The anti-vax movement is as old as vaccinations themselves, and was spreading long before social media
- In the 19th century, anti-vax propaganda took the form of political cartoons, and while the medium has changed the message remains much the same
It was just before the turn of the 19th century that vaccinations were first put into use in England. There has been a constant stream of anti-vaxxers ever since, recent among them the lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jnr, a nephew of former United States president John F. Kennedy. Last month, Kennedy Jnr was banned from Instagram for sharing debunked Covid-19 conspiracy theories.
In 2019, the World Health Organization declared “vaccine hesitancy” one of the top global health threats. And then, at the beginning of 2020 … well, you know.
Last December, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro went on an exaggerated tirade against big pharma, suggesting that if “a woman starts to grow a beard or if a man starts to speak with an effeminate voice”, Pfizer would say, “‘We’re not responsible for any side effects.’” (In China, a kind of reverse-psychology rumour relating to masculinity claimed Sinovac jabs would actually add, ahem, an inch or two.)
These days, many people are wont to blame the internet for the circulation of such risible myths. But long before Covid-19 paranoia, in the decades after the polio vaccine was developed, in 1955 – and despite the disease being mostly contained because of it – rumours swirled that the vaccine was a ploy to make children infertile, especially those belonging to a particular religion or ethnicity.
In Kenya, it was Catholic bishops disseminating the idea, while in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Muslim religious leaders called the vaccine a “Western plot”. Such resistance prevented the eradication of the disease and wild strains of polio continue to cripple and paralyse children in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
