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When it comes to vaccines - why are people talking about 'Untrustworthy data' ?

Vaccinations are experimental and based on incomplete or biased data

One of the strongest predictors of vaccine hesitancy is people’s general mistrust of authorities and those perceived as working for them.

The distrust is often expressed in claims about vested interests, or it reveals itself as a lack of knowledge about vaccinations.

It can be directed towards different targets, for example:

  • Health and medical professionals and organisations.
  • Pharmaceutical companies.
  • Governments.
  • Scientists.
  • The ‘medical establishment’.

It can also be directed towards the scientific process and to vaccines themselves.

Although distrust is related to conspiracist beliefs, arguments framed within this attitude root are distinct in that the reasons for distrust may be due to a person’s lived experience (e.g., having experienced discrimination in the healthcare system). Arguments stemming from distrust also need not relate to conspiracies. Instead, distrust often manifests as vague statements, full of suspicion and uncertainty, with conclusions drawn based on the source of the message.

This theme portrays vaccines as suspect for a number of reasons, which include:

  • Claims that they are experimental, new, and untested, with unknown long-term side effects
  • Concerns that they were fast-tracked such that the population or certain ethnic groups are unwilling guinea pigs in an experiment
  • Doubts of their efficiency, often due to misunderstanding of science and statistics
  • Belief that they cause harm

Is there any truth in it?

Worries about the vaccine development process are understandable. Just like all medical therapies, vaccines involve an initial experimental stage, which is then followed by further testing and validation for safety and efficacy. Sadly, scientists do not always do a good job at explaining these processes and their results in ways that are easy to understand. It is good to be curious about this process and ask questions to understand it.

What could I say to someone fixed on this belief?

Dialogue between patients and healthcare professionals is most productive if it is guided by empathy, and an opportunity for the patient to affirm the reasons underlying their attitudes and to express understanding for that. That’s why it is important to understand the attitude roots behind people’s overt opinions. To affirm a person’s underlying attitude root does not mean we need to agree with the specifics of their argument. For example, we can acknowledge that:

Worries about the vaccine development process are understandable. Just like all medical therapies, vaccines involve an initial experimental stage, which is then followed by further testing and validation for safety and efficacy. Sadly, scientists do not always do a good job at explaining these processes and their results in ways that are easy to understand. It is good to be curious about this process and ask questions to understand it.



Having set the stage through this (partial) affirmation, we can then proceed to correct the patient’s particular misconception.

Vaccines go through multiple rounds of testing in clinical trials to demonstrate safety and efficacy before they are approved by national medical and health regulators. Regulators such as the MHRA in the UK review all the data submitted from these clinical trials before they authorise any vaccine. They will request more data before making this decision if they believe it is incomplete or biased.

Regulators also use research tools to assess the risk of bias in research when reviewing the evidence. Even after they are approved, health regulators continue to monitor safety for all vaccines, with reporting sites for side effects that are public and open to anyone in many countries.

This ongoing monitoring means that there is available data from millions of people that give a complete, longitudinal picture that vaccines are safe and effective.

Where can I find out more?

Additional information: 

Academic references:

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MISINFORMATION & DISTRUST

One of the strongest predictors of vaccine hesitancy is people’s general mistrust of authorities, pharmaceutical companies, scientists, the medical “establishment”, and scientific research methods and findings. The distrust is often expressed in claims about vested interests or a lack of knowledge about vaccinations. It can be directed towards different targets, for example, health and medical authorities or professionals, pharmaceutical companies, the government, and the scientific process and vaccines themselves.

 

Although distrust is related to conspiracist ideation, arguments framed within this attitude root are distinct in that the reasons for distrust may be due to a person’s lived experience (e.g., having experienced discrimination in the healthcare system). Arguments stemming from distrust also need not relate to conspiracies. Instead, distrust often manifests as vague statements, full of suspicion and uncertainty, with conclusions drawn based on the source of the message.