Anti-vaxxers: How to Challenge a Misinformed Movement

Written by Jonathan M. Berman

Narrated by Daniel Henning

In Anti-Vaxxers, Jonathan Berman explores the phenomenon of the anti-vaccination movement, recounting its history from its nineteenth-century antecedents to today's activism, examining its claims, and suggesting a strategy for countering them.

After providing background information on vaccines and how they work, Berman describes resistance to Britain's Vaccination Act of 1853, showing that the arguments anticipate those made by today's anti-vaxxers. He discusses the development of new vaccines in the twentieth century, including those protecting against polio and MMR (measles, mumps, rubella), and the debunked paper that linked the MMR vaccine to autism; the CDC conspiracy theory promoted in the documentary Vaxxed; recommendations for an alternative vaccination schedule; Kennedy's misinformed campaign against thimerosal; and the much-abused religious exemption to vaccination.

Anti-vaxxers have changed their minds, but rarely because someone has given them a list of facts. Berman argues that anti-vaccination activism is tied closely to how people see themselves as parents and community members. Effective pro-vaccination efforts should emphasize these cultural aspects rather than battling social media posts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Nov 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9781705274781

Reviews for Anti-vaxxers

[John Campione · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a thoughtful book that calmly presents arguments for vaccination as well as against the anti-vaxx movement. The author is careful to not offend and I think does a good job of laying out the facts.

[Anthony Matthews · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Jonathan M. Berman delineates the history of the anti-vaccine movement and explains how merely antagonising today's anti-vaxxers is counter-productive. Many of the anti-vaccine arguments used in the nineteenth century are still used today. If we want a healthier more productive society we need to present our own vaccine-positive narratives. In an age of unbounded, frequently harmful, conspiracies, 'Anti-vaxxers' makes essential reading.

[Andrés Castañeda · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The book presents important information, but it is not fully accurate. Especially when he tries to portraits and explains the motivation of some of the anti vaxxers. but living that aside what really concerns me about this book is that it doesn't provide a A single compelling arguments for the safety of vaccines. It explains very briefly, the FDA process for quality control, but it doesn't really explain how the clinical trials are made for vaccines. It doesn't explain how small the samples are in those clinical trials. It doesn't explain that in clinical trials of vaccine safety data and use pure placebos, but actually use other vaccines. Committing one of the biases that the author mentioned in his book. The author tries to provide a reason for why people do not vaccinate. But what he doesn't say, which is the most important thing, is that. People do not vaccinate because they think and have arguments to believe that vaccines are not safe. Instead of trying to show why this person or this documentary are wrong, he should have tried to explain why the argument of vaccines not being safe is wrong. The author should have provided good arguments for why vaccines are safe. I want to have those arguments to talk to anti vaxxers. I want to have those arguments to convince those who are hesitant. But the author doesn't provide enough reasons to believe why vaccines are safe. It is not enough to show why this person or that person are wrong. And even though he doesn't succeed on showing why, for example, Bob Sears is wrong in his argument. anyhow. The subtitle of this book is how to talk right with this movement of anti vaxxers, but at the end the author those him provide that how to.