The articles for today are contemporary warnings. While there are appropriate areas for science to be political, such as FDA scrutiny, vetting medical schools for academic rigor, etc., we often consider politicizing anything to be bad. However, we do it all the time. In future classes, we might discuss how everything is political, meaning all our choices are motivated (unconsciously) by politics, specifically in regard to power dynamics. Let’s save that for a future discussion.
Also, these articles are short, so you ought to move onto the reading for Monday, 10/24.
Jesse Singal “Politicizing the Vaccination Fight Could Make Things Worse”
I’ll use paragraph numbers (para. #) for referencing important quotations from the reading.
- para #1 & #2: Notice that the date for this article is Feb. 5, 2015. This has nothing to do with COVID-19 but with the growing anti-vaxxer movement(s) in America culture.
- The author probably didn’t know how prophetic this would be.
- para #3: Singal points out that both the right and left are “susceptible to anti-vaccine hysteria” and worries that linking vaccines to political identity “could drive down vaccination rates.”
- para #5: The diversity of stereotypes of anti-vaxxers
- para #6: Idaho has a high vaccination rate and isn’t a left-wing state
- para# 7: “Simply put, liberals and conservatives appear to be approximately equally likely to contract anti-vaccination fever.”
- “people with strongly anti-vaccine beliefs are outliers when it comes to just about every demographic or ideological characteristic—they appear to formulate the belief and then build an ideologically tinged story around it.”
- para #8: Remember, this was from 2015 and warned about the dangers of politicizing vaccines.
- “The fact that people with anti-vaccine beliefs are spread across the ideological spectrum is actually a good sign.”
- para #9: “‘If you create the association between vaccines and identities in these groups, then you will make vaccination and vaccines [into this] very political conflict that doesn’t exist now’,” quoting Dan Kahan, a law and psychology professor at Yale.
- para #10: If a group begins to cling to a belief that matches their political identity, they’re more likely to use it as a membership marker; therefore, even lukewarm, on-the-fence anti-vaxxers will whole-heartedly jump on the anti-vaxxer bandwagon and solidify their beliefs.
- para #11: Vaccination information is “effective…from local, trusted figures rather than dictates issued on high from politicians or national-level health authorities like the CDC.”
- There is evidence of this (para. #3–not required reading). People trust their family physicians.
- para #12: “Kahan and Nyhan echoed similar themes—and both said that the number of hard-core anti-vaccination True Believers is actually quite low.”
- Again, this was from 2015!
This article, even though it came out 4 years before the COVID-19 pandemic, foreshadows the politicization of those vaccines.
Dorit Reiss “Politicization of Science”
I’ll use paragraph numbers (para. #) for referencing important quotations from the reading.
- This article is from June 14, 2021, when we thought the virus was about to be eradicated and let our guards down.
- para #1: “There is always a political element to public health decisions or, more broadly, public policy decisions that draw on science.”
- “politicization of the science around vaccines, for example, can lead to decisions that directly increase the rates and harms of diseases, with potentially deadly consequences.”
- para #2: “the Trump administration, concerned about the political impacts of the pandemic, put pressure on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to change not only the guidance it provided but also the scientific reports used by public health officials and other policymakers to make decisions.”
- Cites this source: “Trump Officials Interfered with CDC Reports on Covid-19”
- “But manipulating the scientific evidence on which decisions are made can undermine the ability of politicians of all orientations to make decisions that match values.”
- In fact, former President Trump told a group of supporters in August 2021 to get vaccinated, and they booed him.
- It’s hard to admit when you’re wrong, and it’s even more difficult to reverse a core political belief attached to your identity—even if your beloved leader tells you otherwise.
- para #3: “In the 1960s and 1970s, all states—with a variety of political views—adopted school immunization requirements for a variety of diseases.”
- para#4: “In the past few years, struggles around vaccine mandates have become politicized. In many states—including Maine, California, Colorado, Connecticut, and New York—votes on laws regarding school vaccine mandates were along party lines.”
- para #5: “many vaccines contain tiny amounts of aluminum salts…far smaller than what we are exposed to through food”
- para #6: “polls show that vaccine hesitancy is higher among conservatives.”
These two articles—one before COVID-19 and one afterwards—demonstrate how politicization of vaccines is not inherently a part of one ideology; instead, it has the potential to be embodied any political identity. The problem is when the anti-vaxxer identity becomes a part of a political identity because it reduces vaccine acceptance. It is extremely difficult for someone to shake a political belief. In fact, research shows that people are more attached to their political parties than their race or religion (not required reading). That’s commitment.
Also, if you drank from this…it makes no sense that you’re extremely hesitant about a vaccine approved through rigid peer-review and testing.
Next Class
We’ll move into early COVID-19 recommendations on Monday, 10/24. Go to Canvas for are next readings and the video. Then, on Wednesday, 10/26, we start our science fiction section!!! The Time Machine and Frankenstein are available online, but, as I’ve said from the beginning of the semester, Planet of the Apes isn’t available online, so I hope you already have the book.