Culture Wars about Vaccines: Lessons from Larson's Book "Stuck"

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 DATE \@ "d MMMM yyyy" 12 April 2022
American Vaccines Cultural War: Lesson from Larson's Stuck
Introduction
Cultural wars are not a new phenomenon in American politics, academia, and public discourses. The latest, exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic and the accelerated production of vaccines, is the war over vaccines. While scientific research, including outcomes from vaccination on other diseases like polio and measles, has consistently shown that vaccines provide the most effective way to end the pandemic, they are strongly resistant in some sections of the American population. Anthologists like Heidi Larson have strived to highlight the cultural wars over vaccines. In her latest work, Stuck, Larsson illuminates several issues about the last year of culture wars about vaccines.
The Last Year of Vaccines Culture Wars
In a recent study following over 200,000 participants, each participant was found to have developed antibodies against the virus within weeks of vaccination. Despite such outcomes, many individuals are hesitant about the vaccine. According to the IMF, 10-20% of the population in the UK, 50% in Japan, and up to 60% in France are still reluctant to take vaccines (Robson). This hesitance has degenerated into a cultural war on social media where this population is brandished as selfish and ignorant. Given the extent of information access today, the challenge of vaccine hesitancy is not only a problem of the information ecosystem and, as shown so far, has little to do with vaccines themselves. This aspect is highlighted by developing the 5Cs model that seeks to address the problem. The five dimensions within this model indicate multiple factors influencing hesitance. Not all hesitant individuals hold the same beliefs, and neither do they have a political ideology or interest. However, the most common factor esta...