A Biden administration that vowed to restore Americans’ faith in public health has grown increasingly paralyzed over how to combat the resurgence in vaccine skepticism.
And internally, aides and advisers concede there is no comprehensive plan for countering a movement that’s steadily expanded its influence on the president’s watch.
The rising appeal of anti-vaccine activism has been underscored by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s insurgent presidential campaign and fueled by prominent factions of the GOP. The mainstreaming of a once-fringe movement has horrified federal health officials, who blame it for seeding dangerous conspiracy theories and bolstering a Covid-era backlash to the nation’s broader public health practices.
But as President Joe Biden ramps up a reelection campaign centered on his vision for a post-pandemic America, there’s little interest among his aides in courting a high-profile vaccine fight — and even less certainty of how to win.
“There’s a real challenge here,” said one senior official who’s worked on the Covid response and was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “But they keep just hoping it’ll go away.”
The White House’s reticence is compounded by legal and practical concerns that have cut off key avenues for repelling the anti-vaccine movement, according to interviews with eight current and former administration officials and others close to the process.
My first gut response to this is, “start relentlessly and uncompromisingly telling the truth”. I mean, in the attempt to help the public to do the healthy thing and accept vaccinations, there’s been a lot of pro-vaccine bigotry. But when you’re bigoted, even for the (approximate) truth, who do you convert? Like-minded bigots and weak-willed people-pleasers.
Mixed in with the good efforts for public and individual health are some very sad failures, plus corruption and conflict of interest, and so on. If you want an authoritative body (e.g. CDC, NHS, governing party (haha!)) to be trusted, they have to show themselves trustworthy with the truth.
Sometimes I’ve seen that done by the officially-promoted medical bodies… sometimes not. And when the tow-the-pro-vaccine-line bigotry shows through, I can’t blame people for not buying it, and sticking to their community’s narrative, no matter how unfounded: because why should they trust the people mocking them, any more than ‘internet majority’ trusts the American government to sincerely look after the poor.
Sorry for the rant. Tl;dr, beware of acting like an ad company if you want to be trusted.