Hesitancy

Vaccine Hesitancy has been present in the UK since the 1840 Vaccination Act, usually represented then by Anti-Vaccination Leagues. Hesitancy is currently regarded as a serious threat to world health, according to the World Health Organisation1.  A lot of this hesitancy is due to unreasonable concerns about safety data.  This was amplified when some erroneous research was published about MMR in 1998, see measles item from menu above.  That research has since been proven to be fraudulent; the Lancet paper has since been retracted and the researcher has been suspended from work in the UK.   However, persistent concerns have remained in the public psyche since that time, and they feed into concerns about other vaccines, particularly against Covid. 

David Hume, the Scottish philosopher believes that it is very difficult to argue with cases not based on reason: ”when reason has nothing to do with why people hold their beliefs, reason is powerless to change them2.   On the other hand, Dunning & Kruger published some very relevant research in 19993 (Figure 1).  They argue that there are 2 ways to deal with this situation:  firstly the people with low knowledge levels need education, and secondly (unlike Hume) the people with high knowledge(the experts) need to tackle the hesitants with low knowledge and move them across the curve in Figure  1.  The CDC seems to be applying Dunning & Kruger in persuading RF Kennedy Jr to revise his hesitancy on MMR vaccine to help in an outbreak of measles in Texas4.

Figure 1: the Dunning-Kruger effect

  1. Increases in vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks threaten years of progress, warn WHO, UNICEF, Gavi
  2. Julian Baggini : The Great Guide 2021, What David Hume can teach us about being human and living well. Princeton Press.
  3. Why People Fail to Recognize Their Own Incompetence – David Dunning, Kerri Johnson, Joyce Ehrlinger, Justin Kruger, 2003Kruger, J., & Dunning, D. (1999). Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one’s own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(6), 1121–1134. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1121
  4. Robert F Kennedy Jr offers qualified support for MMR vaccine as measles spreads across US and Canada | The BMJ