Speaker 1: Okay, so what what is the actual address to this website? Okay,
Speaker 1: so there's v A E R S dot H H
Speaker 1: S dot gov. Let me uh black at you. My
Speaker 1: producer Tofer and I are checking out a website known
Speaker 1: as THEIRS. That acronym stands for Vaccine Adverse Reporting System.
Speaker 1: It's a federal database where anyone can report potential side
Speaker 1: effects they've experienced after getting vaccinated. It's basically intended to
Speaker 1: be an early warning system for possible problems with vaccines.
Speaker 1: The data is totally public. The first thing, it says
Speaker 1: that there's been forty four thousand, eight hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: six adverse events related to the COVID nineteen vaccine. That
Speaker 1: doesn't sound so bad for millions of time, millions of
Speaker 1: people being vaccinated every day. In very urs you can
Speaker 1: read all of the details of injuries people say happened
Speaker 1: after getting vaccinated. But it's important to know that not
Speaker 1: every health issue that comes up after getting a vaccine
Speaker 1: is necessarily caused by a vaccine. Bronco spasm with coughing
Speaker 1: tongue itching. I know, I don't know if I've ever
Speaker 1: had an ischy tongue. It's not just injuries. You can
Speaker 1: look up how many deaths were there there were. Okay,
Speaker 1: now let me back up and say that before you
Speaker 1: get to any of this, there is an extremely prominent
Speaker 1: and detailed disclaimer that you have to click through. The
Speaker 1: disclaimer is very clear that just because an injury is
Speaker 1: reported here does not mean a vaccine caused that injury.
Speaker 1: You actually have to click that you read the disclaimer
Speaker 1: in order to view the data. The fact is anyone
Speaker 1: can report a claim to this website and it'll show up.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean it's true. It's just a claim that
Speaker 1: will help the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and
Speaker 1: the Food and Drug Administration catch any troubling side effects
Speaker 1: that are occurring because of vaccines. And this is just
Speaker 1: one of many ways the federal government monitors these things.
Speaker 1: This is just good responsible science. When you have a
Speaker 1: mass vaccination campaign, you want to keep an eye on
Speaker 1: it in case any truly troubling patterns emerge. These systems
Speaker 1: have helped flag problems before the CDC recommended a roadavirus
Speaker 1: vaccine be pulled from market. That was after fifteen cases
Speaker 1: of vowel obstruction among infants who received the vaccine had
Speaker 1: been reported in THEIRS. These kinds of monitoring effort are
Speaker 1: why the CDC decided to pause the Johnson and Johnson
Speaker 1: vaccine roll out in April after six people who got
Speaker 1: it experienced blood clots. This is the system working, not
Speaker 1: a problem with the system. But correlation is not causation.
Speaker 1: Every report in vrors is not indicative of a catastrophic
Speaker 1: vaccine side effect. In the anti vax world, virors has
Speaker 1: long occupied this sort of contradictory territory. It's both something
Speaker 1: untrustworthy and proof that vaccines are not as safe as
Speaker 1: the government says. So they have argued for for years
Speaker 1: that the data can't be trusted. UM, that the CDC
Speaker 1: and the FDA, UM if there's an event that's credible
Speaker 1: that's reported to it, that they don't act on it intentionally.
Speaker 1: Um And then it's all part of a government conspiracy
Speaker 1: to hide the actual adverse events due to due to immunization.
Speaker 1: This is Joe Smiser. He's the head of the Public
Speaker 1: Good Projects, a public health nonprofit that has been analyzing
Speaker 1: vaccine misinformation over the past year. Joe has noticed anti
Speaker 1: vaccine groups changing their script a bit here and now
Speaker 1: they're saying that in addition to THEIRS not being trusted,
Speaker 1: also you should report to THEIRS and any any adverse event,
Speaker 1: make sure you report to THEIRS. Robert F. Kennedy Juniors
Speaker 1: organization the Children's Health Defense encourages people to report to errors.
Speaker 1: It also frequently sends out newsletters with subject lines trumpeting
Speaker 1: the numbers of injuries or deaths reported in the database
Speaker 1: after COVID vaccines. All of the context of the disclaimers
Speaker 1: in the database, though, are conveniently missing. The way Joe
Speaker 1: explains it, groups like Kennedy's have basic weaponized bears, and
Speaker 1: they'll look for any adverse event and then they'll turn
Speaker 1: that into media. So there'll be memes and videos, and
Speaker 1: there are very popular videos of people just going through
Speaker 1: every single instance of someone reporting an adverse event to bears,
Speaker 1: and they'll read it out loud, and some of these
Speaker 1: videos are two and a half hours long of the
Speaker 1: person just reading out loud all of the things reported
Speaker 1: to bears. And then at the same time, the same
Speaker 1: groups and the same individuals will say, Okay, well that
Speaker 1: can't be trusted, so go to this new system. So
Speaker 1: basically they get believers to report alleged injuries. Then they
Speaker 1: make content out of those stats. It is a self
Speaker 1: perpetuating panic machine. The anti vaccine movement doesn't so much
Speaker 1: manufacture reality as manipulated bears. Is one of the latest
Speaker 1: lines of attack from anti vaccine groups for causing doubt
Speaker 1: round vaccines. Somehow various data is untrustworthy and also proof
Speaker 1: of everything anti vaccine groups are saying. Despite this giant
Speaker 1: cognitive disconnect, this message has spread far and wide. Mike
Speaker 1: Joe says, there are videos of people just doing the
Speaker 1: same thing we did, checking out the data and reading
Speaker 1: it aloud. That is ungentleman. I'm wanted to see d
Speaker 1: sees web page right, and I decided that I needed
Speaker 1: to see the results for the vaccines and their simptoms
Speaker 1: and the dead that this particular video was viewed more
Speaker 1: than twenty one thousand times on Facebook. When they get
Speaker 1: to the alleged deaths, the speaker in the video just
Speaker 1: starts scrolling through the hundreds of cases. Dare marry a
Speaker 1: dead people? Dead people? Oh, nobody not talked about the
Speaker 1: people are dead from the vaccine, much less COVID. It's
Speaker 1: the video doesn't mention any other context. All the average
Speaker 1: person would see is an endless stream of alleged deaths
Speaker 1: related to COVID vaccines. And by the way, Facebook has
Speaker 1: put a disclaimer on the top of this video that
Speaker 1: says it's missing context, but you can still see it
Speaker 1: and share it. Not ability to distort reality is one
Speaker 1: of the reasons why anti vaccine extremists have had a
Speaker 1: good year. Today, these groups are more powerful than ever.
Speaker 1: Misinformation is running rampant. Only about a third of the
Speaker 1: US population is fully vaccinated, and it's unclear exactly when
Speaker 1: we will get to widespread immunity from the virus. Doubt reigns,
Speaker 1: but there is hope. In the final episode of this series,
Speaker 1: we're going to look forward. The majority of Americans are
Speaker 1: now faced with the choice of whether to get vaccinated
Speaker 1: against COVID nineteen. We're going to examine how the medical
Speaker 1: establishment and public health has failed in inspiring vaccine confidence
Speaker 1: and what can be done to fix it. One of
Speaker 1: the answers to that question can be found in the
Speaker 1: least likely of places. I'm Bloomberg News health reporter Kristin V.
Speaker 1: Brown from the Pregnosis podcast. This is Doubt. Joe Smizer
Speaker 1: of the Public Good Projects says anti vaccine groups are
Speaker 1: in an especially strong position. I think is going to
Speaker 1: be the year of the anti vaccor. Like they're getting
Speaker 1: more money than ever before, they're more organized never before.
Speaker 1: They actually have elected representatives who believe in their viewpoints.
Speaker 1: They're more global than ever before, and so the infrastructure
Speaker 1: is so much more solid than it than it ever
Speaker 1: has been. This has just added so much fuel onto
Speaker 1: their their fire, and now we've got signal fires all
Speaker 1: over the all over the globe. It's it's what they've
Speaker 1: been hoping for. Um, It's it's a global mass immunization effort.
Speaker 1: This is a big problem. As we've shown in this series,
Speaker 1: anti vaccine groups have been refining how to spread out
Speaker 1: for decades. Andrew Wakefield gave vaccine skepticism of a new
Speaker 1: or of science. Jenny McCarthy, I mean it part of
Speaker 1: popular culture, and newer waves of anti vaccine activists like
Speaker 1: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Have used social media to turn
Speaker 1: this messaging into viral content. The groundwork for an explosion
Speaker 1: of anti vaccine sentiment had been laid long before the
Speaker 1: global pandemic. This worries Joe. I don't think we're going
Speaker 1: to go back. That's that's my concern is I think,
Speaker 1: like I mentioned, that infrastructure is just so well built now.
Speaker 1: Going into there had already been massive protests against vaccine mandates.
Speaker 1: Estates tried to tighten childhood ammunization laws. So it's easy
Speaker 1: to see why it didn't take very long for talk
Speaker 1: about COVID vaccines to turn to talk about vaccine skepticism,
Speaker 1: like way before any vaccine was anywhere near ready, And
Speaker 1: we saw that all through the spring. If you follow
Speaker 1: news reporting on on covid um, there was a lot
Speaker 1: of reporting started pretty much right away what if people
Speaker 1: won't take a vaccine for COVID when we have one?
Speaker 1: And it was mostly using the misinformation frame as a
Speaker 1: kind of explanatory framework for why people um didn't want
Speaker 1: to vaccinate. And then the misinformation frame is pretty pervasive.
Speaker 1: Bernice Housman studies medical controversies at Penn State College of Medicine.
Speaker 1: Bernice breaks it down like this, there are two different
Speaker 1: theories that people generally use for why people are skeptical
Speaker 1: of vaccines. The first one is that misinformation is to blame.
Speaker 1: All those viral Facebook videos are causing people to suddenly
Speaker 1: turn on vaccines. As we have talked about a lot
Speaker 1: in this series, The explanation is just overly simplistic. If
Speaker 1: you have no other reason to distrust vaccines, one video
Speaker 1: isn't necessarily going to change your mind about them. And
Speaker 1: thinking about misinformation as the main driver of vaccine skepticism,
Speaker 1: it's problematic because you're never going to fix the problem
Speaker 1: if you're not address saying the real cause. And Bernie says,
Speaker 1: that's where the second theory comes into play. But another
Speaker 1: frame started to emerge over the summer and is now
Speaker 1: supplanting the misinformation frame, and I think it's a really
Speaker 1: really positive development. People started talking about confidence and trust.
Speaker 1: Bernice says three main things helped spur this shift. One
Speaker 1: is that UM, the data from COVID demonstrates, you know,
Speaker 1: really severe existing health disparities along the lines of race
Speaker 1: and ethnicity in this country and also associate economic status.
Speaker 1: Now everybody has known that this these exist, but the
Speaker 1: COVID pandemic has actually really brought that into public view
Speaker 1: and made people understand that um vulnerability to COVID is
Speaker 1: really based on these kinds of social justice issues. It
Speaker 1: wasn't news that there are deep health disparities in America,
Speaker 1: but the pandemic made those disparities very public. It was
Speaker 1: just harder to ignore when so many more people of
Speaker 1: color were dying from the virus. Secondly, Bernie says, all
Speaker 1: the protests of last summer after the murder of George
Speaker 1: Floyd helped to publicize concerns about trust. So they also
Speaker 1: brought out the issue of social justice and especially concerns
Speaker 1: that black communities have about trust and authority. And the
Speaker 1: Trump administrations handling of vaccine development also brought trust into
Speaker 1: the conversation. Vaccine dissenters have been saying all along that
Speaker 1: there's a problem of corruption between the government pharmaceutical companies
Speaker 1: um UM, and these federal agencies. So in the summer,
Speaker 1: ordinary people saw that that could actually happen. Remember all
Speaker 1: those news stories about the White House meddling with the
Speaker 1: f d A and the CDC. Suddenly everyone was talking
Speaker 1: about trust and scenes. So suddenly all of that has led,
Speaker 1: I believe, to this big shift in public health where
Speaker 1: now we see the people talking about vaccine confidence. How
Speaker 1: do you build vaccine confidence if we're going to get
Speaker 1: more people on board with vaccination. This shift in thinking
Speaker 1: is crucial. Now when you think about it, those two
Speaker 1: frames misinformation and confidence are really different. The misinformation frame
Speaker 1: identifies the individual who believes the misinformation as the problem
Speaker 1: who needs to be educated. The confidence frame says, people
Speaker 1: lack confidence in vaccine programs and we need to demonstrate
Speaker 1: that we We need to earn their trust so that
Speaker 1: they have confidence in these programs. So it shifts the
Speaker 1: burden to public health agencies, the government, public health workers
Speaker 1: themselves medical practitioners to understand the reasons for the lack
Speaker 1: of confidence and think about ways to rebuild trust. The
Speaker 1: truth is, our public health officials haven't always done a
Speaker 1: great job of communicating with us about vaccine safety. This
Speaker 1: is a big factor and why so many people are
Speaker 1: skeptical of vaccines right now. Take THEIRS for instance, most
Speaker 1: people who have heard of THEIRS probably learned about it
Speaker 1: from an anti vaccine group because there just isn't otherwise
Speaker 1: enthusiasm for talking about problems with vaccines. This makes it
Speaker 1: seem plausible that the government is trying to hide this data,
Speaker 1: even though it's totally public and out there for anyone
Speaker 1: to look at. Anti vaccine groups are just exacerbating existing
Speaker 1: weaknesses and how we talk about vaccines, and really, when
Speaker 1: there's a lack of formal information. We will always see
Speaker 1: the rise of informal information because people want information, and
Speaker 1: we saw that early in the pandemic with death dumentaries
Speaker 1: like Plandemic that's a so called documentary filled with misinformation
Speaker 1: that became very popular at the start of the pandemic,
Speaker 1: which filled that gap when there wasn't any official information
Speaker 1: coming out from government agencies about the pandemic and its
Speaker 1: levels of contagion and how to contain it. When we
Speaker 1: had gaps in information, we've seen those spaces filled with
Speaker 1: other kinds of misinformation. This is Jennifer Reich, a sociologist
Speaker 1: University of Colorado, Denver who studies vaccine hesitant people. She
Speaker 1: says public health is not doing a great job of
Speaker 1: explaining how they make sure COVID vaccines are safe, and
Speaker 1: so I was surprised to learn how many systems monitor
Speaker 1: vaccine safety by doing things like looking at large health
Speaker 1: maintenance organizations and looking for upticks and emergency room visits
Speaker 1: within the first few days after a vaccination, and then
Speaker 1: looking for patterns that are statistically important to and go
Speaker 1: back and look at the vaccines, and that has been
Speaker 1: successful in identifying very rare adverse reactions to vaccines like
Speaker 1: the vaccine against rotavirus. So there is this real time
Speaker 1: kind of monitoring of both safety and efficacy that happens
Speaker 1: that nobody talks about and that has remained largely invisible
Speaker 1: prior to COVID, and I think during COVID. Imagine if
Speaker 1: the CDC had been proactive about informing people about THEIRS,
Speaker 1: then put ads on YouTube explaining safety standards around vaccines
Speaker 1: before you watch your little nos X video, that wouldn't
Speaker 1: just help combat misinformation, but also help gather more data
Speaker 1: to monitor vaccine safety. Jennifer says, most people want good information.
Speaker 1: It just hasn't been as readily offered to the public.
Speaker 1: But the majority of people right now who are saying
Speaker 1: I want to wait and see are asking for better information.
Speaker 1: They are asking to have a conversation, and they want
Speaker 1: to know what they can do. UM I'm surprised in
Speaker 1: my research to hear how many people are still wiping
Speaker 1: down their groceries and surfaces but not worrying about the air.
Speaker 1: It's we're really far into that to have people not
Speaker 1: fully understand how to the best assign their energies towards
Speaker 1: the best strategies for limiting infection that should that's a
Speaker 1: lack of clarity that has gone on too long and
Speaker 1: needs to be addressed, I think directly. But we could
Speaker 1: go even further to help people make the right decision
Speaker 1: and give them more than just good information. For example,
Speaker 1: if people are worried they might be out for a
Speaker 1: day or two after getting the shop, which is totally possible,
Speaker 1: we can make sure people have paid leave to make
Speaker 1: the choice to get vaccinated easier. And while access to
Speaker 1: information is important, it's not the sole driver of decision making,
Speaker 1: and so what's also important is to think about how
Speaker 1: does this fit into people's priorities, How does it fit
Speaker 1: into their work life, how does it fit into their resources,
Speaker 1: how does it fit into their community and their values? Right,
Speaker 1: how do we think about this more holistically and then
Speaker 1: figure out are their spaces where people are saying they
Speaker 1: need something different. We need to give people the information
Speaker 1: and the resources to make the right choice. Right now,
Speaker 1: we're all living little bubbles. We interact with fewer people
Speaker 1: and do it more cautiously. We're literally distancing from each other,
Speaker 1: and that means we're all living in echo chambers with
Speaker 1: less exposure than ever to new points of view. That's
Speaker 1: exacerbating all of this too. When people make decisions about
Speaker 1: vaccines or anything, really, we all look to those around
Speaker 1: us who who share our lifestyle, who seems similar to us,
Speaker 1: who understand where we're coming from. And it's why churches
Speaker 1: have become such an important rule um in the conversation.
Speaker 1: It's why people look to their community networks. It's why
Speaker 1: there's evidence that barbershops and beauticians have become really important
Speaker 1: sources of health information. People talk to the people that
Speaker 1: they trust. The challenge right now during COVID is that
Speaker 1: we've really limited the number of spaces in which people
Speaker 1: can have comm stations of people they don't already know.
Speaker 1: It's hard to have close, intimate conversations during a time
Speaker 1: when social distancing is recommended and people are scared of
Speaker 1: a highly infectious disease. But there is one place in
Speaker 1: particular where people have been having those conversations and it's
Speaker 1: been helping to re establish trust with the vaccine. Let's
Speaker 1: take a trip to West Virginia. West Virginia isn't the
Speaker 1: state you'd expect to be a vaccine success story. The
Speaker 1: state is extremely rural and registered Republicans now outnumbered Democrats
Speaker 1: These are two groups that we know are among the
Speaker 1: most skeptical of vaccines. It's mountainous terrain and spread out
Speaker 1: population also create logistical challenges for delivering vaccines. Many of
Speaker 1: its residents are also poor, with health conditions that make
Speaker 1: them especially at risk for severe cases of COVID. A
Speaker 1: survey by West Virginia University shortly before vaccines began rolling
Speaker 1: out found that about half the population expressed some level
Speaker 1: of vaccine hesitation. But despite all of these obstacles, West
Speaker 1: Virginia has become a model for other states when it
Speaker 1: comes to vaccination efforts. By mid February, it had already
Speaker 1: used up more than a percent of the vaccines it
Speaker 1: had been allotted, the first state to do so. And
Speaker 1: the reason West Virginia is so successful in vaccinating its
Speaker 1: population has to do with people like Drew Massey. I
Speaker 1: have mentioned first your Hometown Family Pharmacy. Drew is the
Speaker 1: clinical director for Fruit Pharmacies. It's one of West Virginia's
Speaker 1: biggest pharmacy chains, but it doesn't feel like it. Massey says,
Speaker 1: their locations feel like they're part of their local communities.
Speaker 1: For example, not that long ago Drew noticed someone else
Speaker 1: side the store whose car needed to jump. We had
Speaker 1: somebody in the parking lot. They were using their blinkers
Speaker 1: and their battery went dead. Totally nothing to do with
Speaker 1: the shot, nothing to do with pharmacy. Went and got
Speaker 1: the jumper cables, got my car and went over and
Speaker 1: jumped the guy. And I was laughing because I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, he's not going to think about that me
Speaker 1: necessarily when he talks about his his um COVID shot,
Speaker 1: but he will remember the guy that came out here
Speaker 1: in the parking lot and jumped his car for him,
Speaker 1: wearing wearing his pharmacy smock. Drew told me about the
Speaker 1: fruit store in Nitro, that's a town of seven thousand
Speaker 1: people where he's based. He says, people will happily wait
Speaker 1: hours for a prescription, just chatting with their neighbors. Literally,
Speaker 1: you can tell the people it would be three hours.
Speaker 1: They would get a root beer out of the cooler,
Speaker 1: they would sit down in one of the chairs. They
Speaker 1: used to have rocking chairs out front of the pharmacy,
Speaker 1: and they would stay there for two or three hours
Speaker 1: and they wouldn't care. Pretty much, everything I heard from
Speaker 1: Drew seemed to exemplify what I've heard about the best
Speaker 1: ways to address hesitancy. He gives people good information, but
Speaker 1: while listening to their concerns about vaccines. Instead of dismissing them,
Speaker 1: he addresses those specific concerns and all of that information
Speaker 1: is coming from someone in the community that the people
Speaker 1: Drew is talking with trust. I think a lot of
Speaker 1: times in the healthcare field, I think a lot of
Speaker 1: us get into the thing that we're providing information and
Speaker 1: it's either cold and stagnant, or it seems like it's
Speaker 1: coming from I'm up here and you're down here, and
Speaker 1: it's not really a conversation. It's more like I'm talking
Speaker 1: down to you. And I don't think that people key
Speaker 1: in on that. Nobody wants to be talked down to.
Speaker 1: West Virginia had some things going for it when it
Speaker 1: came to the vaccine rollout. It's got a small population
Speaker 1: about the size of Phoenix, Arizona, and as everyone you
Speaker 1: will ever talk to from West Virginia will tell you,
Speaker 1: it's a very community oriented place. Um when people say
Speaker 1: you have a tight knit community and everyone knows everyone
Speaker 1: in West Virginia, it's it's almost true. This is i'n
Speaker 1: I'm John Iron is a physician as well as the
Speaker 1: top health officer in the state. She is West Virginia
Speaker 1: born and raised. It's such a different feeling when you
Speaker 1: walk down the street people say hi to you and smile.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just a different vibe. You go through
Speaker 1: d C you smile and say hi, people look at
Speaker 1: you like you're weird. But here if you don't say hi,
Speaker 1: it's almost rude. At the start of the vaccine rollout,
Speaker 1: Iron says, West Virginia made a decision that would prove key.
Speaker 1: Every other state signed onto a federal program partnering with
Speaker 1: CBS and Walgreens to vaccinate nursing homes, West Virginia didn't.
Speaker 1: They went with the local guys like Fruth. But we
Speaker 1: don't have a wall Greens and CVS on on every corner.
Speaker 1: And so we felt like in West Virginia, since these
Speaker 1: long term care facilities and a fruit pharmacy or a
Speaker 1: locally owned pharmacy was our coming into a long term
Speaker 1: care facility, they knew the patients, um the records were
Speaker 1: already there. There was that trust built in with them.
Speaker 1: We could have this accomplished at a faster rate. Rather
Speaker 1: than getting into the nitty gritty with the federal pharmacy.
Speaker 1: This was important for a few reasons. First off, it
Speaker 1: was just a better way to get the vaccine to
Speaker 1: the many rural pockets of the state. And like I says,
Speaker 1: there was trust and logistics in place because these pharmacies,
Speaker 1: in many cases already visited facilities to take care of
Speaker 1: other medical needs or do COVID testing. The pharmacists giving
Speaker 1: out the shots were part of the community. One locally
Speaker 1: owned pharmacist, they weren't able to go in UM for
Speaker 1: that second round. They had a personal family emergency, so
Speaker 1: we offered to send in a backup team to do that.
Speaker 1: He said, no, UM, just give me one day to
Speaker 1: take care of this family business emergency. And he wanted
Speaker 1: to go into that UM long from care facility because
Speaker 1: him and his team they knew the patients. That's West
Speaker 1: Virginia for you. It is not just a job for them,
Speaker 1: It is family to them. They know these patients, they
Speaker 1: want to do what they know them by their first name.
Speaker 1: Even Fine says those relationships were key not just in
Speaker 1: getting the roll out to go smoothly, but also in
Speaker 1: making people comfortable opting into vaccination. Getting it into local pharmacies.
Speaker 1: You know, and we have community partners with churches, places
Speaker 1: where you can go and ask all the questions you
Speaker 1: need and get proper answers. Makes a big deal for
Speaker 1: people who are vaccine deliberating vaccine and different right now,
Speaker 1: people who don't trust the vaccine process, because they're going
Speaker 1: to trust asking those questions to you know, those people
Speaker 1: that they are most comfortable asking, you know, basic questions
Speaker 1: that either they're embarrassed to ask, they're not sure about
Speaker 1: because they hear people like me talking all the time.
Speaker 1: They don't know me. Though, Binds messaging pretty much mirrored
Speaker 1: what Drew had told me. She says it's important to
Speaker 1: take people's concerns seriously and to not force them to
Speaker 1: make a decision. She says she has a close family
Speaker 1: member who believes a lot of the conspiracies about vaccines,
Speaker 1: and she gets where people who believe that stuff are
Speaker 1: coming from. But I think West Virginia, because of their
Speaker 1: community partnerships, the trust that people have with their friends
Speaker 1: and family who have taken it, that's going to bode
Speaker 1: more well than with someone even like me telling you
Speaker 1: to take the vaccine. And it's true that almost everyone
Speaker 1: knows each other somehow through some way, and I think
Speaker 1: the more people that take it, the more people were
Speaker 1: going to have uptake it. Actually. Chris Martin is a
Speaker 1: professor at West Virginia University School of Public Health. He
Speaker 1: says all of the stuff happening at the community level
Speaker 1: in West Virginia was aided by a collector of statewide identity.
Speaker 1: For example, the state chose Courses Boss, the head of
Speaker 1: the university's Health Science Center, to be its coronavirus are.
Speaker 1: Everybody knows West Virginia University in West Virginia. If you
Speaker 1: drive here, it will take you about one minute to
Speaker 1: find somebody wearing the symbol of our university on a hat,
Speaker 1: on a T shirt. It's an enormous source of pride
Speaker 1: and trust. Chris also says the Universities College of Media
Speaker 1: did a focus group to help the state understand what
Speaker 1: kinds of concerns people had, and those focus groups clearly
Speaker 1: identified not surprisingly, but critically important for us to appreciate
Speaker 1: that a lot of West Virginians were worried about infringement
Speaker 1: on personal liberties and the freedom to choose. Well, we
Speaker 1: can address that. This was something both Drew and I'm
Speaker 1: emphasized in our conversations. You can't try and force someone
Speaker 1: to get back eccinated, especially perhaps in West Virginia. Chris
Speaker 1: actually wrote an op ed that was published in a
Speaker 1: few West Virginia publications that address this concern. In it,
Speaker 1: he does this really clever thing. He totally flips the script.
Speaker 1: He argues that not only is getting vaccinated a choice,
Speaker 1: it's an empowering choice. It's a decision you can make
Speaker 1: to help keep your friends and family safe, to help
Speaker 1: end the pandemic. This is a tool that you have
Speaker 1: should you choose, and it's totally voluntary. But should you
Speaker 1: choose to do this, you are playing an important role
Speaker 1: in getting us back to normal life. This all goes
Speaker 1: back to something I've heard over and over in reporting
Speaker 1: this series. Meet people where they are, address their concerns.
Speaker 1: Do not just shove facts in people's face and hope
Speaker 1: they make the right choice. So you first, you've got
Speaker 1: to listen. And the second opponent is who is going
Speaker 1: to be trusted is going to vary by community. Polls
Speaker 1: frequently find that people are more likely to trust their
Speaker 1: own healthcare providers, like doctors or pharmacists. And as a
Speaker 1: public health community, if we understand a lot of those
Speaker 1: specifics and understand the menu of common vaccine hesitancy or
Speaker 1: the basis of vaccine hesitancy, and so that we can
Speaker 1: respond in very specific ways to those specific concerns. From
Speaker 1: a person of trust, I think we can sway large
Speaker 1: numbers of people. That doesn't mean we can't have mass
Speaker 1: vaccination sites like the Javitson or New York City. That
Speaker 1: approach is fine for someone like me that totally trust vaccines.
Speaker 1: I would let anyone stick a vaccine needle on me
Speaker 1: at this point. But for the hesitant messaging coming from
Speaker 1: your church or vaccinations coming from your chatty neighborhood pharmacist,
Speaker 1: that goes a long way. You have to have the
Speaker 1: flexibility to address the realities of your community. I don't
Speaker 1: want to represent what West Virginia has done, as clearly
Speaker 1: it's not a template that you migrate somewhere else and
Speaker 1: apply without change. No matter where in the world you are,
Speaker 1: it always comes back to starting from a place of empathy.
Speaker 1: There's a very poor correlation between scientific measures and how
Speaker 1: people fear, get worried, get upset about a specific issue.
Speaker 1: This explains, for example, why when you're swimming at the
Speaker 1: beach and you heard that there was a shark attack
Speaker 1: in Australia the week before. In spite of all the
Speaker 1: evidence and your rational brain as you swim in the ocean,
Speaker 1: you're going to be thinking about a shark attack. Um
Speaker 1: and and it's not based on data. So the correlation
Speaker 1: between scientific measures and perceptions of risk what people get
Speaker 1: upset about, worried about, fearful of, or mistrust is very poor.
Speaker 1: From that, I think flows and understanding that we have
Speaker 1: to approach vaccine hesitancy with sensitivity as experts. Chris talks
Speaker 1: about vaccination in a way I hadn't heard before. He
Speaker 1: says he thinks a big part of why people feel
Speaker 1: so weird about it is that it's intimate. No, that
Speaker 1: might sound like a strange word, but I think that
Speaker 1: is the best word for it. Think about it. I
Speaker 1: am going to roll up my sleeve and somebody is
Speaker 1: going to inject a substance that you know, we can
Speaker 1: have a long conversation about. But that's a really complicated
Speaker 1: substance that you're injecting into me. That intimate act ultimately
Speaker 1: requires trust. There's only so far you can go with
Speaker 1: the data. At the end of the day, I've got
Speaker 1: to say, this person has my best interests in mind,
Speaker 1: they want to do what's right for me. I'm going
Speaker 1: to trust them, and I'm going to allow this to happen.
Speaker 1: I want to jump in here and say that in
Speaker 1: the series, I've included conversations with a lot of experts
Speaker 1: like Chris that preach empathy and understanding of people with
Speaker 1: concerns about vaccines. But this is still pretty novel thinking
Speaker 1: in the world of public health. I commonly hear the
Speaker 1: the answer to this is just give them the data.
Speaker 1: He thinks that a lot of the work that needs
Speaker 1: to be done is really on the side of public health,
Speaker 1: teaching physicians and nurses and public health experts how to
Speaker 1: talk to people. For example, he says, one issue is
Speaker 1: that there isn't always full transparency when it comes to vaccines.
Speaker 1: Part of the problem we have is a public health
Speaker 1: community is we want to be transparent, but we want
Speaker 1: to be transparent about only the positive things, and we
Speaker 1: struggle when it comes to those negative things. There isn't
Speaker 1: always robust conversation about things like side effects. One example
Speaker 1: that I use when I speak to primary care providers
Speaker 1: is I go through statements and I say, tell me
Speaker 1: this if this is a true or a false state.
Speaker 1: And the statement that I use is the US federal
Speaker 1: government currently financially compensates people for alleged adverse events from
Speaker 1: routine vaccinations. When I say that statement to primary care providers,
Speaker 1: most of them answer that this is false, that this
Speaker 1: is uh misinformation about vaccines. That's a true statement, that
Speaker 1: that program does exist. He's talking about the National Vaccine
Speaker 1: Injury Compensation Program, which we talked about in episode two.
Speaker 1: The gist here is that we're so scared people will
Speaker 1: get the wrong idea if we talk about any potential
Speaker 1: downsides to vaccines, that even doctors don't know this program exists.
Speaker 1: We have the best of intentions, but we fear that
Speaker 1: if people learn those things, they won't do what we
Speaker 1: want them to do, which is clearly vaccination. But the
Speaker 1: problem is, of course, in our age, especially with all
Speaker 1: the tools that we have, people will find things out.
Speaker 1: For example, when people discover the vaccine Injury Compensation program,
Speaker 1: they often wind up learning about it from anti vaccine
Speaker 1: groups like Various Data. They take this information out of
Speaker 1: context and cite it as evidence of all the ways
Speaker 1: of vaccines are unsafe. The fact that these things aren't
Speaker 1: openly talked about makes the messages those groups are selling
Speaker 1: more believable. It has confused people and undermine their confidence
Speaker 1: in what should be the trusted source of information, which
Speaker 1: is the public health community. Really not talking about the
Speaker 1: less pleasant side of vaccines more openly. It's just another
Speaker 1: form of dismissiveness, of talking down to people. We often
Speaker 1: treat people with vaccine concerns as anti science or uninformed.
Speaker 1: Chris says that's wrong too. A lot of people who
Speaker 1: are vaccine hesitant might be misinformed, but they also have
Speaker 1: often done a lot more research into vaccines than most people.
Speaker 1: We cannot equate anti vaccine with anti science. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you think about it, the scientific communities approach to
Speaker 1: vaccine hesitancy has actually been kind of unscientific. Studies of
Speaker 1: vaccine hesitancy show that more facts aren't likely to be
Speaker 1: the thing that persuades people to trust vaccines, and yet
Speaker 1: that is the mainstream approach to getting people to trust vaccines.
Speaker 1: When you go back, you will see that vaccine hesitancy
Speaker 1: has been present ever since we've had vaccines, and you
Speaker 1: can go back to the eight hundreds in fact and
Speaker 1: see that back then people will worried about vaccines. What's
Speaker 1: most interesting about this is that while vaccines have changed
Speaker 1: since the first vaccines were developed in the eighteenth century,
Speaker 1: the concerns really haven't. We have always been weird and
Speaker 1: irrational about vaccines, and we probably always will be. There's
Speaker 1: just something about them. Maybe it's that we give them
Speaker 1: to healthy people, or that there's the genetic material of
Speaker 1: a virus in them. Maybe there's just kind of an
Speaker 1: ick factor. But you don't see people for going colonoscopies
Speaker 1: because they're worried the doctor might plant a chip in
Speaker 1: them during the procedure, which by the way, is way
Speaker 1: more possible than somehow getting a chip into a vaccine.
Speaker 1: There is something in human nature that large numbers of
Speaker 1: people are going to be excessively worried about vaccines. That's
Speaker 1: just human nature. It's always been with us, and it
Speaker 1: will always be with us. A certain number of us
Speaker 1: may always fear vaccines. But what has slowly started to
Speaker 1: change over the past year is more people in positions
Speaker 1: of influence are starting to think the way Chris does.
Speaker 1: There is a lot of cause for optimism here in
Speaker 1: places like West Virginia and in minority communities We've seen
Speaker 1: evidence of strategies that seem to work, and as more
Speaker 1: Americans get vaccinated, they influenced their friends and family and
Speaker 1: neighbors to do the same. About half of Americans have
Speaker 1: received at least one COVID shot. Polling suggests enthusiasm for
Speaker 1: vaccines continues to grow as the number of vaccinated Americans
Speaker 1: does too. Things are looking up. So boy couldn't really
Speaker 1: in this series without also talking to the man who
Speaker 1: has become the face of the pandemic response in the US. Obviously,
Speaker 1: we're talking about Dr Anthony Fauci. Now, I didn't just
Speaker 1: want to talk with him because he's the top infectious
Speaker 1: disease expert in the country, or because the vaccines have
Speaker 1: been referred to as the Fauciocci, a nickname. He seems
Speaker 1: totally unimpressed by. Well, I don't know if that's an honor,
Speaker 1: but it's sort of unusual. Anything that gets people to
Speaker 1: get vaccinated is fine with me. If using my name
Speaker 1: is helpful, then go ahead and use my name. As
Speaker 1: vaccines have rolled out like many Americans, I couldn't help
Speaker 1: but notice Faucci's tireless public speaking efforts. He's doing Q
Speaker 1: and as with basketball superstar Steff Curry on Instagram, appearing
Speaker 1: on the news at night talking to black churches. I'm
Speaker 1: surprised no one has floated a conspiracy theory that Fauci
Speaker 1: has cloned himself because it feels like he's everywhere at once.
Speaker 1: But Fauci isn't just out there talking. He's listening. He's
Speaker 1: addressing the concerns of specific communities. He's tapping other trusted
Speaker 1: voices like Reverence to help get his message heard. In
Speaker 1: other words, he's doing a lot of the things we've
Speaker 1: talked about in this series and not something I've honestly
Speaker 1: not seen that many public health officials do. I wanted
Speaker 1: to get Fauci's take on doubts about vaccines and how
Speaker 1: he thinks we should be addressing it. Well, I think
Speaker 1: you have to first realize that the issue of vaccine
Speaker 1: assidency is not a unidimensional or monolithic issue at all.
Speaker 1: There are multiple different groups and subgroups who have concerned
Speaker 1: about vaccine that really different. This is why Fauci has
Speaker 1: been on such a diverse speaking tour the past few months.
Speaker 1: There are some people who just fundamentally or anti vaccine.
Speaker 1: I mean, it doesn't matter whether it's measles, whether it's
Speaker 1: you know, polio, or if it's COVID nineteen vaccines, they're
Speaker 1: inherently against vaccines. I want to put them aside because
Speaker 1: I think are a minor group. Then there are those
Speaker 1: who traditionally have problems not only with vaccines, but with
Speaker 1: the entire issue of the federal program that has to
Speaker 1: do with medicine. Many minority groups, particularly African Americans, understandably
Speaker 1: feel that way because traditionally, over the years, they have
Speaker 1: not been treated well by federally run health programs. So
Speaker 1: the first thing I do when I confront that is
Speaker 1: respect the fact that they have hesitancy and don't kind
Speaker 1: of blow it off as if why are you hesitant,
Speaker 1: and say I can understand really why you might be hesitant.
Speaker 1: Vauci also likes to tell people about all of the
Speaker 1: systems in place that are designed to prevent an unethical
Speaker 1: experiment like the Tuskegee syphilis study from happening again, or
Speaker 1: to prevent scenes from being authorized before it's clear that
Speaker 1: they're safe. And then they need to understand the independence
Speaker 1: and the transparency, for example, of the data and safety
Speaker 1: monitoring boards and the advisory committees to the Food and
Speaker 1: Drug Administration. So there's that whole group of people that
Speaker 1: once they understand that their hesitancy, at least I've seen,
Speaker 1: tends to diminish rather significantly. He says it's important to
Speaker 1: counter misinformation with facts like this, but also to tap
Speaker 1: trusted members of the community to help do it. I
Speaker 1: was on a on a town hall meeting yesterday with
Speaker 1: LLL cool J, you know, I mean, he is an
Speaker 1: extraordinarily popular personality, and we had a conversation about why
Speaker 1: it's important to get vaccinated. And then and the millions
Speaker 1: of people who are following that, I think I accomplished
Speaker 1: more good towards getting people vaccinated in that, you know,
Speaker 1: forty five minutes that I spent with him, then I
Speaker 1: could have by you know, preaching for days and days
Speaker 1: and days. Dr Fauci says he is worried though, about
Speaker 1: the role anti vaccine groups have continued to play. I mean,
Speaker 1: the people who make statements that are anti vacs based
Speaker 1: on no data, they're not responsible to anything. If they're wrong,
Speaker 1: nobody cares. Yeah, they're very rarely right, so it doesn't
Speaker 1: make any difference. You combat them by getting a message
Speaker 1: out in a way that really resonates with them. You know,
Speaker 1: I often joke around. You don't want, you know, a
Speaker 1: white guy in a suit talking to a fundamentally African
Speaker 1: American population who trust their own local leaders, their religious leaders,
Speaker 1: their sports figures, their their entertainment, uh heroes and heroins.
Speaker 1: You've got to get trusted messages to do that. Before
Speaker 1: we hung up, I asked Dr Faucci how he's feeling
Speaker 1: about how everything is going. You know, I'm a cautious optimist.
Speaker 1: I'm more I'm I describe myself as a realist. I
Speaker 1: have to say that's sort of how I'm feeling too.
Speaker 1: There are real hurdles facing getting everyone in America vaccinated
Speaker 1: against COVID. Anti vaccine groups are strong right now. There
Speaker 1: is still a fair amount of people on the fence
Speaker 1: about vaccines and a small number who don't want them
Speaker 1: at all. Variants threatened to make gaining population wide immunity
Speaker 1: especially challenging. We don't even know how many people will
Speaker 1: need to get vaccinated to get there, but more people
Speaker 1: are feeling confident about vaccines than they were a few
Speaker 1: months ago, and people like Dr Fauci are helping to
Speaker 1: change the conversation about this skepticism. They're working to earn
Speaker 1: people's trust. I don't think those efforts will go to waste.
Speaker 1: In this series, we have explored why so many people
Speaker 1: are skeptical of COVID vaccines. We followed fringe anti vaccine
Speaker 1: groups as they went mainstream, explored why Black Americans don't
Speaker 1: trust the medical establishment, and how even healthcare workers can
Speaker 1: be filled with doubt about vaccines once they come into
Speaker 1: contact with misinformation. All of this can paint a grim picture,
Speaker 1: but there's also another truth. More and more people are
Speaker 1: getting vaccinated every day, and we're getting closer and closer
Speaker 1: to something that looks a bit more like normal. With
Speaker 1: that in mind, we wanted to end this series on
Speaker 1: an optimistic note. We've spent a lot of time talking
Speaker 1: to people skeptical of the vaccines. I wanted to hear
Speaker 1: from people who put their faith in the shots. So
Speaker 1: I have um just parked my car here at here
Speaker 1: four at the Brooklyn Army Terminal, and uh, let's go
Speaker 1: talk to people who are getting vaccinated Windy. The terminal
Speaker 1: is a mass vaccination site in New York City. It's
Speaker 1: in a more industrial part of Brooklyn. I'm standing just
Speaker 1: outside the entrance, a site worker directs people through amainze
Speaker 1: of checkpoints to get vaccinated. But it's also probably the
Speaker 1: vaccination site with the prettiest view. There is this great
Speaker 1: view of the New York City skyline and the Statue
Speaker 1: of Liberty. This is a twenty four hour vaccination site.
Speaker 1: People stream in and out all day long, and I
Speaker 1: wanted to hear from them about why they decided to
Speaker 1: get the shot and what they're most looking forward to
Speaker 1: after getting it. I got my first tost I feel good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel fine. So far, so good. I got my
Speaker 1: second vaccination today. I feel great. I'm trying to catch
Speaker 1: up with my wife. She already has both, so I'm
Speaker 1: halfway there. We got vaccinated because we want to, you know,
Speaker 1: get back to normal. I just think it's important to
Speaker 1: have it so that everyone's healthy. I had no apprehension
Speaker 1: because I do not want to get the COVID and
Speaker 1: I want to see the city up and back up.
Speaker 1: It's like our ticket out of the pandemic. I want
Speaker 1: to see my coworkers in the office, and also just
Speaker 1: being able to go to restaurants and bars and be
Speaker 1: able to like mingle a little bit it and actually
Speaker 1: we have physical contact with people. I'm waiting to go
Speaker 1: to my first Major League Baseball game. I went to
Speaker 1: a game every year from seventy seven through I want
Speaker 1: to feel free, like I'm not the effort. It's going
Speaker 1: to happen this summer. I got vaccinated to in early April.
Speaker 1: I am really looking forward to getting on a plane
Speaker 1: back home to l A to see my grandma. I
Speaker 1: haven't seen her since February of She just turned ninety
Speaker 1: one in March, and I miss her a lot. But
Speaker 1: more than anything, I can tell you, without a doubt,
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to life after COVID nineteen. Doubt is
Speaker 1: written and reported by me Kristin V. Brown. So for
Speaker 1: Foreheads is our senior producer. Molly Nugent is our associate producer.
Speaker 1: Our theme was composed and performed by Hannis Brown. Special
Speaker 1: thanks to Randy Shapiro, Loura Carlson, and Bloomberg editors Rick
Speaker 1: Shine and tim Annette. Francesca Leevie is the head of
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Podcast. Be sure to subscribe to Prognosis if you
Speaker 1: haven't already, and if you like our show, please leave
Speaker 1: us a review helps others find out about the show.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening,