Dr Leslie Kantor on Responding to Misinformation About Flu Vaccines

Due to the rise of coordinated misinformation about vaccines, false beliefs about flu vaccines must be corrected immediately, according to Leslie Kantor, PhD, MPH, chair and professor of the Department of Urban-Global Public Health, Rutgers School of Public Health.

Transcript

In the past, flu vaccinations were not quite as politicized, as we've seen with the COVID-19 vaccination. Do we think that that may be changing this year, and how do public health officials address that?

Yeah, it's very important that we all keep in mind that there is a very well-organized antivaccination effort all around the world. This is not just somebody’s crazy uncle making things up. There is a concerted effort to put misinformation out. It is then transmitted via bots all over the world. So, there's unfortunately a good chance that there will be additional misinformation about flu vaccines that we haven't seen in the past. Because the truth is, there is misinformation out there about just about every vaccine that's available right now. So, what do we need to do? We need to talk to our family and friends, our patients where we do have influence, and try to deal with that misinformation as soon as we hear about it.