kindergarten, and 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:33.000 one of the biggest fears that we had was that 0:01:33.080 --> 0:01:37.240 she might bring an illness home from school and it 0:01:37.319 --> 0:01:40.480 might get her brother sick. When it was time for 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:44.959 my son to go to school, it was really a 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:50.040 concern for us to understand how dangerous would it be 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:52.160 for him to go to school, meaning how many kids 0:01:52.200 --> 0:01:56.080 in the school were unvaccinated. The answer to that question 0:01:56.400 --> 0:02:01.800 was concerning more than six percent of Marine kindergarteners went unvaccinated, 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:07.240 about triple the state average. This was allowed thanks to 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:10.800 a state rule that let parents exempt their kids. The 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:14.200 Crawbett family solution at the time was to request that 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:18.480 RHTT be in a classroom without any unvaccinated kids. The 0:02:18.520 --> 0:02:22.280 school obliged. We wanted to go to kindergarten, We wanted 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:23.400 to go to school. We leant him to be a 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:27.679 normal kid um, but it's important that you make sure 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:31.920 that everybody around him is vaccinated also. But that was 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:35.520 really all they could do. They couldn't protect him outside 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:39.880 of school or even on the playground. Carl felt helpless. 0:02:40.680 --> 0:02:44.360 You know, we had been asking the school district and 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:47.240 parents and everybody, you know, please vaccinate your kids. There 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:53.040 was nothing we could really do about it. Then came January. 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:56.240 Help Officials fear thousands may have been exposed to the 0:02:56.360 --> 0:03:01.040 measles at Disneyland and Disney California Adventure last month. Most 0:03:01.120 --> 0:03:04.280 of those who got the disease were not vaccinated against it. 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:08.440 The measles outbreak at Disneyland has proven it's a small world, 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:11.720 after all. Health officials now say twenty six cases in 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:14.320 four states have been linked to visits to the park. 0:03:14.360 --> 0:03:18.680 In mid December, an outbreak of the measles that would 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:22.359 eventually infect more than a hundred and forty people across 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:28.720 multiple states, Mexico, and Canada have been traced back to Disneyland, 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:33.680 the place the outbreak started. Made this news hit especially hard. 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:37.600 There was something horrifying about the idea that you could 0:03:37.600 --> 0:03:40.400 just be sailing down the musty waters of the Pirates 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:44.200 of the Caribbean, singing along with all those mechanical marauding 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:49.320 pirates and contracted disease that nobody even remembered existed. When 0:03:49.320 --> 0:03:54.520 the Disneyland measles outbreak happened, I happened to be watching 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:59.840 the story on the news, and um, I was not 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:01.760 one of these people that would go out and like 0:04:01.920 --> 0:04:06.960 blog or or post on Facebook or you know, like 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:11.000 get into the fray or anything. But it just was 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:13.520 vira like it hit home. It was so personal to me. 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:16.760 And I was reading this story on MPR and I 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:21.640 went on and I responded to a news story like 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:25.000 in one of the comments and I just wrote, I'm 0:04:25.040 --> 0:04:28.160 just blown away by the fact that my kid is 0:04:28.200 --> 0:04:30.479 not allowed to take peanut butter to school because a 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:34.359 few kids have an allergy, but yet they don't have 0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:38.200 to be vaccinated for measles and my kid has cancer. 0:04:39.040 --> 0:04:42.080 After making that comment, a reporter reached out to Carl, 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:49.200 and then more reporters and more. Pretty soon, Rhett was 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:53.200 appearing regularly in local news. I spoke with Rhett recently 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:55.560 about that time. My parents told me that the fart 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:58.240 from my story than I would be able to help 0:04:58.320 --> 0:05:02.800 making difference, and talking to the press was a way 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:06.560 to do that. At the same time, state lawmakers were 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:10.799 mobilizing to craft legislation that would do away with personal 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:16.919 belief exemptions from vaccines and hopefully prevent future outbreaks. Soon 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:22.160 Rhett and the legislators would join forces. He would become 0:05:22.480 --> 0:05:26.160 the face of this bill. He's only in first grade, 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:28.720 but seven year old Rhet Crowd made sure, he said 0:05:28.800 --> 0:05:32.080 to clear message to lawmakers considering a bill that would 0:05:32.120 --> 0:05:36.039 require children to be vaccinated before they attend public school. 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:43.680 Thank you for making sure that's kids like me don't 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:49.960 don't get stay at school is a leukemia. A few 0:05:50.000 --> 0:05:53.640 months after the Disney outbreak, Rhet was cancer free and 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:58.360 he finally got his MMR vaccine, but by then they 0:05:58.360 --> 0:06:01.880 were all in on the crusade. Carl says that the 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:05.240 Disneyland outbreak helped to galvanize people to come out and 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:12.600 support vaccination. It was a tipping point. Was definitely the 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:17.760 Disneyland measles outbreak. Without question. The school where my kid 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:21.080 goes to. When that Disneyland thing happened and we were 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:23.120 on the news and things like that, everybody went and 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:25.600 got vaccinated. They didn't need the law. And I say 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:32.120 everybody enough. But it wasn't one sided. For all of 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:36.200 the support that the Crowd family received, there was also 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:42.400 a backlash. The anti vaxtors came out. I mean I remember, 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:46.640 I mean they threatened us, They threatened my kid. They 0:06:46.680 --> 0:06:51.120 I mean they they told lies, the misinformation, They all 0:06:51.200 --> 0:06:57.080 sorts of stuff right, and and it was scary. If 0:06:57.080 --> 0:07:00.640 there was one moment in time where became clear that 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:04.880 vaccine skeptics were no longer just some irrelevant fringe group 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:09.920 of crunching or in moms, this was it. California is 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:12.960 pushed to tamp down the number of people who weren't 0:07:13.040 --> 0:07:19.320 vaccine their kids. Caused vaccine skeptics to mobilize, and in 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:22.440 order to grow, they would need to appeal to a 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:27.120 broader audience. Their messaging at this time changed to go 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:32.360 beyond just vaccine safety. Suddenly they were talking about choice 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:37.240 and freedom and democracy. And this shift would bring in 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:40.920 other groups who were worried about things like government overreach. 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:48.120 And one new technological innovation would allow this message to 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:51.520 spread to people who had never before considered the safety 0:07:51.520 --> 0:07:57.320 of vaccines. That tool was social media. It would foreshadow 0:07:57.640 --> 0:08:00.440 what we're living through now, a moment it in which 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:03.520 millions of Americans feel they do not trust the government 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:07.160 when it comes to public health. I'm bloomberg, youth health 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:12.120 reporter Kristin V. Brown from the Prognosis podcast. This is 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:30.520 doubt when the Disneyland outbreak happened, I realized that, you know, 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:33.800 right here in the US, we have some serious public 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:37.880 health issues as well. Maya Majunder is a health informatics 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:42.240 researcher at Boston Children's Hospital. This is a fancy way 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:45.600 of saying that Maya is a math person, and at 0:08:45.600 --> 0:08:48.520 the time of the Disneyland outbreak, she was a grad 0:08:48.559 --> 0:08:52.640 student at m I T. She focused on studying emerging 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:56.200 infectious diseases around the world. The news of what had 0:08:56.200 --> 0:08:59.480 happened at Disneyland was sort of a call to action 0:08:59.559 --> 0:09:02.520 for her. I wanted to dig into the outbreak because 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:06.920 it might offer clues to a mystery. Measles was declared 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:09.959 eliminated from the US in two thousand by the World 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:18.800 Health Organization. They thanked vaccinations for successful eradication, but there 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:23.959 were more than six hundred cases. So how was it 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:28.360 that suddenly this disease was making a comeback. That's what 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:36.719 may I wanted to find out. Now, let me back 0:09:36.840 --> 0:09:40.679 up here for a second and say that the overwhelming 0:09:40.760 --> 0:09:45.920 majority of Americans vaccinate their kids. The CDC says that 0:09:47.360 --> 0:09:49.400 which is the last year that their state of for 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:53.439 more than ninety person of kids got their MMR shot, 0:09:53.800 --> 0:09:59.800 polio shot, Cappatitis B shot, and chickenpox shot. Even Andrew 0:10:00.200 --> 0:10:06.760 fields infamous MMR study didn't impact national vaccination rates all 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:10.720 that much. But as Maya and her team began to 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:14.160 crack into the numbers, they started to see that national 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:19.640 and statewide data obscured what was really happening with vaccination rates. 0:10:19.679 --> 0:10:24.800 On a smaller scale. Using a whole lot of fancy maths, 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:28.880 Maya's group was able to show the vaccination rates among 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:31.040 the people who were exposed to the measles in the 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:36.440 Disneyland outbreak were way lower than national averages might suggest. 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:40.199 The vaccination rates in the communities affected by the Disneyland 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:46.160 outbreak were likely in the ballpark of fifty. Maya would 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:49.920 keep on with this kind of research. Years later. Her 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:53.240 team would collect county level vaccination rates from forty three 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:59.480 states for school year the year of the Disneyland outbreak, 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:02.720 and they found that while some counties had really high 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:08.240 rates of vaccination and others rates were super low, almost 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:11.360 half of the counties they looked at had vaccination rates 0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:16.040 below I think that was really eye opening for us. 0:11:16.200 --> 0:11:19.760 We had certainly many suspicions that this was the case, 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:23.440 but it was really I think I opening to be 0:11:23.480 --> 0:11:27.559 able to see it visualized in a map, just how 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:31.120 diverse the vaccination rates were at the county level across 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:34.200 the United States. If you're in a community that has 0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:37.480 a vaccination rate for something like MMR at less than 0:11:39.080 --> 0:11:42.280 and you're an at risk kid like Rhett, that is 0:11:42.320 --> 0:11:48.880 a very scary scenario. Might seem like a lot. It's 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:53.400 still the vast majority of kids. But this comes back 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:56.480 to an idea that we've discussed earlier in this series. 0:11:57.480 --> 0:12:01.679 Vaccines take public trust and co operation in order to work. 0:12:02.480 --> 0:12:05.800 Exactly how many people need to be vaccinated in order 0:12:05.920 --> 0:12:09.319 for a particular vaccine to work depends on how contagious 0:12:09.320 --> 0:12:12.440 of virus is and how effective a vaccine is in 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:17.640 preventing it. Take the MMR vaccine, perhaps the most controversial 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:22.719 vaccine before the pandemic. The MMR is actually highly effective 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:27.360 at preventing measles, mumps, and rebella, but measles is also 0:12:27.520 --> 0:12:32.520 extremely contagious, So for the MMR to prevent the spread 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:36.600 of measles, it requires more than ninety five of kids 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:40.360 to be vaccinated against it. But once you look at 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:44.680 the numbers, then there's the question of why people aren't 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:50.080 vaccinating their kids, and this can get complicated. It's not 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:55.160 just because of social media or conspiracy theories or all 0:12:55.200 --> 0:12:59.200 of the confusing ingredients that are in vaccines. In fact, 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:02.600 it might not really be about any of those things 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:08.040 at all. Individual beliefs about vaccines are often rooted in 0:13:08.080 --> 0:13:13.640 a person's identity and worldview. For example, the vaccine for HPV, 0:13:14.040 --> 0:13:16.520 which was introduced to the US in two thousand six, 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:22.479 quickly became extremely controversial, in part because it's a vaccine 0:13:22.920 --> 0:13:26.520 to prevent a sexually transmitted disease that is given to 0:13:26.559 --> 0:13:30.880 preteen girls. Religious communities were among those that objected to 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:33.200 it because they didn't want young women to see it 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:36.880 as a licensed to go have sex. Even outside of 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:40.720 those groups, many parents felt that way it was just 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:44.960 uncomfortable to sexualize their preteen daughters. One of the things 0:13:45.040 --> 0:13:47.400 that I've discovered over the years is that there are 0:13:47.440 --> 0:13:50.600 lots of different reasons for vaccine hesitancy, and they usually 0:13:50.600 --> 0:13:54.559 emerge in different ways in different populations, and vaccine hesitancy 0:13:54.640 --> 0:13:57.960 for different diseases looks different. At the time of the 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:01.160 Disneyland outbreak, there was a whole lot of other things 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:03.920 going on in our culture that might lead someone to 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:08.760 question vaccines. Clean living was becoming a thing, and people 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:12.000 were paying a lot of attention to everything they put 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:16.040 in their bodies. Third wave feminism was encouraging moms to 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:18.960 take back power and how they chose to raise their kids. 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:24.520 By this point, misinformation about vaccines had also gone mainstream 0:14:24.600 --> 0:14:29.520 and even become trendy. Former Playboy Bunny Jenny McCarthy wrote 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:33.440 a book blaming the MMR vaccine for her son's autism 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:37.280 and quickly became the celebrity face of the movement. She 0:14:37.400 --> 0:14:42.920 pushed vaccine misinformation on talk shows and magazine spreads. She 0:14:43.000 --> 0:14:46.280 even appeared ringside with the w w E to promote 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:51.520 an organization that falsely claimed vaccines cause autism. Together, the 0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:56.040 tag team of w w E and Generation Rescue Can 0:14:56.480 --> 0:15:01.680 and Will lay the SmackDown on a his happen what. 0:15:03.720 --> 0:15:08.160 There was now a sizeable body of scientific research debunking 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:13.160 the connection between vaccines and autism, but that didn't seem 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:18.280 to matter. More and more people were questioning the safety 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:24.120 of vaccines. Maya's research into the outbreak helped confirm what 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:29.200 people had already suspected. Vaccination rates were dropping among some 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:33.720 groups of people, and now it was clear that this 0:15:33.760 --> 0:15:38.200 could pose a real threat to public health. This threat 0:15:38.600 --> 0:15:41.360 is what moved Rhet and his family to take the 0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:45.880 stage and lobby for this new bill to ban exemptions 0:15:45.880 --> 0:15:49.680 in California. And this would kick things up a notch. 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:54.240 There's been a lot of changes to um the anti 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:58.160 vaccine scene, at least since I started almost eight years ago. 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:04.080 We're saying more groups organizing around issues of civil liberties 0:16:04.240 --> 0:16:09.320 and the idea of vaccines as issues of freedom or 0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:14.520 vaccine choice. This is Amelia Jamison and I am a 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:19.280 doctoral student at Johns Hopkins University where I study online 0:16:19.320 --> 0:16:22.920 health misinformation and how it can be used to exacerbate 0:16:23.000 --> 0:16:27.120 social divides. Amelia has been studying health misinformation for a 0:16:27.120 --> 0:16:31.400 long time. She started out as an anthropology student at 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:35.000 the University of Maryland Center for Health Equity doing field 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:38.400 research on vaccine hesitancy, a lot of it focused on 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:41.640 the African American community. There's a big moment in my 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:44.560 career where I feel like I realized the imports of 0:16:44.600 --> 0:16:48.480 online misincussion, and that was after the election, when we 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:52.960 were scouring a data set about a Russian Twitter troll. 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:57.760 Trolls and we were able to find a failed campaign 0:16:57.760 --> 0:17:00.640 where they had tried to use vaccines as a wedge 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:06.040 issue to polarize Americans on this issue. Amilia says that 0:17:06.080 --> 0:17:10.280 these trends first started cropping up after the Disneyland measles outbreak, 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:14.440 and this is where we really saw this coalescence around 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:18.680 the idea of vaccination as a civil liberties issue. I 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:24.159 spent I read thousands of tweets over the trajectory of 0:17:24.200 --> 0:17:28.320 the Disneyland measles outbreak. Never published this stuff, but I 0:17:28.359 --> 0:17:30.480 think we try to figure out what was happening and 0:17:30.520 --> 0:17:32.840 what kind of discussions are happening, And so I think 0:17:32.840 --> 0:17:36.480 Disneyland is really important because it drew a lot of 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:40.360 attention to this issue that had kind of fallen lay low. 0:17:41.000 --> 0:17:43.879 Amilia says, this moment actually drew out a lot of 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:48.199 public support for vaccines, but the other side of the 0:17:48.320 --> 0:17:54.240 argument gained momentum. To the antivaxers kind of felt endangered 0:17:54.359 --> 0:17:58.120 or imperiled, and then they started to mobilize and help 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:01.040 organize themselves in ways that they could pro test this bill. 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:05.760 The way vaccinations were talked about on social media also 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:11.000 started to change. We followed uh different Facebook pages and 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:14.960 a lot of them had different names, like Michigan for 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:18.240 Vaccine Choice or California for Vaccine Choice, and so each 0:18:18.280 --> 0:18:20.960 at the state level. I think vaccine choice became this 0:18:21.040 --> 0:18:25.960 new talking point or away to reframe this conversation away 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:31.080 from a facts based is this real? Is not real? 0:18:31.560 --> 0:18:36.000 Especially because there was, in my view, increasing evidence that 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:39.560 vaccines don't cause out to them, so that older idea 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:44.040 had shifted. The target expanded beyond arguing about the safety 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:48.480 of vaccines to questioning whether vaccine laws infringed on people's 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:51.960 personal liberties. It was a harder point to argue against. 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:55.720 It began to change the profile of when anti vaxxter 0:18:55.840 --> 0:19:01.119 looked like it wasn't just Marin Moms anymore. It's hard 0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:04.359 to really measure how many anti vaxxers there are out there, 0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:07.479 but most experts would tell you that their numbers are 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:11.240 still pretty small. Keep in mind, when I use the 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:16.040 phrase anti vax are, I'm referring specifically to activists who 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:20.480 are making a concerted effort to spread misinformation about vaccines. 0:19:21.560 --> 0:19:25.320 But even though their numbers are small, they're very loud, 0:19:26.080 --> 0:19:29.320 and their messaging reaches people who are maybe just a 0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:33.520 little bit skeptical of vaccines or distrusting of doctors or 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:39.520 the government, and these people are where the problem is. 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:42.639 The numbers of these people in the middle appear to 0:19:42.680 --> 0:19:46.879 be large and growing. Often they are also primed by 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:50.720 other points of view to believe in conspiracy theories. Public 0:19:50.760 --> 0:19:54.560 health officials and the small numbers of extreme hardcore anti 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:58.080 vaxxers are basically locked in a battle to win these 0:19:58.080 --> 0:20:02.480 people over. And these people don't ever need to refer 0:20:02.520 --> 0:20:05.840 to themselves as anti vaxxers for that battle to be lost. 0:20:06.520 --> 0:20:08.920 All they need to do is decide to not vaccinate 0:20:08.960 --> 0:20:13.680 their kids or not to vaccinate themselves against COVID nineteen. 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:17.480 Amelia says, one big reason why this movement has continued 0:20:17.520 --> 0:20:21.199 to grow is that it has strong leadership. There's this 0:20:21.240 --> 0:20:23.480 idea that anti vaccs are all these parents and they're 0:20:23.520 --> 0:20:26.199 like mothers with children. But I think it's important to 0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:30.080 recognize that there are these there's leaders in this or 0:20:30.119 --> 0:20:33.879 a movement, and some of them represent organizations that have 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:37.160 been pretty active for quite some time actually, and they're 0:20:37.240 --> 0:20:40.680 very influential, things like the Actually I don't want to 0:20:40.680 --> 0:20:43.800 say their names because I don't want to controw Okay, 0:20:44.160 --> 0:20:47.960 Amelia doesn't want to name names, but I will. Which 0:20:48.000 --> 0:20:50.119 is getting at here is that a large amount of 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:54.320 vaccine misinformation is actually spread by a small number of people. 0:20:55.040 --> 0:20:58.320 One study Amelia did in nineteen found that more than 0:20:58.400 --> 0:21:02.520 half of Facebook advertisement and spreading misinformation about vaccines were 0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:07.160 funded by just two anti vaccine groups, including one lead 0:21:07.160 --> 0:21:12.520 by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Yes that Kennedy. These messages 0:21:12.520 --> 0:21:16.600 seemed like they were homegrown, grassroots social media posts, but 0:21:16.640 --> 0:21:22.119 in reality they were carefully orchestrated advertising campaigns. The people 0:21:22.160 --> 0:21:26.240 behind these posts were well organized and heavily funded, and 0:21:26.280 --> 0:21:30.600 also just really savvy. I think the one strategy was 0:21:30.680 --> 0:21:34.720 really understanding their audience and their audiences needs, so they're 0:21:34.760 --> 0:21:38.560 able to craft a message that's appealing, but then also 0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:42.879 use online tools such as targeted advertising to reach that 0:21:42.960 --> 0:21:46.560 audience really effectively, so that with a few hundred dollars 0:21:46.640 --> 0:21:51.440 you could transform and advertisement into thousands of impressions, which 0:21:51.480 --> 0:21:54.159 means you're reaching people who want to see your cause, 0:21:54.880 --> 0:21:59.040 and then you can link them to off platform websites 0:21:59.119 --> 0:22:02.080 that you've created. Um, we see people using this just 0:22:02.200 --> 0:22:05.240 to share more information, but also to fundraise or to 0:22:05.280 --> 0:22:09.080 sell products or promote events, so after they see that ad, 0:22:09.160 --> 0:22:11.359 they can be led to a variety of different sites 0:22:11.880 --> 0:22:15.919 for variety of means. Amelia found the efforts by Facebook 0:22:15.960 --> 0:22:21.800 to crack down on vaccine misinformation sometimes backfired. Pro vaccine 0:22:21.840 --> 0:22:26.080 content would more often get taken down the way social 0:22:26.119 --> 0:22:29.880 networks approach This has changed since the study, especially amid 0:22:29.920 --> 0:22:32.440 the pandemic, and we'll get to that in the next episode. 0:22:33.280 --> 0:22:37.720 But for a long time, these groups were very good innovating. 0:22:38.240 --> 0:22:42.080 Whatever restrictions social networks put in place to stop them, 0:22:42.280 --> 0:22:47.640 misinformation ran rampant. It was hard to tell sometimes what 0:22:47.720 --> 0:22:52.280 was true. Amelia says. The other thing is that these powerful, 0:22:52.800 --> 0:22:57.400 well funded anti vaccine groups, we'll just change their messaging 0:22:57.480 --> 0:23:00.320 if it runs into roadblocks. And I think it's also 0:23:00.359 --> 0:23:05.040 interesting to realize that as we move towards fact checking 0:23:05.600 --> 0:23:08.680 as a way to limit this kind of information of 0:23:09.000 --> 0:23:12.800 freedom of a vaccine freedom or vaccine choice argument is 0:23:12.960 --> 0:23:16.800 less able to be fact checked, right, it kind of 0:23:16.960 --> 0:23:20.160 escapes that realm because it's not about facts. It's more 0:23:20.160 --> 0:23:24.520 about a belief or an opinion. It's not just that 0:23:24.560 --> 0:23:28.199 they changed their messaging. These groups have also co opted 0:23:28.240 --> 0:23:31.720 the language of other social movements. And then like in 0:23:31.760 --> 0:23:35.920 that way, you can also position yourself in this trajectory 0:23:36.040 --> 0:23:39.800 of other great um civil rights battles throughout history, like 0:23:40.320 --> 0:23:45.400 women's liberation or um civil rights. So so you can 0:23:45.560 --> 0:23:48.960 see some of that rhetoric actually reappearing. You could see 0:23:48.960 --> 0:23:51.399 this happen in real time in the aftermath of the 0:23:51.440 --> 0:23:55.240 Disneyland measles outbreak. The bill Rett had supported was making 0:23:55.280 --> 0:23:59.560 its way through the California legislature. At that time. A 0:23:59.600 --> 0:24:03.480 pair of researchers found that Twitter hashtag organizers were publishing 0:24:03.560 --> 0:24:08.080 nightly trends and tips videos on YouTube containing instructions on 0:24:08.119 --> 0:24:11.840 what to tweet to advance the cause. But soon the 0:24:11.880 --> 0:24:15.320 bill was advancing out of committee and becoming that much 0:24:15.359 --> 0:24:20.000 closer to being passed. When that happened, the researchers found 0:24:20.000 --> 0:24:24.159 that the more pseudoscience the messaging was suddenly changing. It 0:24:24.240 --> 0:24:28.439 was becoming more about health freedom and choice. As the 0:24:28.480 --> 0:24:32.480 messaging coming from these highly organized anti vaccine groups shifted 0:24:32.800 --> 0:24:37.639 and broadened, other groups also belonged onto the issue. So 0:24:38.160 --> 0:24:42.000 add together one part well funded anti vaccine group, one 0:24:42.080 --> 0:24:46.440 part homegrown concerned from parents, and a chorus of outrage 0:24:46.480 --> 0:24:51.200 from anti government sympathizers and you get a giant, confusing 0:24:51.440 --> 0:24:56.600 info dump, which is exactly the point. In general. I 0:24:56.680 --> 0:25:01.600 just feel like the anti vactors haven't really learned how 0:25:01.640 --> 0:25:06.040 to leverage online tools to reach this audience that is receptive, 0:25:06.600 --> 0:25:09.800 and they're doing it much more efficiently than some of 0:25:09.840 --> 0:25:13.639 the people who are working for public health. And this 0:25:13.760 --> 0:25:18.680 messaging can be really compelling. It is easy to fall 0:25:18.720 --> 0:25:22.560 for it. Amilia says at times in her research, she's 0:25:22.600 --> 0:25:26.480 even found herself confused by all the misinformation, like I've 0:25:26.720 --> 0:25:28.480 looked at a lot of it, and it's pretty effective. 0:25:28.600 --> 0:25:31.480 Like that, I've sometimes they're like, oh wow, I didn't 0:25:31.480 --> 0:25:33.360 know this, and I go down my own grabbit hole 0:25:33.480 --> 0:25:35.880 trying to figure out, like what's true, what's not? Where 0:25:35.880 --> 0:25:38.919 did this evidence come from. I'll admit, while working on 0:25:38.960 --> 0:25:41.520 this podcast, I have a time has found myself in 0:25:41.520 --> 0:25:45.439 that situation too. One night, I got so caught up 0:25:45.480 --> 0:25:49.000 reading about the chickenpox vaccine that I completely burned my 0:25:49.040 --> 0:25:51.920 dinner on the stove. But at the end of the day, 0:25:52.480 --> 0:25:54.880 Amelia and I both start from a place of trust 0:25:55.000 --> 0:26:00.359 in vaccines and medicine and science, but mistrust of romant 0:26:00.720 --> 0:26:04.359 and drug companies is just so widespread at this point, 0:26:05.240 --> 0:26:08.600 and if that's the place you're starting from, you're probably 0:26:08.680 --> 0:26:12.080 more receptive to ideas that anti vaccine groups are pushing. 0:26:12.840 --> 0:26:14.919 And I think one of the big arguments for the 0:26:14.960 --> 0:26:17.800 anti vaxus community is they're like, I've done my research, 0:26:17.880 --> 0:26:22.240 I'm an informed consumer, And they have spent a long time, 0:26:22.280 --> 0:26:25.879 probably more than the average person, looking at information and 0:26:26.000 --> 0:26:30.040 research about vaccines. Because it's true, vaccine side effects do happen, 0:26:30.119 --> 0:26:32.800 some of them are pretty severe. It's just that on 0:26:32.880 --> 0:26:36.200 the whole, we believe that vaccines are safe and effective 0:26:36.280 --> 0:26:39.720 and it's best that everybody gets vaccinated. But I think 0:26:40.400 --> 0:26:43.679 it's really challenging to combat that and be like the 0:26:43.720 --> 0:26:46.480 information like, because you've taken this upon yourself to do 0:26:46.560 --> 0:26:49.080 this research, and it's I think it's really hard to 0:26:49.160 --> 0:26:52.359 tell people like, no, don't do that, just trust in 0:26:52.440 --> 0:26:55.840 whatever we tell you to do. Amelia remembers back in 0:26:55.840 --> 0:26:58.800 November she went to an anti vaccine rally on the 0:26:58.840 --> 0:27:02.119 Mall in Washington and it was cold, and there was 0:27:02.160 --> 0:27:04.560 just a bunch of moms there with their kids, and 0:27:04.560 --> 0:27:07.080 there was just a whole day's panels. Weren't the speakers, 0:27:07.119 --> 0:27:10.119 and they were up there talking about different things but 0:27:10.200 --> 0:27:12.560 if you walk through the crowd, there were a lot 0:27:12.560 --> 0:27:15.040 of people who had made t shirts or posters about 0:27:15.080 --> 0:27:18.879 their vaccine injured child, And I think that's where you 0:27:18.920 --> 0:27:23.800 start to see the human face of this movement. Amelia 0:27:23.880 --> 0:27:27.400 says that as someone who spends our time researching Internet misinformation, 0:27:28.160 --> 0:27:31.440 this human side isn't something she gets to see. It 0:27:31.560 --> 0:27:34.119 really her home for her. So there really are people 0:27:34.200 --> 0:27:38.400 who are struggling with something and they're looking for answers, 0:27:38.600 --> 0:27:41.400