Current Events I

The Vaccination Debate


While it is true that fake news and disinformation tend to touch upon a number of different topics, very few of them (if not none of them) bear more importance than human health. One of the most prominent health-related issues subject to disinformation is vaccination. In fact, the issue has been so significant that the World Health Organization ranked it among ten threats to global health in 2019. Additionally, in Slovakia it can be observed that the public opinions on vaccination have been ambiguous and quite vocal even though they did not always correspond with the position of health professionals.

In the recent years, a number of anti-vaccination initiatives immerged in Slovakia. One of such movements would be for example “Iniciatíva pre uvedomenie si rizík očkovania” (transl. Initiative for awareness of vaccination risks). At first sight, the website of the organization appears to be genuinely credible and veracious. The website cites different sources and even includes a section called “Svedectvá” (transl. Testimonies) where they provide pieces of evidence that allegedly prove the existence of serious vaccination hazards.   The problem with these references is that some of them appear on the list published by Konšpirátori.sk, which is a “database of websites that provide dubious, deceptive, fraudulent, conspiratorial, or propaganda content” (Konšpirátori.sk, n.d.). This is also the case of news medium called “Hlavné Správy”, which is one of the references on the website of the aforementioned anti-vaccination organization and is one the most vocal media when it comes to anti-vaccination promotion.

However, regardless of the nature of information that such initiatives and organizations rely on, the truth of the matter is that anti-vaccination policies made it as far as the Slovak parliament where a draft law has already been proposed by members of ĽSNS (The People’s Party - Our Slovakia) (Schlosár, 2018). Although the legislation was not passed by the parliament, this case shows that there are real political consequences that stem from the way people are informed about certain topics. In fact, according to Mária Izakovičová (2019) 48% of Europeans suppose that vaccines cause side effects and as much as 38% of Europeans believe that vaccines actually cause the diseases they are supposed to protect from.

Although spectrum of opinions on subjects is a natural and integral part of a democratic society, we need to also take into account relevance and truthfulness of information in an argument for a constructive dialogue to take place. This is however not exactly the case when it comes to the vaccination debate, since most professionals tend to gravitate towards support of vaccination. This position is on the global scale being defended by the World Health Organization (2019), and on the Slovak scale the same has been argued by the Minister of Health, Andrea Kálavská, who criticized the lack of expertise regarding anti-vaccination proposals in the parliament and called for a more professional debate (Mičuda, 2019).

The problem of vaccination is a complex issue that requires professional judgment and it is not the goal of this entry to resolve this issue, what however is important, is the significance of consequences that can arise from judgments that are based on false information.  Psychologist Gordon Pennycook and his colleagues found out that repeated exposures to deceptive information increase the likelihood of acceptance of such information (Horák, 2018). Therefore, even if we allow for the possibility that vaccination is an ambiguous topic, this case demonstrates that false information has the potential of making it as far as being a basis for major political decisions and perhaps we should be extra careful about that, especially when our health is at stake.

References
Horák, O. (2018, June 28). Ak sú ľudia opakovane vystavení fake news na Facebooku, po čase ich vnímajú ako viac pravdivé. Retrieved from https://dennikn.sk/1164168/ak-su-ludia-opakovane-vystaveni-fake-news-na-facebooku-po-case-ich-vnimaju-ako-viac-pravdive/
Iniciatíva pre uvedomenie si rizík očkovania. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.rizikaockovania.sk/
Izakovičová, M. (2019, May 2). Dezinformácie týkajúce sa očkovania patria medzi 10 najväčších hrozieb pre verejné zdravie. Retrieved from https://vedanadosah.cvtisr.sk/dezinfomacie-tykajuce-sa-ockovania-patria-medzi-10-najvacsich-hrozieb-pre-verejne-zdravie
Konšpirátori.sk. (n.d). Retrieved from https://www.konspiratori.sk/zoznam-stranok.php
Lenghart, P. (2019, May 19). Možno je čas sústrediť sa hlavne na to, že ĽSNS ohrozuje telesné zdravie občanov a špeciálne detí, a nielen ich označovať za neonacistov. Retrieved from https://dennikn.sk/blog/1461407/mozno-je-cas-sa-sustredit-na-to-ze-lsns-ohrozuje-telesne-zdravie-deti-a-nielen-ich-oznacovat-za-neonacistov/
Mičuda, V. (2019, September 28).  Ministerka zdravotníctva zotrela kotlebovcov faktami a vysvetlila im, ako to je s očkovaním a kolektívnou imunitou. Retrieved from https://refresher.cz/69698-Ministerka-zdravotnictva-zotrela-kotlebovcov-faktami-a-vysvetlila-im-ako-to-je-s-ockovanim-a-kolektivnou-imunitou?gdpr-accept=1
Schlosár, R. (2018, November 9). Návrh zákona – očkovanie musí byť dobrovoľné. Štát nesmie nikoho nútiť nechať si pichať do tela chémiu. Retrieved from http://www.naseslovensko.net/ls-nase-slovensko-v-nr-sr/navrh-zakona-ockovanie-musi-byt-dobrovolne-stat-nesmie-nikoho-nutit-nechat-si-pichat-do-tela-chemiu/
World Health Organization. (2019). Ten threats to global health in 2019. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/emergencies/ten-threats-to-global-health-in-2019

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