June 15, 2021 • 46 mins
When it comes to vaccines, spreading truth, facts, and evidence are urgent public health priorities -- and so is confronting the anti-vaccine movement.
This week, Chelsea sits down with Heather Simpson, a mom and former anti-vax influencer-turned vaccine advocate. She also talks with vaccine researcher, advocate and Co-Director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital and Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, Dr. Peter Hotez, about how we can fight the powerful tide of disinformation, overcome distrust, and help get more people the facts they need to make the right health decisions for themselves and their families.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Chelsea Clinton, and this is in fact a
podcast about why public health matters even when we're not
in a pandemic. Today we're talking about vaccines, well more
specifically about the toll the anti vaccine movement has taken
(00:20):
on our public health. Let's start with some basics. Vaccines
are one of the most successful public health interventions in
human history. They've saved millions, if not billions, of lives.
They've protected generations of children in the US and around
the world from deadly diseases. And right now, the surest
path out of the COVID nineteen pandemic is to vaccinate
(00:41):
as many people in as many places as possible. But that,
of course requires wide scale public trust and participation, two
things that the anti vaccine movement has been working really
hard to undermine. The anti vax movement has been growing
in darkness for decades, and now they've captured this hot
light as they weaponized fear and uncertainty, dis doubt, and
(01:03):
spread lies about the COVID nineteen vaccines. Their efforts have
been amplified by public figures who use their platforms to
elevate debunked conspiracy theories, and all of this has made
much much worse by lack of accountability from social media
and technology platforms themselves. The anti VACS movement is hurting
our ability to recover from this pandemic, and it could
(01:25):
affect which vaccines this generation of kids received well beyond
COVID nineteen. So what can we do? How do we
fight the powerful tide of disinformation that began long before
this pandemic and has unfortunately gained momentum during it. How
do we overcome mistrust around vaccines and help more people
get the facts that they need to make the right
(01:46):
health decisions for themselves and their families. Well, to answer
those questions, I'm talking with two people who are confronting
these challenges head on. Later, we're here from my friend
Dr Peter Hotez, a vaccine researcher and advocate and co
director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children's Hospital.
But first I'm talking with Heather Simpson, a mom who
fell down the anti vax rabbit hole and then pulled
(02:08):
herself back out. Hey, there's an activist, a freelance writer,
and a mom to three year old daughter. Hers is
a story of how effectively the anti vax movement and
traps people, and a reminder that it's possible, if not
always easy, to change minds. I started our conversation by
asking Heather how she went from someone who had always
gotten vaccinated then anti vax social media influencer. My mom
(02:38):
vaccinated all of us. It wasn't until I was eighteen
that I had the choice to get my meningitis shot,
and I hate needles, so on that alone, chose not
to get it going into college, which was stupid. I
did get the t DAP in two thousand fifteen. I
got the flu shot for school. It wasn't until me
(02:59):
and my husband really started trying to have our daughter
that we were like, should we do the schedule? I mean,
we haven't given it much thought. And a documentary series
popped up I think on Facebook as an ad, and
it was nine hours of just pure propaganda. It was
doctor after doctor blaming everything under the sun on vaccines.
(03:22):
So by the time you're done watching all nine hours
of terror, you are not going to want to injectricate.
I mean I was terrified. I was thinking, if we
inject Charlotte, she will die in her sleep that night.
The strength of the fear that I had was so
so strong. I was ashamed a little bit, a little
(03:43):
bit embarrassed about it because my mom groups were so
pro vaccine, so I didn't really tell anybody. But when
she was about eighteen months old, I decided to start
talking about it casually on the internet on Facebook, and
it just took off. And I didn't realize that they're
worth thousands and thousands of anti vas moms on Facebook
(04:04):
that had all found each other, and that there's this huge, huge,
growing community and they just accepted me as one of them,
and it just took off from there. How did that
make you feel when you were accepted by the anti
vaccine mom groups. I was living in West Texas in
the oil Field area, and my husband was at work
(04:26):
all the time, and so I was caring for a
child on oxygen at the time. She's okay now, and
I was just desperate for a community. So it was
just the perfect timing to have this community crowd around
me and take me in. I can see how anybody
would fall prey to that community, and they are really
good people. It's hard to see them for what they're doing,
(04:49):
which is pushing anti vax propaganda. I saw them as
my friends and to without the Facebook algorithm recommending that
first long look into vaccine conspiracies and anti vaccine propaganda,
do you think you ever would have found it? No,
(05:10):
I don't think so. I think we would have probably
vaccinated our child. So now fast forward a few years,
your daughters a few years old. What then changed? Why
did you then decide to start vaccinating your daughter? Around
this time last year, I had to have surgery for endometriosis,
(05:30):
and I reached out to my community and they basically
were saying, well, you're taking the lazy way out, and
you just need to eat better and the endometrioss would
go away. And I just felt so much shame and guilt,
and I went to my doctor and she said, no,
you need the surgery, and I just burst into tears.
And I realized that moment that the anti vacs world
(05:52):
thinks they can play God in a way like if
you eat healthy enough, and if you don't vaccinate, and
if you take all the right supplements, you will never
encounter an illness. That kind of started tilting me towards
Western medicine. And I started to speak out and I said, hey,
nobody is forcing your kids to go to public school
(06:13):
don't public schools have the right to mandate vaccines if
you're not being forced to go. And it's really hard
to say that one vaccine hasn't saved at least one life.
I think that would be impossible to say that. And
because I had said even that that one vaccine saved
one life, I was ousted by the community. There was
(06:34):
no room for doubt or questioning or the middle ground.
It's a cult. It's a cult. I was ousted. I
ended up in the ear with a panic attack because
I had hundreds of people in that group just shaming
me and attacking me, and I was horrified. And then
COVID hit and I realized all of them are also
(06:55):
anti maskers, and they also deny that COVID is real.
And then I started to realize, oh my gosh, these
people are real conspiracy theories. And I just was like WHOA.
And I just took a step back, and I started
reading books with actual science, like by Dr Paul Offit
and finding the scientific facts that I can't get around.
(07:18):
Before you left or were expelled from the anti vaccine
mom groups, what were those early conversations around COVID, Like
basically that somebody owned the patent to the virus years ago.
I don't know who it was, somebody big, maybe Bill Gates,
and that this was planned to reduce the population. So
(07:40):
that was the global conspiracy, that this is a man
made virus used to kill off everybody and to gained
mind control of everybody through submission through masks. A lot
of these people were deeply into q and On. I'm
sure you've heard of q and on. Oh yes, my
mother is a prominent part of the que and On
narrative makes it sound like there's coherent's there. I don't
(08:01):
really think it's a narrative, but whatever the chaos of
it is. Yes, yeah, it's crazy. Another I think one
of the things that is concerning from a public health
standpoint is when you were talking earlier about how you know,
when you were eighteen and you made one decision to
not get vaccinated because you were scared of needles. There
has to be space to talk to people about really
(08:24):
understandable questions and concerns like it's going to hurt, is
it really worth it? Or what do all these different
vaccines do? How do I think about them? Why do
some vaccinations really need to be administered very early in
someone's life, and some require boosters and some don't like
since you now have have really lived in the hardcore
(08:48):
like anti vax online world and now don't have to
separate out the space the compassion for questions that I
think are important for parents and people to feel like
they can ask, and then also try to help limit
the space for the questions that are just not rooted
in science, not rooted in reality, and are really intended
(09:12):
to find people like you who are vulnerable a few
years ago to bring them into the conspiracy. How do
you think we do that well? When I was introduced
to the fact that many of the studies that show
aluminum in the brain that antivactors like to post that
aluminium in the brain, if you read the fine print,
(09:33):
is environmental aluminum. It's not the aluminum salts and vaccines
that blew my mind. And once I had those facts
that I couldn't argue myself out of, I held onto
those when I went to vaccinate my daughter. Those are
what did it for me. I mean, and I had
friends pouring into me and talking to me and just
empathizing with me, But it was those scientific facts that
(09:55):
I could not get around. And so I have a
spectrum of anti vaxtors. You have the vaccine hesitant who
maybe vaccinated their kids, but they're hesitant about the COVID vaccine.
And then you have the scared people, which is where
I was. And then you have the X factors, and
that's really the critical group because they feel that something
(10:17):
happened right after the child's vaccine. Maybe the child stopped
talking a few days later, but they weren't paying attention
to all of those signs leading up to it. And
if the doctor would sit down and notebook it out
about all the signs that they may have missed leading
up to that, and get genetic testing for maybe genetic
markers that show up for autism, and just walk that
(10:38):
mom through it to show her that it was not
the vaccine that would keep a pro vax er, but instead,
if you shoot her out the door, she's gonna go home,
she's gonna google what happened to my kid, and she's
going to find this world of antivactors and join drinks.
And so it is about finding what happened quote unquote
to their child. Maybe nothing happened, but talking that mom
(11:01):
through it and getting her to the other side of it,
so that you keep her on the pro vaccination side.
A lot of this lies in the pediatrician's hands. And
you were mentioning how important your conversations with your doctor
were around your endometriosis diagnosis. Yes, Unfortunately, when I was
pregnant and I refused the te dat, my doctor looked
(11:23):
at me and said, oh, no, you're not one of
those crazy anti vactors, are you. That's not helpful, And
then he never explained the necessity of the vaccine. He
just brushed me off, and so did my pediatrician. I
tried to talk to her about my concerns. My trust
and doctors majorly fell when my daughter had sleep at
me up, but they wouldn't listen to me, and I
(11:45):
was begging them, saying, she's not sleeping normal, something is happening.
We have an outlet monitor and it was going off
every night. Her oxygen was dropping in her sixties. I
was begging doctors for two months, please listen to me,
something's wrong, and they were saying, you're just as sweet,
new nervous mom, honey, just sleep, wake up every few hours,
see if she's purple, and go back to sleep. Good Lord,
(12:06):
that's what someone actually told you. Yeah, that's what they
actually told me. And so two months later, after begging
and begging, I finally got a sleep study and I
got in with the sleep doctor and she said, honey,
your baby is fine. And she said, but you know
what it said, your new nervous mom. I will grant
you the sleep study just to calm you down. And
so we got to sleep study at two months old.
(12:27):
And moderate sleep at MIA is forty events per hour,
and she clocked in at one forty four. That's record breaking.
She almost had a scientific study on her. And they
transferred her to I see you the next morning so
that she wouldn't die. So that was where my distrust
and doctors started. That's understandable, Wather, That's completely understandable. How
(12:49):
did you, then, though, find doctors who you could trust?
I realized that not all doctors are the same. So
when we moved to Dallas, I found people that listened
to us and took us seriously. And now she's with
a great heart doctor, a great pediatrician. She's with everyone
that she needs to be with, and we trust them wholeheartedly.
(13:14):
We'll be right back. Stay with us. What would you
like to see happen more of and maybe the training
of pediatricians and other people in medicine to be able
(13:37):
to have conversations with, you know, vaccine hesitant parents or
even parents who are further on that spectrum that you
talked about. You may be rejecting vaccines today, but also
really do want to make the best in the right
choices for their kids health. So those facts that I'm
holding onto, I'm working on a list of ten of them.
(13:59):
I think if pediatricians can be armed with those facts
that anti factors cannot are you or feel their way
out of. And that's even on a pamphlet or something
that would do so much good. If I had known
those facts when Charlotte was two months old, I probably
would have vaccinated her. That would have calmed all my concerns,
all my fears. And so I'm training doctors to be
(14:21):
armed with those facts. But also there's a story of
a little boy that had never had a seizure in
his life, and then he got a seizure right after
his shots, and so the mom took the little boy
in and the doctor said, there's no way it's from
the shots. So she took the little boy to the
ear and they said it's no way from the shot.
So you have this mom who feels insane, she feels
(14:42):
gas lit, she feels crazy, and we know that febrile
seizures are possible from a shot and they're not dangerous.
But had the doctor said, hey, maybe it is, but
you know what, it's okay. Your baby is safe and
we will watch your baby on the next vaccine. I
will hold your hand and I will be there and
we will be on guard and we can get through
this together. But your baby is okay. That would have
(15:05):
built that trust, that acknowledgement that hey, that sometimes does
happen and it's okay. But to gaslight a mom, she
just joined the ranks of the anti vaxxers. So teaching
doctors that anti vaxxer moms are just trying to save
their kids, they're not crazy. And if doctors can get
to the bottom by offering an explanation other than vaccines
(15:27):
about what they perceive happened, they will keep them as
a pro vax er. And I think that's the biggest
thing keep them from going home and googling their way
into the anti vax cult. Listen to what their concern
or concerns are and get to the bottom of it,
because they're going to go off the deep end if
you don't. I am curious though, if other parents, moms
(15:49):
you have reached out to you though over the last
year to say I'm having similar questions. I think maybe
I should vaccinate my kids. I just don't know what
advice do you have. Has that happened it has. We've
actually convinced a few parents to vaccinate. They needed to
see somebody that was so anti vacs turn because if
(16:12):
somebody was so anti vacts and they were able to turn,
there must be a good reason why they turned. I
can do this too, And so we have seen people
start to vaccinate their kids and get the COVID shot,
which is really exciting because I truly believe the COVID
shot is the way to end the pandemic. I agree.
Have you had any conversations with people who are not
(16:36):
vaccine hesitant or not anti vactor but are questioning this vaccine. Yes,
And the main concern that I've found is how the
COVID vaccine relates to fertility. That is by far the
main concern that rumor has run rampant on Facebook. You know,
I'm not even allowed to visit my friend who believes
(16:58):
that because I'm vaccine needed, I will rub off and
cause her to be infertile just by being next to
her because of the completely not rooted in fact theory
that the vaccine will shed that you have been vaccinated
and you can like shed the virus. It's like me
drinking coffee and my caffeine rubbing off on you. It's
just not going to happen, and that these people believe it.
(17:22):
And so you have this whole group of people that
are starting to segregate away from society from the vaccinated people.
They're breaking up with their husbands and their boyfriends because
their boyfriends are getting the vaccine and they will not
touch them. This is going to become huge. They don't
want to be around these people. It's it's about to
get really bad, in my opinion, and it's because these
(17:45):
Facebook groups are allowed to form, or people are saying, oh,
I felt tired after the vaccine. Oh my mom had
a stroke twenty seven days later after the vaccine. Oh, well,
of course it was from the vaccine. They are allowed
to put every single thing. Oh I had a hiccup
for the vaccine. I've never hiccup before. Them must be
from the vaccine. Everything is being posted to these groups,
(18:06):
and these groups are being allowed to run crazy on Facebook,
and people are sharing them like crazy, So people that
were going to get the shot are suddenly not. And
it just there's no control over these groups, and it
is getting misinformation into every corner of Facebook and people
are reading it, and then they were going to get
the vaccine and now they're not. Is there anything else
(18:26):
that you'd like to share, any advice that you would
have for anyone listening to us about how to protect
themselves against misinformation to be able to make important health decisions,
including around vaccines and vaccinations for themselves and their kids.
Just be so careful when you're on Facebook and you
(18:46):
read well, this happened right after my kid got a vaccine.
I was supposed to get my flu shot one morning,
and I canceled because I wasn't feeling good, and later
that day I started spitting up blood. It was a
bad situation, but you can bet you that the antivactors
would have blamed it on the flu shot. There was
a man that was going to get his kid vaccinated,
(19:07):
but the line was too long, so he left and
he took his kid home to take a nap, and
the kid died of sids in their sleep. And had
they gotten their vaccines, they would have blamed the vaccines.
So you have to understand reading these these this than
that about the COVID shot, There's a lot more to it,
So you just have to take it with a grain
of salt if you're going to go into the dark
(19:27):
interwebs of Facebook groups, but I would steer clear and
just follow the CDC, the f d A, real scientists online,
Like just pack your Facebook and your social media and
your Twitter full of scientists and doctors and arm yourself
with that so that you are able to fight off
any lie that is going to come at you. And
I know I'm being harsh on Facebook, but I do
(19:49):
believe they have a huge responsibility right now and it's
a life or death issue in my opinion. My last question,
when you were not vaccinating your daughter, you're not vaccinate yourself.
Did you have family or friends who tried to reach
out to you, talk to you about why you were
in that place, talk to you about vaccines and vaccinations
(20:10):
and did any of that work or or no? It did.
My mom would always say, I really think she's going
to be fine. Just get the tennis shot, like you
and your brothers were fine. I think you're going to
feel so much better after you get the shot. You're
not gonna have to worry about tennis. And then one
of my best friends was always like, Okay, why are
you scared, and this is why you shouldn't be scared.
(20:34):
Listening but also not empathizing to the point where you're
giving in is good, but also being loving and listening
and understanding that they are coming from a spirit of fear.
They are truly trying to protect their kid. I was
truly scared that Charlotte would die if she was vaccinated.
That was not me trying to ruin the world. That
(20:56):
wasn't me trying to ruin her community. I was just
trying to save my baby. So knowing that going into it,
these are people too, the other just confused. They've got
the wrong information. Father. Thank you so much, Thank you
so much for having me. You can find more on
Heather Simpson, read her writing, and check out her podcast
(21:19):
it Back to the Vacs dot com. I'm a huge
fan of Dr Peter Hotez. He's a fellow vaccine enthusiast,
and I certainly turn up the volume every time I
see him on TV, which these days is quite often
sporting his signature. Bote Peters the co director of the
Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children's Hospital, and he's
(21:41):
the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at
Baylor College of Medicine. He's written several books and one
of my favorites, Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel's Autism. He
draws on his experiences as a pediatrician, vaccine scientist, and
autism dad to examine and answer the questions and also
to refer cute the concerns of the anti vaccine movement.
(22:06):
I do first want to ask you how you got
interested in vaccines, in vaccine development. Well, ever, since I
was an adolescent, I actually wanted to study tropical diseases.
You know, I was a nerdy kid with fascination with
maps and microbes, so tropical diseases became the confluence of
the two. And then when I entered into the m
(22:29):
d pH d program in New York at Rockefeller and
Cornell in I really wanted to develop a vaccine for
para parasitic disease because nobody was even thinking about it
at that time. And the seventies, the revolution of molecular
biology was taking place, but everyone was focused on diseases
of the West or diseases of the United States, And
(22:50):
I thought, we need to start applying that whole molecular
biology revolution towards eukaryotic pathogens that effect low and middle
income countries, and vaccinations were, without question the most powerful
means to do that. So most people now know us
about our COVID nineteen vaccine, But the truth is, most
(23:10):
of my life has been devoted to vaccines for neglected
tropical diseases that no one else will take on because
their disease of the poorest of the poor. And so Peter,
when you talk about the vaccines that you're working on
now that haven't received the same attention or investment because
of who is affected. Who is affected are not in
(23:34):
the thousands, right, We're still talking about diseases that affect
millions of people around the world. Yeah, that's right, Chelsea.
So you've got seven hundred and fifty million people now
who live below the World Bank poverty figure of a
dollar nine d a day, and when you look, every
single one of them is affected by a parasitic infection
or a neglected tropical disease that led by diseases like hookworm,
(23:58):
AND's just a semiasis and scaby and methatic file ariasis
and river blindness, and and this is one of the
challenges is not only are there scientifically complicated questions, but
we don't really have ways to finance these vaccines. We
need as much innovation in the finance and business sector
as we do in the science. I still think a
(24:19):
lot of people don't understand that why the development of
the COVID nineteen vaccines felt very fast, and parts of
it were really accelerated by enormous amounts of investment. It
was really enabled by decades of pre existing research. Yeah,
it's absolutely right. So when stars hit in two thousand
(24:40):
to two thousand three coming out of southern China affecting Toronto, Ontario,
and then you had Mayors Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome in
two thousand twelve, we saw the writing on the wall
and we said, we've had two major coronavirus epidemics slash
pandemics in the new century. I'm sure we'll have another
one soon, and we start a partner with an excellent
(25:01):
virology group at the New York Blood Center led by
Shibu Jiang and Lan ying Do. And those vaccines were orphaned,
just like our vaccines were, and so we began partnering,
wrote to the n i H it got supported, and
we started developing Stars and Mirrors vaccines. That was ten
years of work that made it possible for all the
other COVID vaccines. And I tell that story because it
(25:25):
wasn't for that, we would not be moving so quickly.
And part of the problem was when the c e
O s sent out their press releases. You know how
it is. They're sending out their press releases not for
you or for me, but for their shareholders, and they
tended to want to spectacularize their accomplishments. And I understand that,
but I think inadvertently it gave the public the impression
(25:46):
that somehow there must be something unsavory about these vaccines
because they have popped up out of nowhere. And then
of course calling an operation warp Speed, which was an
awful name, didn't help any Peter, you and I have
now talked for years about the difference between I think
really important questions that people can ask about vaccines and
(26:07):
vaccination and then the whole universe of real disinformation attacks
against the integrity of science. And so I'm just curious,
reversing back to night when you were embarking on your
m d pH d work, were you aware of the
(26:29):
anti vaccine movement at the time. Did you have any
inkling that the anti vaccine movement might affect your work
in your life in any way? Not back then. You know,
I want to be part of that because the impact
was so powerful, you know, when I got my m
d and PhD, I never thought that there would be
(26:52):
an anti science monster that was brewing at that time.
And I never thought I'd have to devote a whole
segment of my career to going up against anti vaccine,
anti science movements. And I do it because again, I'm
well positioned for it, not only being a vaccine scientist
for so many years, but also being a parent of
four adult kids now and Rachel who has autism and
(27:15):
intellectual disabilities. Because so much around the anti vaccine movement
that sprang up in the early two thousands was around
false assertions that vaccines cause autism. And I wrote the
book called Vaccines did not cause Rachel's autism, which kind
of made me one of the public enemy number ones
against from the anti vaccine movement. And I did it,
(27:36):
you know, deliberately, because I thought, look, I have a voice.
I've been able to use it to get people to
care about neglected tropical diseases and helped to build that ecosystem.
But I thought, you know, here, I am a vaccine scientist,
a pediatrician, paraffin adult daughter for with autism. If I
don't do it, who will? And I've paid a pretty
steep price for it. But I'm glad I'm doing it
(27:57):
because I do think it's had some effects. I'm positive
benefits as well. Peter, this deep price you've paid has
been getting measured in just the really awful hate that
you've received. Seems at the moment kind of ceaseless, like
every day you still seem to be under attack. There's
now been this dramatic expansion and I call it the
(28:19):
triple headed monster that I'm up against. And the three
components of well one are They're they're no longer homegrown groups.
There well organized, well funded groups that monetize the Internet,
and the Center for Contering Digital Hate it's amazing. We
have to have an organization called the Center for Countering
Digital Hate now estimates that those groups now a fifty
(28:41):
eight million followers on various social media platforms, So that's accelerated.
And then you also have the Russian government has been
using this as a major wedge issue to destabilized democracies,
not only the US but elsewhere. And if that weren't
complicated enough, you have in here in Texas, the t
vaccine movement was starting to lose steam in terms of
(29:02):
the autism links, although that thread continues. So what they
did was they took on a political dimension around here
in Texas when they somehow managed to align themselves with
the Republican Tea Party down here and under this sort
of fake banner of health freedom, medical freedom. And now
we're seeing that full on. It's become a mainstream of
(29:23):
political extremism on the far right, and white nationalist groups
have adopted the anti vaccine, anti science movement. So the
scariest part from me now is I get these regular
emails and threats saying that an army of patriots is
going to come hunting me down, and I'm thinking, well,
sometimes you just have to take a step back and
(29:44):
just try to calm yourself. I said, well, why did
they need a whole army of patriots? I would think
with just me and and Rachel and the cat one patriots,
probably enough, maybe two patriots. But it's like this humor
and it's like most painful, Peter, I don't understand the
need for a whole army of patriots. But this is
when I'm up against and from my standpoint, it's the
(30:05):
worst it's ever been. And this is unfortunately a new
role for scientists that have to deal with the anti
science movements. And I think part of the problem in
science and postdoctoral education is we don't provide young scientists
with the skill set to understand it, to understand what
the anti science movement is about, how it's globalized, and
(30:26):
how to communicate. We need a whole contret of scientists
who can engage the public, because I think there are
people who still want to hear from us. I think
there are a lot of people want here from you.
I'm curious, how do we at least try to blunt
the ability of the anti vaccine adherence to do harm
(30:48):
our public health, to do harm even even to themselves.
What do you think we need to be focused on
to try to limit the reach and limit the effect act.
In my papers, I've made the statement that we spent
a lot of effort, invest a lot of resources to
build infrastructure against things like global terrorism and nuclear proliferation
(31:11):
and cyber attacks. We have to start considering that for
anti science and anti vaccine activities. It's reached that level. Arguably,
even more people are losing their lives and from anti
science than some of the other things that we do
build infrastructure for. I think one of the problems has
been within the US government and even internationally at the
(31:33):
United Nations agencies. The message that I've gotten for many
years is Peter, I hear what you're saying, but you
know what, We're not going to go there because we're
worried if all the things that you're saying is just
going to give the movement oxygen and I'll give it
extra life and attention it doesn't deserve. And and I
think that made sense maybe in the early two thousands
(31:53):
when the thing was just taking off, But now it
dominates the Internet, it dominates daily lives of Americans and
people in Brazil and elsewhere. So this is a monster now,
and that silence and that refusal to want to do
anything about it has enabled the monster in many ways.
So the recommendation is to bring people from outside the
(32:14):
health sector to get some advice on what believers we
can pull and push. Bring into people who have been
going up against combating global terrorism and nuclear proliferation and
cyber attacks for years and get some advice to understand
what the options are. For instance, in the Biden administration,
I've said, let's create an inner agency task force to
(32:36):
to look at this, and not just people from the
CDC and Health and Human Services agencies. We need people
from the State Department, we need people from Home mass Security,
from the Justice Department, from the Commerce Department. So I
think that's one thing for the Biden administration, and then
at the same level for the UN agencies to bring
in people outside the health sector to at least get
(32:56):
educated on on what we can do. Because this idea
of just saying we're not going to say anything because
it'll just give it oxygen it it. You can't do
that anymore. Too many people are losing their lives not
because of this. What do you think the role of
the social media companies is well, it's clearly a lot.
I mean that is a major v and not the
(33:16):
only vehicle, but it is a major vehicle. And I
think we're starting to see some progress there from the
big text, I think we need a lot more. I mean, let's,
for instance, look at Amazon. If you go to Amazon
dot Com, you go to the books on vaccinations. I
think my book is one of the leading pro vaccine
selling books of the Preventing the Next Pandemic, but it's
(33:38):
ranked about thirty because it's all fake anti vaccine COVID
conspiracy books in front of it. And so Amazon is
making a lot of money on sales from these books,
and they're extremely damaging. So it's not only the facebooks
of the world that's pervasive among the e commerce sites
as well. Well. I think that's such an important point, Peter,
(34:00):
and that it's not only the misinformation itself, the disinformation
that's so dangerous. And I have called repeatedly on Facebook
and and Google and others to d platform the largest
purveyors of anti vaccine content and creators amplifiers of vanti
vaccine content. The second part of what you said is
really important too, that it's also the opportunity cost of
(34:20):
all that misinformation being out there, because if people are
consuming that, then they're not reading your book, they're not
going to the CDC website, they're not picking up the
phone and calling their pediatrician because they think their questions
have already been answered. This is pervasive now, and if
you try to download health information about vaccines, you're much
more likely to download the garbage than the real stuff.
(34:44):
But the constant thing you hear is that parents are
coming into the office loaded forbear. I mean, they come
in with all of this anti vaccine misinformation and the
pediatrician is made to feel like he or she is
not keeping up with the literature. Well they are, they're
not keeping up with the fake literature. I spent a
(35:05):
lot of time even going through the major fake assertions
of the anti vaccine movement of later on COVID nineteen vaccines,
and they're pretty easy to debunk. But if you don't
know all the science behind it, you can get taken
aback by it. I'm worried that the anti vaccine movement
has so successfully polluted the conversation around the COVID nineteen
(35:31):
vaccines that some of that pollution will infiltrate how parents
are thinking about the routine immunizations for their kids, and
that we may have newly vaccine hesitant parents as a
direct consequence of the last year and a half who
previously we're vaccinating their kids on schedule. Are you worried
(35:53):
about that? Yeah? No, this is huge and not only
young kids immunizations, but for the HPV vaccine also or
the Mink's vaccine, right like for older teenagers. Yeah, absolutely,
for college entry. So one was a disastrous year for
childhood vaccinations because of all the social disruption, big declines
(36:13):
and measles mom's rebella vaccine and I'm offuless influenza now
HPV vaccine, no question about it. And so we're all
kind of holding our breath because is it going to
come back up to pre pandemic levels again, or as
you point out rightly point out, has the anti vaccine
movement become so dominant that we're not going to get
back to pre pandemic levels or at least anytime soon.
(36:36):
And as bad as things are in the US, this
is going to be a global issue as well, because
there's been severe disruptions to global vaccination campaigns across the
world and me too. If you look at the last
twenty years, we've made enormous progress because of GAV Global
Lines for Vaccines and Immunization, and there's something called the
(36:59):
Clinton Global Initiative. I don't know if you've ever heard
about them, but they did an enormous amount of work.
You know, we're trying to promote childhood vaccinations and it worked.
I mean, we saw enormous progress in reductions and measles
deaths and more than reduction of measles deaths since the
start of GAVI in two thousand and and we're already
(37:20):
starting to see a slowing of those gains. And the
anti vaccine movement, anti science movement is a huge component
of that now well, And I think that's such an
important point, Peter, that while we've mainly been talking about
the really tragic power and influence at the anti vaccine
movement has here in the United States, and unfortunately, it
has gained power and influence really all around the world
over the last twenty years. What troubles me is, you know,
(37:45):
for years, the other pushback I got was, well, this
anti vaccine movements walled off to the US and North America.
It's just this weird American phinice of the guys. We
export our music, we export our movies. What makes you
think we're not going to export this stuff? Are you
worried that these are a harbinger of states relaxing vaccine
(38:05):
requirements for public schools. Well, that's already started to happen,
and unfortunately began here in Texas where I am. It
started with Texans for Vaccine Choice, which became one of
the first political action committees against vaccines in in fifteen.
And now we've got anti vaccine packs and multiple states
and we're already seeing you know, the governor of Texas,
(38:27):
Governor Abbott, has issued an executive order against that if
your public organization you cannot insist on vaccine or mask mandates.
So this is going to be this new wave and
how you take the anti science out of the GOP
because it never used to be that way. I mean,
and by the way, this is not fun for scientists
(38:49):
to talk about, right, I mean, you know, I've been
talking to doing public engagement for a number of years
and the message always was, hey, just stick to the science.
Stick to the science. You're not supposed to talk about
Republicans and Democrats and conservatives and liberals, that's not your lane.
And up until the last year or so, I pretty
much adhered to that. But it got to the point
(39:10):
where I don't know how else to talk about it
unless you talk about it, especially when you had what
was going on in the White House around this time
last year, when there was a deliberate disinformation campaign to
say COVID nineteen deaths or due to other causes, or
the hospital admissions were due to catch up an elective
surgery or spectacularizing hydroxy chloroquine. And it was a very
(39:32):
dark place for as a scientist to go talking about
Republicans and Democrats and the White House, and and I'm
still not comfortable doing it. It's still a scary place
for me, but I think it's necessary. Otherwise you can
hunter how else do you solve the problem unless you
can call it out and bring it into the light.
(39:56):
We're taking a quick break to stay with us, Peter.
I do want to ask, because you have, I think,
been such an effective science communicator, and yet you implied
(40:18):
you really had to figure out how to do this,
like you weren't trained to do this in your undergrad
studies or in your medical studies. Or through your PhD,
or in your residency where you were working. But I
do think we have to have a dynamic, really robust
curriculum of how to communicate effectively, especially in the face
(40:41):
of disinformation, because I do think, certainly, like anecdotally from
so many of my friends, they haven't felt well prepared
to have the conversations that you were referencing earlier because
it wasn't part of their training, and it really needs
to be. It is, and it's a lost opportunity. And
I think, if there's ever there's not many silver linings
(41:02):
from this pandemic, but I do think one of them
is what I've been seeing is the American people anywhere
are willing to tolerate a level of complexity that we
often don't give them credit for. They like hearing from scientists,
and they are willing to tolerate complicated discussions provided doesn't
lapse too much into jargon, because their lives depend on it,
(41:23):
or their families lives depend on it, And And so I
think we need to build on that. Well, there are
You've been so generously with your time. I really have
one more question, you know, similar to what we saw
with the accelerated development of the COVID nineteen vaccines last year.
Are there other vaccines that are in development that you
(41:43):
think are really promising with just maybe even a little
bit more attention and investment, could also be ready to
become shots and arms to help save lives. Well, I
think so. I mean, remember this came on the heels
of the extraordinary story that not many people talk about
any more, the e bowl of vaccine made by American company,
and that that was more than protective and not only
(42:09):
helped stave off Ebola in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Conco,
but stabilized the whole African continent. That was another public
health triumph with a totally different technology. So I think
one of the other lessons learned clearly keeping multiple technologies
in play because you don't know which is going to
be the one that really works the best, is going
(42:30):
to be really important. And how we create that type
of global infrastructure. I think we became too dependent on
the multinational companies. As as good a job as they did,
we now have got this horrible equity situation where no
one's getting vaccinated in Africa and Latin America, Southeast Asia.
So I think the next few years I'm putting a
(42:51):
lot of effort into building vaccine capacity, so building that
infrastructure in place. And it's not just building the factories,
that's the least of it. It's the human capital. It's
it takes years. One of the things that I think
we're really missing is a foreign policy around vaccines. What
I'm seeing right now is insufficient coming out of the
(43:14):
bind administration. They've done an amazing job vaccinating the American people,
but in terms of foreign policy, I think it's too
modest in scope. What I'd like to hear from the
Secretary of State of Lincoln do is is get up
there and give an hour long foreign policy address that
says the obvious, which is, look, we've got one point
(43:35):
one billion people in Sub Saharan Africa. We've got six
hundred and fifty million people in Latin America, maybe another
half a billion people in the smaller lower income countries
of Asia. That's two and a half billion people. We
need to provide five to six billion doses of vaccines.
So what's the plan? And and I want to see
(43:56):
the US government take the lead on this, because if,
as we know, if the US government doesn't take the lead,
it doesn't happen. That that is real. That was true
for HIV AIDS and pep far, that was true of
winning war against fascism in Europe and winning the cold
where sometimes you need us leadership, and this is what
(44:17):
needs to happen. Well, Peter, thank you so much for
all of your time and everything you shared, and I'm
just hugely grateful and it's just always good to see
you and always get to learn from you. So thank you.
I feel the same way, Chelsea. It's real honor, and
thanks for having me on today. Peter's newest book is
called Preventing the Next Pandemic Vaccine Diplomacy in a time
(44:41):
of anti science when it comes to vaccines, Spreading truth,
facts and evidence are urgent public health priorities to help
us get out of this pandemic and to continue to
protect ourselves and our kids from vaccine preventable diseases. As
I talked about with our yes today, the anti vaccine
(45:01):
movement has become so emboldened throughout COVID and I'm desperately
worried that we won't catch up on all the well
child visits that have been missed, which could chip away
at herd immunity. For a number of really scary diseases.
This past year, millions of American children have missed their
routine vaccinations, often because their parents were keeping them home
to keep them safe from COVID. But while all that happened,
(45:24):
and estimated one in five kids fell behind on their
shots to prevent diseases including measles, diphtheria, tetanus, and polio.
As Dr Megan Ranny, an emergency physician at Brown University,
told The New York Times recently, it would be a
horrible irony for us to get through this pandemic and
lose children to these preventable diseases. So please, if you
(45:45):
haven't yet, get vaccine against COVID nineteen and urge others
in your life to do the same. And for all
the fellow parents out there, while we eagerly await the
latest research around younger kids and the COVID nineteen vaccines,
please make sure your kids are up to date on
all their other vaccines and joined Heather Peter and countless
others who are speaking out on social media and elsewhere
about the need to make sure that people are around
(46:07):
the world you can get the vaccines they need to
stay safe and Healthy. In Fact is brought to you
by iHeart Radio. Were produced by Erica Goodmanson, Lauren Peterson,
Cathy Russo, Julie Subrian, and Justin Wright, with help from
the Hidden Light team of Barry Lurry, Sarah Horowitz, Nikki Huggett,
Emily Young, and hum Abode, with additional support from Lindsay Hoffman.
(46:31):
Original music is by Justin Wright. If you liked this
episode of In Fact, please make sure to subscribe so
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friends to do the same. If you really want to
help us out, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.
Thanks again for listening, and see you next week.
Hi, I'm Chelsea Clinton, and this is in fact a
podcast about why public health matters even when we're not
in a pandemic. Today we're talking about vaccines, well more
specifically about the toll the anti vaccine movement has taken
(00:20):
on our public health. Let's start with some basics. Vaccines
are one of the most successful public health interventions in
human history. They've saved millions, if not billions, of lives.
They've protected generations of children in the US and around
the world from deadly diseases. And right now, the surest
path out of the COVID nineteen pandemic is to vaccinate
(00:41):
as many people in as many places as possible. But that,
of course requires wide scale public trust and participation, two
things that the anti vaccine movement has been working really
hard to undermine. The anti vax movement has been growing
in darkness for decades, and now they've captured this hot
light as they weaponized fear and uncertainty, dis doubt, and
(01:03):
spread lies about the COVID nineteen vaccines. Their efforts have
been amplified by public figures who use their platforms to
elevate debunked conspiracy theories, and all of this has made
much much worse by lack of accountability from social media
and technology platforms themselves. The anti VACS movement is hurting
our ability to recover from this pandemic, and it could
(01:25):
affect which vaccines this generation of kids received well beyond
COVID nineteen. So what can we do? How do we
fight the powerful tide of disinformation that began long before
this pandemic and has unfortunately gained momentum during it. How
do we overcome mistrust around vaccines and help more people
get the facts that they need to make the right
(01:46):
health decisions for themselves and their families. Well, to answer
those questions, I'm talking with two people who are confronting
these challenges head on. Later, we're here from my friend
Dr Peter Hotez, a vaccine researcher and advocate and co
director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children's Hospital.
But first I'm talking with Heather Simpson, a mom who
fell down the anti vax rabbit hole and then pulled
(02:08):
herself back out. Hey, there's an activist, a freelance writer,
and a mom to three year old daughter. Hers is
a story of how effectively the anti vax movement and
traps people, and a reminder that it's possible, if not
always easy, to change minds. I started our conversation by
asking Heather how she went from someone who had always
gotten vaccinated then anti vax social media influencer. My mom
(02:38):
vaccinated all of us. It wasn't until I was eighteen
that I had the choice to get my meningitis shot,
and I hate needles, so on that alone, chose not
to get it going into college, which was stupid. I
did get the t DAP in two thousand fifteen. I
got the flu shot for school. It wasn't until me
(02:59):
and my husband really started trying to have our daughter
that we were like, should we do the schedule? I mean,
we haven't given it much thought. And a documentary series
popped up I think on Facebook as an ad, and
it was nine hours of just pure propaganda. It was
doctor after doctor blaming everything under the sun on vaccines.
(03:22):
So by the time you're done watching all nine hours
of terror, you are not going to want to injectricate.
I mean I was terrified. I was thinking, if we
inject Charlotte, she will die in her sleep that night.
The strength of the fear that I had was so
so strong. I was ashamed a little bit, a little
(03:43):
bit embarrassed about it because my mom groups were so
pro vaccine, so I didn't really tell anybody. But when
she was about eighteen months old, I decided to start
talking about it casually on the internet on Facebook, and
it just took off. And I didn't realize that they're
worth thousands and thousands of anti vas moms on Facebook
(04:04):
that had all found each other, and that there's this huge, huge,
growing community and they just accepted me as one of them,
and it just took off from there. How did that
make you feel when you were accepted by the anti
vaccine mom groups. I was living in West Texas in
the oil Field area, and my husband was at work
(04:26):
all the time, and so I was caring for a
child on oxygen at the time. She's okay now, and
I was just desperate for a community. So it was
just the perfect timing to have this community crowd around
me and take me in. I can see how anybody
would fall prey to that community, and they are really
good people. It's hard to see them for what they're doing,
(04:49):
which is pushing anti vax propaganda. I saw them as
my friends and to without the Facebook algorithm recommending that
first long look into vaccine conspiracies and anti vaccine propaganda,
do you think you ever would have found it? No,
(05:10):
I don't think so. I think we would have probably
vaccinated our child. So now fast forward a few years,
your daughters a few years old. What then changed? Why
did you then decide to start vaccinating your daughter? Around
this time last year, I had to have surgery for endometriosis,
(05:30):
and I reached out to my community and they basically
were saying, well, you're taking the lazy way out, and
you just need to eat better and the endometrioss would
go away. And I just felt so much shame and guilt,
and I went to my doctor and she said, no,
you need the surgery, and I just burst into tears.
And I realized that moment that the anti vacs world
(05:52):
thinks they can play God in a way like if
you eat healthy enough, and if you don't vaccinate, and
if you take all the right supplements, you will never
encounter an illness. That kind of started tilting me towards
Western medicine. And I started to speak out and I said, hey,
nobody is forcing your kids to go to public school
(06:13):
don't public schools have the right to mandate vaccines if
you're not being forced to go. And it's really hard
to say that one vaccine hasn't saved at least one life.
I think that would be impossible to say that. And
because I had said even that that one vaccine saved
one life, I was ousted by the community. There was
(06:34):
no room for doubt or questioning or the middle ground.
It's a cult. It's a cult. I was ousted. I
ended up in the ear with a panic attack because
I had hundreds of people in that group just shaming
me and attacking me, and I was horrified. And then
COVID hit and I realized all of them are also
(06:55):
anti maskers, and they also deny that COVID is real.
And then I started to realize, oh my gosh, these
people are real conspiracy theories. And I just was like WHOA.
And I just took a step back, and I started
reading books with actual science, like by Dr Paul Offit
and finding the scientific facts that I can't get around.
(07:18):
Before you left or were expelled from the anti vaccine
mom groups, what were those early conversations around COVID, Like
basically that somebody owned the patent to the virus years ago.
I don't know who it was, somebody big, maybe Bill Gates,
and that this was planned to reduce the population. So
(07:40):
that was the global conspiracy, that this is a man
made virus used to kill off everybody and to gained
mind control of everybody through submission through masks. A lot
of these people were deeply into q and On. I'm
sure you've heard of q and on. Oh yes, my
mother is a prominent part of the que and On
narrative makes it sound like there's coherent's there. I don't
(08:01):
really think it's a narrative, but whatever the chaos of
it is. Yes, yeah, it's crazy. Another I think one
of the things that is concerning from a public health
standpoint is when you were talking earlier about how you know,
when you were eighteen and you made one decision to
not get vaccinated because you were scared of needles. There
has to be space to talk to people about really
(08:24):
understandable questions and concerns like it's going to hurt, is
it really worth it? Or what do all these different
vaccines do? How do I think about them? Why do
some vaccinations really need to be administered very early in
someone's life, and some require boosters and some don't like
since you now have have really lived in the hardcore
(08:48):
like anti vax online world and now don't have to
separate out the space the compassion for questions that I
think are important for parents and people to feel like
they can ask, and then also try to help limit
the space for the questions that are just not rooted
in science, not rooted in reality, and are really intended
(09:12):
to find people like you who are vulnerable a few
years ago to bring them into the conspiracy. How do
you think we do that well? When I was introduced
to the fact that many of the studies that show
aluminum in the brain that antivactors like to post that
aluminium in the brain, if you read the fine print,
(09:33):
is environmental aluminum. It's not the aluminum salts and vaccines
that blew my mind. And once I had those facts
that I couldn't argue myself out of, I held onto
those when I went to vaccinate my daughter. Those are
what did it for me. I mean, and I had
friends pouring into me and talking to me and just
empathizing with me, But it was those scientific facts that
(09:55):
I could not get around. And so I have a
spectrum of anti vaxtors. You have the vaccine hesitant who
maybe vaccinated their kids, but they're hesitant about the COVID vaccine.
And then you have the scared people, which is where
I was. And then you have the X factors, and
that's really the critical group because they feel that something
(10:17):
happened right after the child's vaccine. Maybe the child stopped
talking a few days later, but they weren't paying attention
to all of those signs leading up to it. And
if the doctor would sit down and notebook it out
about all the signs that they may have missed leading
up to that, and get genetic testing for maybe genetic
markers that show up for autism, and just walk that
(10:38):
mom through it to show her that it was not
the vaccine that would keep a pro vax er, but instead,
if you shoot her out the door, she's gonna go home,
she's gonna google what happened to my kid, and she's
going to find this world of antivactors and join drinks.
And so it is about finding what happened quote unquote
to their child. Maybe nothing happened, but talking that mom
(11:01):
through it and getting her to the other side of it,
so that you keep her on the pro vaccination side.
A lot of this lies in the pediatrician's hands. And
you were mentioning how important your conversations with your doctor
were around your endometriosis diagnosis. Yes, Unfortunately, when I was
pregnant and I refused the te dat, my doctor looked
(11:23):
at me and said, oh, no, you're not one of
those crazy anti vactors, are you. That's not helpful, And
then he never explained the necessity of the vaccine. He
just brushed me off, and so did my pediatrician. I
tried to talk to her about my concerns. My trust
and doctors majorly fell when my daughter had sleep at
me up, but they wouldn't listen to me, and I
(11:45):
was begging them, saying, she's not sleeping normal, something is happening.
We have an outlet monitor and it was going off
every night. Her oxygen was dropping in her sixties. I
was begging doctors for two months, please listen to me,
something's wrong, and they were saying, you're just as sweet,
new nervous mom, honey, just sleep, wake up every few hours,
see if she's purple, and go back to sleep. Good Lord,
(12:06):
that's what someone actually told you. Yeah, that's what they
actually told me. And so two months later, after begging
and begging, I finally got a sleep study and I
got in with the sleep doctor and she said, honey,
your baby is fine. And she said, but you know
what it said, your new nervous mom. I will grant
you the sleep study just to calm you down. And
so we got to sleep study at two months old.
(12:27):
And moderate sleep at MIA is forty events per hour,
and she clocked in at one forty four. That's record breaking.
She almost had a scientific study on her. And they
transferred her to I see you the next morning so
that she wouldn't die. So that was where my distrust
and doctors started. That's understandable, Wather, That's completely understandable. How
(12:49):
did you, then, though, find doctors who you could trust?
I realized that not all doctors are the same. So
when we moved to Dallas, I found people that listened
to us and took us seriously. And now she's with
a great heart doctor, a great pediatrician. She's with everyone
that she needs to be with, and we trust them wholeheartedly.
(13:14):
We'll be right back. Stay with us. What would you
like to see happen more of and maybe the training
of pediatricians and other people in medicine to be able
(13:37):
to have conversations with, you know, vaccine hesitant parents or
even parents who are further on that spectrum that you
talked about. You may be rejecting vaccines today, but also
really do want to make the best in the right
choices for their kids health. So those facts that I'm
holding onto, I'm working on a list of ten of them.
(13:59):
I think if pediatricians can be armed with those facts
that anti factors cannot are you or feel their way
out of. And that's even on a pamphlet or something
that would do so much good. If I had known
those facts when Charlotte was two months old, I probably
would have vaccinated her. That would have calmed all my concerns,
all my fears. And so I'm training doctors to be
(14:21):
armed with those facts. But also there's a story of
a little boy that had never had a seizure in
his life, and then he got a seizure right after
his shots, and so the mom took the little boy
in and the doctor said, there's no way it's from
the shots. So she took the little boy to the
ear and they said it's no way from the shot.
So you have this mom who feels insane, she feels
(14:42):
gas lit, she feels crazy, and we know that febrile
seizures are possible from a shot and they're not dangerous.
But had the doctor said, hey, maybe it is, but
you know what, it's okay. Your baby is safe and
we will watch your baby on the next vaccine. I
will hold your hand and I will be there and
we will be on guard and we can get through
this together. But your baby is okay. That would have
(15:05):
built that trust, that acknowledgement that hey, that sometimes does
happen and it's okay. But to gaslight a mom, she
just joined the ranks of the anti vaxxers. So teaching
doctors that anti vaxxer moms are just trying to save
their kids, they're not crazy. And if doctors can get
to the bottom by offering an explanation other than vaccines
(15:27):
about what they perceive happened, they will keep them as
a pro vax er. And I think that's the biggest
thing keep them from going home and googling their way
into the anti vax cult. Listen to what their concern
or concerns are and get to the bottom of it,
because they're going to go off the deep end if
you don't. I am curious though, if other parents, moms
(15:49):
you have reached out to you though over the last
year to say I'm having similar questions. I think maybe
I should vaccinate my kids. I just don't know what
advice do you have. Has that happened it has. We've
actually convinced a few parents to vaccinate. They needed to
see somebody that was so anti vacs turn because if
(16:12):
somebody was so anti vacts and they were able to turn,
there must be a good reason why they turned. I
can do this too, And so we have seen people
start to vaccinate their kids and get the COVID shot,
which is really exciting because I truly believe the COVID
shot is the way to end the pandemic. I agree.
Have you had any conversations with people who are not
(16:36):
vaccine hesitant or not anti vactor but are questioning this vaccine. Yes,
And the main concern that I've found is how the
COVID vaccine relates to fertility. That is by far the
main concern that rumor has run rampant on Facebook. You know,
I'm not even allowed to visit my friend who believes
(16:58):
that because I'm vaccine needed, I will rub off and
cause her to be infertile just by being next to
her because of the completely not rooted in fact theory
that the vaccine will shed that you have been vaccinated
and you can like shed the virus. It's like me
drinking coffee and my caffeine rubbing off on you. It's
just not going to happen, and that these people believe it.
(17:22):
And so you have this whole group of people that
are starting to segregate away from society from the vaccinated people.
They're breaking up with their husbands and their boyfriends because
their boyfriends are getting the vaccine and they will not
touch them. This is going to become huge. They don't
want to be around these people. It's it's about to
get really bad, in my opinion, and it's because these
(17:45):
Facebook groups are allowed to form, or people are saying, oh,
I felt tired after the vaccine. Oh my mom had
a stroke twenty seven days later after the vaccine. Oh, well,
of course it was from the vaccine. They are allowed
to put every single thing. Oh I had a hiccup
for the vaccine. I've never hiccup before. Them must be
from the vaccine. Everything is being posted to these groups,
(18:06):
and these groups are being allowed to run crazy on Facebook,
and people are sharing them like crazy, So people that
were going to get the shot are suddenly not. And
it just there's no control over these groups, and it
is getting misinformation into every corner of Facebook and people
are reading it, and then they were going to get
the vaccine and now they're not. Is there anything else
(18:26):
that you'd like to share, any advice that you would
have for anyone listening to us about how to protect
themselves against misinformation to be able to make important health decisions,
including around vaccines and vaccinations for themselves and their kids.
Just be so careful when you're on Facebook and you
(18:46):
read well, this happened right after my kid got a vaccine.
I was supposed to get my flu shot one morning,
and I canceled because I wasn't feeling good, and later
that day I started spitting up blood. It was a
bad situation, but you can bet you that the antivactors
would have blamed it on the flu shot. There was
a man that was going to get his kid vaccinated,
(19:07):
but the line was too long, so he left and
he took his kid home to take a nap, and
the kid died of sids in their sleep. And had
they gotten their vaccines, they would have blamed the vaccines.
So you have to understand reading these these this than
that about the COVID shot, There's a lot more to it,
So you just have to take it with a grain
of salt if you're going to go into the dark
(19:27):
interwebs of Facebook groups, but I would steer clear and
just follow the CDC, the f d A, real scientists online,
Like just pack your Facebook and your social media and
your Twitter full of scientists and doctors and arm yourself
with that so that you are able to fight off
any lie that is going to come at you. And
I know I'm being harsh on Facebook, but I do
(19:49):
believe they have a huge responsibility right now and it's
a life or death issue in my opinion. My last question,
when you were not vaccinating your daughter, you're not vaccinate yourself.
Did you have family or friends who tried to reach
out to you, talk to you about why you were
in that place, talk to you about vaccines and vaccinations
(20:10):
and did any of that work or or no? It did.
My mom would always say, I really think she's going
to be fine. Just get the tennis shot, like you
and your brothers were fine. I think you're going to
feel so much better after you get the shot. You're
not gonna have to worry about tennis. And then one
of my best friends was always like, Okay, why are
you scared, and this is why you shouldn't be scared.
(20:34):
Listening but also not empathizing to the point where you're
giving in is good, but also being loving and listening
and understanding that they are coming from a spirit of fear.
They are truly trying to protect their kid. I was
truly scared that Charlotte would die if she was vaccinated.
That was not me trying to ruin the world. That
(20:56):
wasn't me trying to ruin her community. I was just
trying to save my baby. So knowing that going into it,
these are people too, the other just confused. They've got
the wrong information. Father. Thank you so much, Thank you
so much for having me. You can find more on
Heather Simpson, read her writing, and check out her podcast
(21:19):
it Back to the Vacs dot com. I'm a huge
fan of Dr Peter Hotez. He's a fellow vaccine enthusiast,
and I certainly turn up the volume every time I
see him on TV, which these days is quite often
sporting his signature. Bote Peters the co director of the
Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children's Hospital, and he's
(21:41):
the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at
Baylor College of Medicine. He's written several books and one
of my favorites, Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel's Autism. He
draws on his experiences as a pediatrician, vaccine scientist, and
autism dad to examine and answer the questions and also
to refer cute the concerns of the anti vaccine movement.
(22:06):
I do first want to ask you how you got
interested in vaccines, in vaccine development. Well, ever, since I
was an adolescent, I actually wanted to study tropical diseases.
You know, I was a nerdy kid with fascination with
maps and microbes, so tropical diseases became the confluence of
the two. And then when I entered into the m
(22:29):
d pH d program in New York at Rockefeller and
Cornell in I really wanted to develop a vaccine for
para parasitic disease because nobody was even thinking about it
at that time. And the seventies, the revolution of molecular
biology was taking place, but everyone was focused on diseases
of the West or diseases of the United States, And
(22:50):
I thought, we need to start applying that whole molecular
biology revolution towards eukaryotic pathogens that effect low and middle
income countries, and vaccinations were, without question the most powerful
means to do that. So most people now know us
about our COVID nineteen vaccine, But the truth is, most
(23:10):
of my life has been devoted to vaccines for neglected
tropical diseases that no one else will take on because
their disease of the poorest of the poor. And so Peter,
when you talk about the vaccines that you're working on
now that haven't received the same attention or investment because
of who is affected. Who is affected are not in
(23:34):
the thousands, right, We're still talking about diseases that affect
millions of people around the world. Yeah, that's right, Chelsea.
So you've got seven hundred and fifty million people now
who live below the World Bank poverty figure of a
dollar nine d a day, and when you look, every
single one of them is affected by a parasitic infection
or a neglected tropical disease that led by diseases like hookworm,
(23:58):
AND's just a semiasis and scaby and methatic file ariasis
and river blindness, and and this is one of the
challenges is not only are there scientifically complicated questions, but
we don't really have ways to finance these vaccines. We
need as much innovation in the finance and business sector
as we do in the science. I still think a
(24:19):
lot of people don't understand that why the development of
the COVID nineteen vaccines felt very fast, and parts of
it were really accelerated by enormous amounts of investment. It
was really enabled by decades of pre existing research. Yeah,
it's absolutely right. So when stars hit in two thousand
(24:40):
to two thousand three coming out of southern China affecting Toronto, Ontario,
and then you had Mayors Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome in
two thousand twelve, we saw the writing on the wall
and we said, we've had two major coronavirus epidemics slash
pandemics in the new century. I'm sure we'll have another
one soon, and we start a partner with an excellent
(25:01):
virology group at the New York Blood Center led by
Shibu Jiang and Lan ying Do. And those vaccines were orphaned,
just like our vaccines were, and so we began partnering,
wrote to the n i H it got supported, and
we started developing Stars and Mirrors vaccines. That was ten
years of work that made it possible for all the
other COVID vaccines. And I tell that story because it
(25:25):
wasn't for that, we would not be moving so quickly.
And part of the problem was when the c e
O s sent out their press releases. You know how
it is. They're sending out their press releases not for
you or for me, but for their shareholders, and they
tended to want to spectacularize their accomplishments. And I understand that,
but I think inadvertently it gave the public the impression
(25:46):
that somehow there must be something unsavory about these vaccines
because they have popped up out of nowhere. And then
of course calling an operation warp Speed, which was an
awful name, didn't help any Peter, you and I have
now talked for years about the difference between I think
really important questions that people can ask about vaccines and
(26:07):
vaccination and then the whole universe of real disinformation attacks
against the integrity of science. And so I'm just curious,
reversing back to night when you were embarking on your
m d pH d work, were you aware of the
(26:29):
anti vaccine movement at the time. Did you have any
inkling that the anti vaccine movement might affect your work
in your life in any way? Not back then. You know,
I want to be part of that because the impact
was so powerful, you know, when I got my m
d and PhD, I never thought that there would be
(26:52):
an anti science monster that was brewing at that time.
And I never thought I'd have to devote a whole
segment of my career to going up against anti vaccine,
anti science movements. And I do it because again, I'm
well positioned for it, not only being a vaccine scientist
for so many years, but also being a parent of
four adult kids now and Rachel who has autism and
(27:15):
intellectual disabilities. Because so much around the anti vaccine movement
that sprang up in the early two thousands was around
false assertions that vaccines cause autism. And I wrote the
book called Vaccines did not cause Rachel's autism, which kind
of made me one of the public enemy number ones
against from the anti vaccine movement. And I did it,
(27:36):
you know, deliberately, because I thought, look, I have a voice.
I've been able to use it to get people to
care about neglected tropical diseases and helped to build that ecosystem.
But I thought, you know, here, I am a vaccine scientist,
a pediatrician, paraffin adult daughter for with autism. If I
don't do it, who will? And I've paid a pretty
steep price for it. But I'm glad I'm doing it
(27:57):
because I do think it's had some effects. I'm positive
benefits as well. Peter, this deep price you've paid has
been getting measured in just the really awful hate that
you've received. Seems at the moment kind of ceaseless, like
every day you still seem to be under attack. There's
now been this dramatic expansion and I call it the
(28:19):
triple headed monster that I'm up against. And the three
components of well one are They're they're no longer homegrown groups.
There well organized, well funded groups that monetize the Internet,
and the Center for Contering Digital Hate it's amazing. We
have to have an organization called the Center for Countering
Digital Hate now estimates that those groups now a fifty
(28:41):
eight million followers on various social media platforms, So that's accelerated.
And then you also have the Russian government has been
using this as a major wedge issue to destabilized democracies,
not only the US but elsewhere. And if that weren't
complicated enough, you have in here in Texas, the t
vaccine movement was starting to lose steam in terms of
(29:02):
the autism links, although that thread continues. So what they
did was they took on a political dimension around here
in Texas when they somehow managed to align themselves with
the Republican Tea Party down here and under this sort
of fake banner of health freedom, medical freedom. And now
we're seeing that full on. It's become a mainstream of
(29:23):
political extremism on the far right, and white nationalist groups
have adopted the anti vaccine, anti science movement. So the
scariest part from me now is I get these regular
emails and threats saying that an army of patriots is
going to come hunting me down, and I'm thinking, well,
sometimes you just have to take a step back and
(29:44):
just try to calm yourself. I said, well, why did
they need a whole army of patriots? I would think
with just me and and Rachel and the cat one patriots,
probably enough, maybe two patriots. But it's like this humor
and it's like most painful, Peter, I don't understand the
need for a whole army of patriots. But this is
when I'm up against and from my standpoint, it's the
(30:05):
worst it's ever been. And this is unfortunately a new
role for scientists that have to deal with the anti
science movements. And I think part of the problem in
science and postdoctoral education is we don't provide young scientists
with the skill set to understand it, to understand what
the anti science movement is about, how it's globalized, and
(30:26):
how to communicate. We need a whole contret of scientists
who can engage the public, because I think there are
people who still want to hear from us. I think
there are a lot of people want here from you.
I'm curious, how do we at least try to blunt
the ability of the anti vaccine adherence to do harm
(30:48):
our public health, to do harm even even to themselves.
What do you think we need to be focused on
to try to limit the reach and limit the effect act.
In my papers, I've made the statement that we spent
a lot of effort, invest a lot of resources to
build infrastructure against things like global terrorism and nuclear proliferation
(31:11):
and cyber attacks. We have to start considering that for
anti science and anti vaccine activities. It's reached that level. Arguably,
even more people are losing their lives and from anti
science than some of the other things that we do
build infrastructure for. I think one of the problems has
been within the US government and even internationally at the
(31:33):
United Nations agencies. The message that I've gotten for many
years is Peter, I hear what you're saying, but you
know what, We're not going to go there because we're
worried if all the things that you're saying is just
going to give the movement oxygen and I'll give it
extra life and attention it doesn't deserve. And and I
think that made sense maybe in the early two thousands
(31:53):
when the thing was just taking off, But now it
dominates the Internet, it dominates daily lives of Americans and
people in Brazil and elsewhere. So this is a monster now,
and that silence and that refusal to want to do
anything about it has enabled the monster in many ways.
So the recommendation is to bring people from outside the
(32:14):
health sector to get some advice on what believers we
can pull and push. Bring into people who have been
going up against combating global terrorism and nuclear proliferation and
cyber attacks for years and get some advice to understand
what the options are. For instance, in the Biden administration,
I've said, let's create an inner agency task force to
(32:36):
to look at this, and not just people from the
CDC and Health and Human Services agencies. We need people
from the State Department, we need people from Home mass Security,
from the Justice Department, from the Commerce Department. So I
think that's one thing for the Biden administration, and then
at the same level for the UN agencies to bring
in people outside the health sector to at least get
(32:56):
educated on on what we can do. Because this idea
of just saying we're not going to say anything because
it'll just give it oxygen it it. You can't do
that anymore. Too many people are losing their lives not
because of this. What do you think the role of
the social media companies is well, it's clearly a lot.
I mean that is a major v and not the
(33:16):
only vehicle, but it is a major vehicle. And I
think we're starting to see some progress there from the
big text, I think we need a lot more. I mean, let's,
for instance, look at Amazon. If you go to Amazon
dot Com, you go to the books on vaccinations. I
think my book is one of the leading pro vaccine
selling books of the Preventing the Next Pandemic, but it's
(33:38):
ranked about thirty because it's all fake anti vaccine COVID
conspiracy books in front of it. And so Amazon is
making a lot of money on sales from these books,
and they're extremely damaging. So it's not only the facebooks
of the world that's pervasive among the e commerce sites
as well. Well. I think that's such an important point, Peter,
(34:00):
and that it's not only the misinformation itself, the disinformation
that's so dangerous. And I have called repeatedly on Facebook
and and Google and others to d platform the largest
purveyors of anti vaccine content and creators amplifiers of vanti
vaccine content. The second part of what you said is
really important too, that it's also the opportunity cost of
(34:20):
all that misinformation being out there, because if people are
consuming that, then they're not reading your book, they're not
going to the CDC website, they're not picking up the
phone and calling their pediatrician because they think their questions
have already been answered. This is pervasive now, and if
you try to download health information about vaccines, you're much
more likely to download the garbage than the real stuff.
(34:44):
But the constant thing you hear is that parents are
coming into the office loaded forbear. I mean, they come
in with all of this anti vaccine misinformation and the
pediatrician is made to feel like he or she is
not keeping up with the literature. Well they are, they're
not keeping up with the fake literature. I spent a
(35:05):
lot of time even going through the major fake assertions
of the anti vaccine movement of later on COVID nineteen vaccines,
and they're pretty easy to debunk. But if you don't
know all the science behind it, you can get taken
aback by it. I'm worried that the anti vaccine movement
has so successfully polluted the conversation around the COVID nineteen
(35:31):
vaccines that some of that pollution will infiltrate how parents
are thinking about the routine immunizations for their kids, and
that we may have newly vaccine hesitant parents as a
direct consequence of the last year and a half who
previously we're vaccinating their kids on schedule. Are you worried
(35:53):
about that? Yeah? No, this is huge and not only
young kids immunizations, but for the HPV vaccine also or
the Mink's vaccine, right like for older teenagers. Yeah, absolutely,
for college entry. So one was a disastrous year for
childhood vaccinations because of all the social disruption, big declines
(36:13):
and measles mom's rebella vaccine and I'm offuless influenza now
HPV vaccine, no question about it. And so we're all
kind of holding our breath because is it going to
come back up to pre pandemic levels again, or as
you point out rightly point out, has the anti vaccine
movement become so dominant that we're not going to get
back to pre pandemic levels or at least anytime soon.
(36:36):
And as bad as things are in the US, this
is going to be a global issue as well, because
there's been severe disruptions to global vaccination campaigns across the
world and me too. If you look at the last
twenty years, we've made enormous progress because of GAV Global
Lines for Vaccines and Immunization, and there's something called the
(36:59):
Clinton Global Initiative. I don't know if you've ever heard
about them, but they did an enormous amount of work.
You know, we're trying to promote childhood vaccinations and it worked.
I mean, we saw enormous progress in reductions and measles
deaths and more than reduction of measles deaths since the
start of GAVI in two thousand and and we're already
(37:20):
starting to see a slowing of those gains. And the
anti vaccine movement, anti science movement is a huge component
of that now well, And I think that's such an
important point, Peter, that while we've mainly been talking about
the really tragic power and influence at the anti vaccine
movement has here in the United States, and unfortunately, it
has gained power and influence really all around the world
over the last twenty years. What troubles me is, you know,
(37:45):
for years, the other pushback I got was, well, this
anti vaccine movements walled off to the US and North America.
It's just this weird American phinice of the guys. We
export our music, we export our movies. What makes you
think we're not going to export this stuff? Are you
worried that these are a harbinger of states relaxing vaccine
(38:05):
requirements for public schools. Well, that's already started to happen,
and unfortunately began here in Texas where I am. It
started with Texans for Vaccine Choice, which became one of
the first political action committees against vaccines in in fifteen.
And now we've got anti vaccine packs and multiple states
and we're already seeing you know, the governor of Texas,
(38:27):
Governor Abbott, has issued an executive order against that if
your public organization you cannot insist on vaccine or mask mandates.
So this is going to be this new wave and
how you take the anti science out of the GOP
because it never used to be that way. I mean,
and by the way, this is not fun for scientists
(38:49):
to talk about, right, I mean, you know, I've been
talking to doing public engagement for a number of years
and the message always was, hey, just stick to the science.
Stick to the science. You're not supposed to talk about
Republicans and Democrats and conservatives and liberals, that's not your lane.
And up until the last year or so, I pretty
much adhered to that. But it got to the point
(39:10):
where I don't know how else to talk about it
unless you talk about it, especially when you had what
was going on in the White House around this time
last year, when there was a deliberate disinformation campaign to
say COVID nineteen deaths or due to other causes, or
the hospital admissions were due to catch up an elective
surgery or spectacularizing hydroxy chloroquine. And it was a very
(39:32):
dark place for as a scientist to go talking about
Republicans and Democrats and the White House, and and I'm
still not comfortable doing it. It's still a scary place
for me, but I think it's necessary. Otherwise you can
hunter how else do you solve the problem unless you
can call it out and bring it into the light.
(39:56):
We're taking a quick break to stay with us, Peter.
I do want to ask, because you have, I think,
been such an effective science communicator, and yet you implied
(40:18):
you really had to figure out how to do this,
like you weren't trained to do this in your undergrad
studies or in your medical studies. Or through your PhD,
or in your residency where you were working. But I
do think we have to have a dynamic, really robust
curriculum of how to communicate effectively, especially in the face
(40:41):
of disinformation, because I do think, certainly, like anecdotally from
so many of my friends, they haven't felt well prepared
to have the conversations that you were referencing earlier because
it wasn't part of their training, and it really needs
to be. It is, and it's a lost opportunity. And
I think, if there's ever there's not many silver linings
(41:02):
from this pandemic, but I do think one of them
is what I've been seeing is the American people anywhere
are willing to tolerate a level of complexity that we
often don't give them credit for. They like hearing from scientists,
and they are willing to tolerate complicated discussions provided doesn't
lapse too much into jargon, because their lives depend on it,
(41:23):
or their families lives depend on it, And And so I
think we need to build on that. Well, there are
You've been so generously with your time. I really have
one more question, you know, similar to what we saw
with the accelerated development of the COVID nineteen vaccines last year.
Are there other vaccines that are in development that you
(41:43):
think are really promising with just maybe even a little
bit more attention and investment, could also be ready to
become shots and arms to help save lives. Well, I
think so. I mean, remember this came on the heels
of the extraordinary story that not many people talk about
any more, the e bowl of vaccine made by American company,
and that that was more than protective and not only
(42:09):
helped stave off Ebola in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Conco,
but stabilized the whole African continent. That was another public
health triumph with a totally different technology. So I think
one of the other lessons learned clearly keeping multiple technologies
in play because you don't know which is going to
be the one that really works the best, is going
(42:30):
to be really important. And how we create that type
of global infrastructure. I think we became too dependent on
the multinational companies. As as good a job as they did,
we now have got this horrible equity situation where no
one's getting vaccinated in Africa and Latin America, Southeast Asia.
So I think the next few years I'm putting a
(42:51):
lot of effort into building vaccine capacity, so building that
infrastructure in place. And it's not just building the factories,
that's the least of it. It's the human capital. It's
it takes years. One of the things that I think
we're really missing is a foreign policy around vaccines. What
I'm seeing right now is insufficient coming out of the
(43:14):
bind administration. They've done an amazing job vaccinating the American people,
but in terms of foreign policy, I think it's too
modest in scope. What I'd like to hear from the
Secretary of State of Lincoln do is is get up
there and give an hour long foreign policy address that
says the obvious, which is, look, we've got one point
(43:35):
one billion people in Sub Saharan Africa. We've got six
hundred and fifty million people in Latin America, maybe another
half a billion people in the smaller lower income countries
of Asia. That's two and a half billion people. We
need to provide five to six billion doses of vaccines.
So what's the plan? And and I want to see
(43:56):
the US government take the lead on this, because if,
as we know, if the US government doesn't take the lead,
it doesn't happen. That that is real. That was true
for HIV AIDS and pep far, that was true of
winning war against fascism in Europe and winning the cold
where sometimes you need us leadership, and this is what
(44:17):
needs to happen. Well, Peter, thank you so much for
all of your time and everything you shared, and I'm
just hugely grateful and it's just always good to see
you and always get to learn from you. So thank you.
I feel the same way, Chelsea. It's real honor, and
thanks for having me on today. Peter's newest book is
called Preventing the Next Pandemic Vaccine Diplomacy in a time
(44:41):
of anti science when it comes to vaccines, Spreading truth,
facts and evidence are urgent public health priorities to help
us get out of this pandemic and to continue to
protect ourselves and our kids from vaccine preventable diseases. As
I talked about with our yes today, the anti vaccine
(45:01):
movement has become so emboldened throughout COVID and I'm desperately
worried that we won't catch up on all the well
child visits that have been missed, which could chip away
at herd immunity. For a number of really scary diseases.
This past year, millions of American children have missed their
routine vaccinations, often because their parents were keeping them home
to keep them safe from COVID. But while all that happened,
(45:24):
and estimated one in five kids fell behind on their
shots to prevent diseases including measles, diphtheria, tetanus, and polio.
As Dr Megan Ranny, an emergency physician at Brown University,
told The New York Times recently, it would be a
horrible irony for us to get through this pandemic and
lose children to these preventable diseases. So please, if you
(45:45):
haven't yet, get vaccine against COVID nineteen and urge others
in your life to do the same. And for all
the fellow parents out there, while we eagerly await the
latest research around younger kids and the COVID nineteen vaccines,
please make sure your kids are up to date on
all their other vaccines and joined Heather Peter and countless
others who are speaking out on social media and elsewhere
about the need to make sure that people are around
(46:07):
the world you can get the vaccines they need to
stay safe and Healthy. In Fact is brought to you
by iHeart Radio. Were produced by Erica Goodmanson, Lauren Peterson,
Cathy Russo, Julie Subrian, and Justin Wright, with help from
the Hidden Light team of Barry Lurry, Sarah Horowitz, Nikki Huggett,
Emily Young, and hum Abode, with additional support from Lindsay Hoffman.
(46:31):
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episode of In Fact, please make sure to subscribe so
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Decisions, Decisions
Welcome to "Decisions, Decisions," the podcast where boundaries are pushed, and conversations get candid! Join your favorite hosts, Mandii B and WeezyWTF, as they dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often-taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday, Mandii and Weezy invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, they share their personal journeys navigating their 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engaging in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that resonate with your experiences, "Decisions, Decisions" is your go-to source for open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections—tune in and join the conversation!