A Biden administration that vowed to restore Americans’ faith in public health has grown increasingly paralyzed over how to combat the resurgence in vaccine skepticism.
And internally, aides and advisers concede there is no comprehensive plan for countering a movement that’s steadily expanded its influence on the president’s watch.
The rising appeal of anti-vaccine activism has been underscored by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s insurgent presidential campaign and fueled by prominent factions of the GOP. The mainstreaming of a once-fringe movement has horrified federal health officials, who blame it for seeding dangerous conspiracy theories and bolstering a Covid-era backlash to the nation’s broader public health practices.
But as President Joe Biden ramps up a reelection campaign centered on his vision for a post-pandemic America, there’s little interest among his aides in courting a high-profile vaccine fight — and even less certainty of how to win.
“There’s a real challenge here,” said one senior official who’s worked on the Covid response and was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “But they keep just hoping it’ll go away.”
The White House’s reticence is compounded by legal and practical concerns that have cut off key avenues for repelling the anti-vaccine movement, according to interviews with eight current and former administration officials and others close to the process.
There’s a pragmatic solution here:
1). Make vaccines free. The government pays.
2). Require vaccines for participation in publicly funded social programs. Schools. Social Security. Etc.
3). Allow doctor authorized health waivers to number 2.
4). Wait.
Most people will get the free vaccines either because they’re reasonable people, because the vaccines are free, or because they want government services. Those that don’t will die earlier. Eventually even stupid people will notice or they’ll be dead.
We are creatures of convenience, the way to make people do anything is by making it easier to comply than not to comply.
I got my first COVID vaccine and the booster at a drive-through clinic. My favorite part was the vibe there. We could finally do something to fight to get things back to normal and everybody was stoked.
Same, it was super chill. People were awesome and I never left my car.
We did too and I remember thinking a drive through shooting was about the most American thing ever.
1, 2, & 3 have already been going on for a long time with public schools (immunization records) for the most part. The determined anti vax parents will just find a Dr who will sign a waiver for their child so they don’t need to be vaccinated.
The problem is so much of anti vax today people will hunker down on their opinion of antivax no matter the truth or information presented to them. It’s the same reason people are supporting trump so much still bc they think it “triggers” the opposition so much.
I’m not sure if there is a way to turn things around especially when you have multiple prominent media members questioning vaccines that is constantly being parroted.
At this point anything tried they’ll cry about information being suppressed or why is the government trying so hard to do this must mean bad things.
If enough people don’t get the vaccine then a lot more then non vaccinated people will die.
Apparently you haven’t been paying attention to this whole COVID deal? And to the other comments point you need to meet a threshold in the population for a vaccine to do what’s intended.
Tbf, the majority of deaths were in red counties with far higher rates of antivaxers. The stupid people are dying at higher rates, but it’s infuriating that they’re taking smart people who are vaccine ineligible with them.
And regulate misinformation and disinformation, make social media culpable, they’ll quickly change their tune if $ are at stake. The current model wants engagement, and click bait misinformation does wonders for that.
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That’s a pretty genuine question you are sweeping under the rug. Let’s say theoretically a vaccine comes out that is undertested and has some very serious side effects, but still gets the job done. There is an extremely large financial incentive on behalf of Pharmaceutical companies to brush negative effects under the rug. Surely this can’t ever go wrong in the future.
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Do you believe there is sufficient regulation in place to prevent the situation described from happening? Do you really want the government policing something as broad as “misinformation”
Do you believe there’s sufficient regulation in place? Genuinely. Is that your fear? Have you tried looking into how a medical study is conducted and the regulations involved? It’s extensive. I’ve looked into it and I’m comfortable the experts are keeping things well regulated. And they create more regulations as they find they’re needed. Sometimes the misinformation isn’t trying to achieve what you think it is, what if the misinformation actually serves to remove the current regulations that work, what if it’s “big pharma” spreading the misinformation so as to cause regulations to be removed, or get a politician to head them they can manipulate to change things for them. Because all those anti vax news execs and politicians are vaccinated.
You’re comfortable, that’s great, you can make your own decisions. A lot of people believe that it’s entirely likely that big pharmaceutical companies are putting profit before human health. It happened with the rise of opiate based painkillers in the past couple decades, so it absolutely does happen, and most people in the system probably thought they were doing the right thing.
I for one am not comfortable relying on the government to prevent these monoliths from putting out products that harm people more than they help.
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The antivax base are billionaires though, who can afford to fund their poorer devotees through the worst of their government service martyrdom
Are vaccines (at least important ones) not free in some countries? WTF.
Think about the optics though: if the vaccines are free, WHY are they free?
The answer that group will give: Bill Gates is subsidizing his microchips so we will all be infected with them.
There’s no reasoning with anti-vaxxers, though. So why worry about how it looks to crazy people?
Because we’re trying to specifically reach those crazy people who reject even the mention of vaccines in a beneficial light. Everyone else is, for the most part, already vaccinated.
We should not reach those people, we should mock them. Demoralize them. Make them ashamed of their stupidity. You can’t reason with a crazy person, and attempts to do so legitimize their brand of crazy. They are too dangerous to be ignored, and too far gone to be patient with.
This is not an optics play, it’s a power play. When mandates were first issued to a lot of cops their conservative asses talked a big game about mass resignations and chaos in the streets, then the due date came and went and most just got vaccinated.
If it’s more convenient for them to do otherwise, you’ll end up with a large base of angry, disenfranchised and unvaccinated people that blames all their problems to the other part of the population.
Given how much weapon hoarders tend to fit in that category already, I would advocate towards a more soft approach.
Doesn’t work. Did early deaths stop all the smokers?
is a problem, because it gives the government more reach to damage people with mistakes. What if the republicans (whom, I assume, you think evil) get in? How much of their policy detail would you like mandated (“for the public interest!”) and would you prefer to be able to say, I believe that’s harmful in my situation, so I chose to do differently. IMHO that sort of requirement that you’ve suggested should be very rare indeed - if ever. And wrt COVID specifically, retrospectively the vaccine results were much more muddy than we’d hoped, rather (in my eyes) proving the point.
I like, and 3) whenever something approaching 2) is implemented.
Yeah forcing mandatory injections is definitely a really cool thing for a government to do. Can’t wait to see where that goes.
We already do it for school children
yeah don’t agree with it
Ok, have fun with stuff like measles smallpox and polio
Obviously this isn’t ethical or practical, but it would result in net fewer deaths than doing nothing.
Something something slippery slope something something life starts at conception something something all life has value something something murder bad.
apart from that I mostly agree
15% of US adults are unvaccinated. No, killing them all would not result in fewer deaths. You are a crazy person.
15% of us adults are not prominent anti vaxxers.
Many people cannot be vaccinated for legitimate reasons. They’re fine.
It’s the people who go on YouTube or TV or a high office spreading anti vaccine misinformation that need to go in the ground.
You are crazy. Saying stupid shit, even if it’s harmful, is not and should not be punishable by death.
Nah. If we just kill them, and a lot of the Republican party, the world gets markedly better.
We could make a lot of progress on climate change, too!
They’re bad people who want to kill me and my loved ones. I don’t see why I should treat them as anything less than an existential threat.
You are too far gone. can’t believe people like you exist