During the pandemic, numerous studies showed that millions of Canadians believed misinformation about COVID vaccines, including the idea that the vaccines killed many people and that this has been covered up by the government. A 2021 study by Angus Reid found that 55 per cent of the unvaccinated believed “COVID-19 is a conspiracy that is all about government control.” In other words, a large portion of the country believed or was open to conspiracy theories that likely increased vaccine hesitancy and, as a result, led to more deaths and hospitalizations.
Fast forward to the summer of 2024 and it has become clear that those beliefs haven’t dissipated. On the contrary, they have increased and spread. We have Alberta Premier Danial Smith’s United Conservative Party (UCP) hosting a public anti-vaccine event and a UCP MLA pushing to have the “COVID vaccines banned completely in Alberta.” Misinformation about COVID vaccines, and vaccines more generally, has become so entrenched and normalized that it now regularly forms part of political platforms.
Given that vaccines, including COVID vaccines, are widely considered one of the greatest achievements of biomedicine – it has been estimated that over the past 50 years vaccines have saved more than 150 million lives – this is a deeply worrying trend. We need to recognize that the merger of politics and vaccine misinformation is doing grave harm.
Let’s start by appreciating what the science actually says.
Consider just some of the recent research on the benefits of mRNA COVID vaccines. A large 2024 study involving more than 45 million individuals found that the risk of heart attack and stroke drops after COVID vaccination. Another large 2024 study that, again, included millions of participants, concluded that “COVID-19 vaccines consistently prevent long COVID symptoms in adults.” Other recent studies have found that COVID vaccination “protects against adverse maternal-fetal outcomes,” significantly reduces “incidence and hospitalizations among children,” and can help protect children with asthma. Studies have also shown a dramatic economic benefit from the COVID vaccines, including an association with “a significant increase in economic activity.” A 2023 study from Canada, for example, estimates that vaccination led to almost $300 billion “in monetary benefit compared to a situation without vaccination.”
All of these findings are part of – and consistent with – a large and growing body of evidence on the efficacy and safety of the COVID vaccines, including the key outcomes of saving millions and millions of lives and reducing hospitalizations and human suffering.
It is important to emphasize this research directly counters the most common misinformation and conspiracy theories pushed by the anti-vaccine community. There is no credible evidence that the vaccines: are causing individuals to “die suddenly”; are a major cause of excess deaths; are associated with widespread and fatal heart problems in the young; increase cancer risks or cause “turbo cancer”; or have an adverse impact on pregnancies or fertility.
So, given the strong, broad and international scientific consensus on the value of COVID vaccines, how did we get here? Obviously, there are many factors at play, but, alas, the embrace of vaccine misinformation is increasingly about ideology.
Political identity has become one of the most significant – perhaps the most significant – variable predicting vaccine hesitancy, the embrace of vaccine misinformation, distrust of relevant scientific institutions, perceptions of risk surrounding vaccines, and belief in the efficacy of disproven COVID therapies (e.g., ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine). Indeed, numerous studies have shown a strong and growing association between vaccination hesitancy and ideology. In the U.S., political partisanship matters more than race, age, insurance coverage or education in predicting vaccine uptake. Studies have consistently shown that those who identify as Republican are much more likely to not get vaccinated and to hold a dim view of COVID vaccines. A 2024 study found that even the reporting of vaccine adverse events is influenced by political identity, showing that in Republican states, “vaccine recipients or their clinicians” are more likely “to report COVID-19 vaccine AEs” than in Democratic states.
A similar trend can be found around the world, including in Canada. For example, a survey by EKOS Research during the last Alberta provincial election uncovered a remarkably polarized view of COVID vaccines. Of those Albertans who never got a COVID vaccine, 91.1 per cent supported the United Conservative Party and only 5.3 per cent supported the NDP. In other words, in Alberta, if you are unvaccinated, your political identity is very likely to be conservative. A national survey by Angus Reid found that among those who didn’t get the COVID vaccine, 81 per cent voted for either the Conservative Party (32 per cent), the People’s Party (36 per cent) or didn’t vote (13 per cent) in the last federal election. Only 6 per cent voted for the Liberals or NDP.
This merger of politics and vaccine hesitancy can be deadly.
And this merger of politics and vaccine hesitancy can be deadly. Research in the U.S. has consistently uncovered a strong link between political identity – even when measured as simply as with voting record – and COVID deaths. A 2022 study “found a positive dose-response relationship between county-level Republican vote share and county-level COVID-19 mortality.” Another study, looking at Florida and Ohio, uncovered that, during COVID, “the excess death rate among Republican voters was 43 per cent higher than the excess death rate among Democratic voters.” The researchers attributed this finding to “differences in vaccination attitudes and reported uptake between Republican and Democratic voters.” A 2024 study “compared excess death rates for states with different partisan orientations” and concluded that “excess death rates were higher in states with Republican governors and greater Republican representation in state legislatures.”
The harms of increasingly politicized vaccine discourse are not isolated to COVID. The hesitancy created by the spread of misinformation during the pandemic has spilled over to adversely impact the perceptions of other beneficial vaccines. A 2024 study found, in the words of the researchers, that “conservatives in the United States spread their negative attitudes towards the COVID-19 vaccines to unrelated vaccines,” including flu, HPV, MMR and chickenpox. Studies show that politicizing public discourse about vaccines can also heighten equity issues and make it more difficult to counter harmful misinformation.
Why has political identity become such a dominant issue in the realm of public health? While more research is needed (something our team is working on), there are likely many complex and interrelated factors at play, including, inter alia, state actors (such as Russia and China) spreading misinformation to sow distrust; the understandable desire to belong to and support a community that a person feels connected to and that speaks to their values; differences in cognitive thinking styles (numerous studies have found that conservatives may, in this cultural moment, be somewhat more susceptible to misinformation); being fed a diet of anti-vaccine messaging by conservative media (e.g., watching Fox News is “associated with increased negative public vaccine sentiment” and “increased vaccine refusal”); and the powerful, polarizing, misinformation-spreading and echo-chamber creating role of social media platforms (e.g., being part of a more right-wing online community is “associated with vaccine hesitancy in the U.S.”).
Another factor is, of course, political opportunism. As anti-vaccine movements become more mainstream in conservative politics, politicians seem more likely to use the topic as a way to get votes and play to their base. This, in turn, makes being anti-vaccine an ideological flag for those who identify with this community.
Yes, there are adverse events associated with the vaccines, as there are with almost all health-care interventions. And more data would always be helpful. Thankfully, robust research and ongoing safety surveillance has shown that serious adverse events are extremely rare and that the safety profile of COVID vaccines is impressive. Indeed, as noted by the European Medicine Agency, COVID vaccines were part of the largest vaccination program in history and, as a result, “regulators have an unprecedented amount of data to confirm the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines.”
Yes, we should always strive to learn and improve science communication strategies (talking about scientific uncertainty can be extremely challenging) and public health policies like vaccine mandates are – even if effective at increasing vaccine uptake and reducing COVID cases – ethically, legally and politically complex strategies that warrant a careful and transparent consideration of risks and benefits.
And yes, it is crucial to recognize that misinformation and spin happens across the ideological spectrum. No one is immune from its pull.
But for a host of reasons, at this moment in history, antivaccine rhetoric and antivaccine beliefs reside most often (but, of course, not entirely) on the political right. Given what is at stake – saving lives, reducing human suffering, lessoning the strain on our health-care system and preparing for the next pandemic – it is essential to confront this reality and devise evidence-informed strategies to counter this trend in a constructive manner.
In August 2021 I wrote an essay “Understanding COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy”; it was updated in January 2022. Access the article here: https://henry.olders.ca/wordpress/?p=1755 .
The following topics are addressed, with references:
What do we know?
Vaccine effectiveness
Cellular vs humoral immunity
Adverse effects
Blood clots
Difficulty in detection of adverse events
Reinfection
Variants
Vaccines in previously infected people
B12 deficiency and vaccine effectiveness
Declining hospitalizations and deaths
Canada and the Pfizer-BionTech vaccine
Distrust in governments
Vaccine technology
Justification for vaccine passports or vaccine mandates
High rates of unvaccinated getting hospitalized
Recommendations
Ha!
This is my pushback which by any reasonable standard should be accepted as anb evidence-based, analytically astute argument. The official data from British Columbia shows the COVID vaccine is killing people https://kirschsubstack.com/p/the-official-data-from-british-columbia?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=548354&post_id=148537448&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1iyx41&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Thank you to those who took the time to highlight the problems in this article. I was about to write my own, but it is already covered. Now it is interesting to see if, after reading well justified counter arguments among those who took the time to document them respectfully here, the author will provide a new, less biased and better documented follow-up opinion.
Thank you
No, he won’t. It’s all about politics. He decries the politicization of health care, and then does the same.
Thanks you for clear and informed writing about a complex topic.
It’s always amusing how articles on misinformation contain misinformation and spin.
The author doesn’t consider the context within which the anti-vax movement took off, and the responsibility of scientists and politicians for that. For example:
– science has become highly politicized (perhaps it always was) over things like climate change or transgender medicine. Scientists have been (or are used to) shut down legitimate questions, such that people are Deniers or Bigots. So it creates an antigonism and mistrust of “experts”.
– health officials were telling us in February 2020 that the risk of COVID in Canada was low even as we saw it rip through Italy and Spain. It eventually hit Canada so trust was undermined.
– Canada gave China a huge supply of PPE in early 2020, reducing our PPE stock and creating panic in the health system as the COVID wave hit. Trust undermined as a result.
– Canada initially refused to close the border with politicians suggesting that it was unnecessary and it was racist to call for flights from infected countries to end. Canada eventually did close the border thereby undermining trust.
– Canada said we needed to go into a harsh lockdown to flatten the curve and preserve our health system. Implicit in this was a recognition that the disease would spread anyway and lockdown would end. But lockdown didn’t end, it got tighter, the disease spread anyway, and the social impacts of lockdown were devastating. People raising objections – or pointing to a different approach in Sweden – were shouted down as “wanting to kill the vulnerable”
– many of the rules ultimately were wrong but there was little course correction. We were told that the virus wasn’t airborne … but it was and the initial conclusion was based on an erroneous analysis of the science. We were told that the virus could be spread by touch so we had to wash our hands, wipe surfaces etc … that was wrong.
– the social impacts of lockdown were devastating and hit different social groups more harshly than others. There was hardly any discussion about this. For example, closing schools in Ontario for as long as it was done was likely unnecessary and put a huge burden on families: and those consequences are still reverberating and swept under the rug. Work from Home rules were OK for wealthy middle/upper middle class white collar people, but devastated the hospitality/service sector and put “essential’ workers on the front-lines at risk for the disease. People working in food processing or warehouses were required to work while being told that there was a huge diseases that would kill them. The hype and hysteria were a real problem during the pandemic.
– Canada bet the farm on the development of a vaccine with China. That turned into a fiasco with theft of intellectual property and 2 scientists expelled from Canada. We have no answers about what happened during that mess. And by betting the farm on that vaccine, we didn’t get vaccines for several months after they started in Europe.
– We were told that the AZ vaccine was good, but later public health officials said that they personally would prefer to wait for the Pfizer vaccine instead of the AZ vaccine even while the AZ vaccine was being rolled out. No wonder people didn’t trust the vaccine if the public health officials were questioning the AZ vaccine.
– We were told that the vaccines were effective at preventing infection and that was the basis for vaccine passports. We were given the impression that the vaccines were as effective as the measles vaccine … i.e. fully effective. They weren’t.
– Lockdown had a huge
There’s no accountability for what happened and the errors made. This breeds skepticism of experts and mistrust.
I’m glad the author noted that misinformation and spin occurs across the political spectrum. It’s unfortunate that he focuses only on the right-wing as being the source of or contribution to that. For example:
– Prime Minister Trudeau used vaccine status as a wedge issue during the 2021 election. Thus, he politicized the issue and in part the vaccine debate became a totally needless proxy over Trudeau.
– Polling during the vaccine rollout should that Green Party voters were also highly skeptical of the vaccine. Not exactly your typical right wing voter.
The author is absolutely right that mNRA vaccines are a huge success and the development of the COVID vaccine was amazingly swift. But we can’t just pretend that those who are skeptical are just idiots or misguided fools.
I should add (as part of the context) we’ve just come off a 30-year scandal involving BIG PHARMA and health sector with opioids like Oxycontin. That spread like wildfire through North America creating mass addiction with little accountability. So it’s not surprising that people are skeptical about the creation of new drugs or vaccines that are hyped up when we’ve just experienced a social disaster by doctors over prescribing a drug that was supposed to be safe and non-addictive.
Somehow the medical community managed the SARS outbreak of 2003 in Toronto after an infected woman carried the virus from Hong Kong, making Toronto a ‘ground zero’. It was maintained as to a hospital-based rather than community-based outbreak, it did not “rip through Italy and Spain”.
How? One reason was because the Toronto public health officials worked in tandem with our infectious disease experts. When deemed necessary Toronto General Hospital went on lockdown. Sure, this inconvenienced a lot of people but the general public was protected.
Would you rather go back to the days of the Spanish Flu? “Feeling fine in the morning, unwell at lunch, dead by dinner”?
Science and medicine is a work in progress. We do the best we can, often working absurd hours, rarely seeing our families all the while working in a system that has been starved of funding for decades.
Quoted from your response,
“development of the COVID vaccine was amazingly swift“
Scientists have been working on it since SARS.
“The hype and hysteria were a real problem during the pandemic”
“ Work from Home rules were OK for wealthy middle/upper middle class white collar people, but devastated the hospitality/service sector and put “essential’ workers on the front-lines at risk for the disease”
Which is it? ‘Hype and hysteria’ or ‘put “essential’ workers on the front-lines at risk for the disease’? If it’s all hype and hysteria then why would anyone be at risk?
The so-called “Big Pharma” falls under completely different regulatory body than the healthcare system (as it stands right now) in Canada. It’s a for-profit industry, which, in fact failed to capitalize on CV19.
Except You ignore that SARS was very much more difficult to pass from one person to another. We had an inquiry after SARS, few of which recommendations were implemented and few lessons were learned for the next pandemic. In other words, put public health officials failed … one of those recommendations was to maintain a stock of PPE … by 2020, we had given it to China and were in short supply when COVID hit.
Caulfield has provided an excellent objective summary which inevitably will evoke yet more claims that are largely unsupported by evidence and unfounded by science. Regarding covid-19 vaccine efficacy, the evidence is undeniable and extraordinary. At the same time, alleged vaccine-related injuries, though extremely rare, should be investigated thoroughly to ensure we haven’t missed something in a novel vaccine.
Transparency in such a process is essential, and we certainly need to ensure unbiased reporting of results. But that still requires the viewer’s eyes to be functioning and not blurred by at best a lack of scientific understanding, or at worst, conspiratorial denialism.
It seems that for a segment of society, hard evidence and solid facts seem to be sidelined by emotional baggage and false information. THIS is the task facing public health at the first quarter century of this millennium: to understand why so many people prefer to abandon reality, science, and evidence. How and why did they lose that essential trust? What can be done to re-establish that trust?
I respectfully submit that the refusal of public health officials to be held accountable for mistakes and to cling to “we’re right, you’re wrong, don’t ask questions” mentality isn’t helping.
For example, I get on the TTC everyday and there are signs saying “Masks are strongly recommended on the TTC”. Hardly anyone is masking anymore. So if there is a huge divergence between what public health officials recommend and what ordinary people actually do, maybe the problem is an overly cautious out of touch public health department.
“alleged vaccine-related injuries, though extremely rare,”
They’re way more frequent than you seem to want to admit. The Canadian government admits that there have been over 11,700 serious covid vaccine adverse events as of January 5, 2024. That’s not how many there have been – that’s how many the Canadian government admits to. Canada has a passive system, which means most adverse events never get reported to the Canadian government.
https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/vaccine-safety/
and from:
https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/vaccine-safety/utd.html
An event is considered serious if it:
– results in death
– is life-threatening (an event/reaction in which the patient was at real, rather than hypothetical, risk of death at the time of the event/reaction)
– requires in-patient hospitalization or prolongation of existing hospitalization
– results in persistent or significant disability/incapacity, or
– results in a congenital anomaly/birth defect
You do you, let me do me…
If these ‘safe and effective’ vaccines are so safe and effective, then you have nothing to worry about when you take them and possess the Superman’s cape of protection. It should not matter to you that I am skeptical about untested vaccines (untested against placebo ie. sugar pill or salt water). A placebo to test against is not the last iteration of the vaccine you are currently adjudicating (demonstrating non inferiority). Yet, to be clear, this has been going on for nearly three decades. Further, is the planet (society) so much more lethal today than say 3 decades ago? In 1988 the vaccine schedule for a kid in the USA would be expected to have completed 15 vaccines by 19 years old. Today, the schedule expects 40 vaccines – and now, with the annual flu shot all the rage, it amounts to 55 shots by 19 years of age. There are lots of other curious circumstances around vaccines – ie. the blanket immunity from litigation if harm is demonstrated – you can sue Pfizer for a bad aspirin but not for a bad vaccine; post market follow from harm (SAE serious adverse events) is very limited if at all – again contrary to the standard operating procedure for follow up for that little aspirin.
Let’s not introduce all that other sound evidence of lockdowns, masks, 6-foot separation rules – that ‘science’ has demonstrated as safe and effective. Ya, my mom can’t get her hair done at the salon because of the existential risk to life, but she can still get a bottle of vodka from the liquor store.
Nope — you do you, let me do me – besides, you’re fully topped up and protected ;)
Dear Timothy Caulfield- Law professor
I am surprised that trust in vaccines and health authorities is not lower
Violation of trust is a long standing erosion that did not happen overnight bc of a few “evil villains” who wanted to
bring down the ‘safe and effective” vaccine narrative
First off: Pharma corruption and their government collusion goes WAY back
Pharma has a wrap sheet that would rival a local Hells Angels chapter with extortion ,bribery, fraud charges …. In the criminal community, Pfizer can proudly boast that they the largest criminal fraud award in history
To paint them, or those paid to promote them, and scientists who are funded by them as alter boys is laughable. Destroying and smearing any doctor or professional who dares challenge them is typical of the thuggery expected of such criminals
Second : Let’s look to the abuse of Covid measures alone to think of reasons why no one trusts health officials or the vaccines they endorse
Hmmmm where to begin :
-Officials repeatedly lied about the efficacy of cloth masks. Pre pandemic we knew they didn’t work
-Officials lied about the efficacy of masking mandates. Many studies show no effect.
-officials forced little 2 year olds and autistic/ special needs children to wear ineffective cloth masks for hours
– Officials lied about the origins of Covid . They created false consensus and halted debate on platforms like Facebook
– Officials closed beaches and parks and playgrounds. They closed small shops but allowed big chains to remain open. Even when they sold the same things.
– Officials closed churches while businesses were open (assault on religion).
-Officials prevented loved ones from visiting people dying (not of COVID)
-Officials closed schools /repeatedly lied about risks to kids and describing children as vectors of death
-Officials lied about 6ft of distancing which prevented reopening ( hint: they had no evidence to support their 6ft rule)
-Officials lied about the efficacy of remdesivir and Paxlovid
-Officials did not run studies of COVID vaccines to assess transmission
By summer 2021, it was known vaccines could not halt transmission and yet officials continued use of vaccine passport in restaurants and mandates
-Officials ignored and lied about myocarditis despite knowing early warning signals
-Officials lied about the benefits of vaccines in people with prior COVID (none are proven)
-Officials lied about natural immunity
-Officials over promoted and oversold a never before attempted coronavirus vaccine that used a never before approved for human use platform which proceeded ahead without completing clinical trials and without post marketing surveillance and without fully completed animal testing
-Officials pushed novel vaccines upon toddlers and babies at next to nil risk of Covid
– officials saw fit to inject pregnant and lactating women with novel vaccines despite having no evidence to support their safety
– Government colluded with social media and msm to prevent exposure of their lies.
– companies fired unvaccinated staff and students from continuing their studies despite knowing about wane of vaccine protection and unreliable transmission control
– officials pushed utilitarian ideology and not science
– officials like Dr Fisman produce brazenly fraudulent data that was not called out in peer review
– officials engage in name calling and hate mongering of the unvaccinated, and our own PM calls those who use alternate routes to protect others “ sexist “ racist” “white supremacists “
– officials put gag orders on any professional who counters the controlled narrative of “ safe and effective “
…..aka “ the ministry of truth had to step in
Sadly the list could go on and on over many topics and decades
Timothy : It’s Time health officials gave their heads a Shake
People are not stupid
We see what is going on
The question is not who to blame. Rather, it’s about officers taking a long look in the mirror and to stop deflecting
Once you lose respect it’s nearly impossible to regain
You know this
So this is where censorship will get worse to make sure only “ trusted sources “ are heard right ?
Who knew Canada could fall so low
Could you please provide citations for your claims as the author, Timothy Caulfield has included in his article? Preferably from highly ranked peer reviewed biomedical journals. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Indeed the mistrust is well earned.
It really is time for politicians, scientists, and science communicators to pull their heads out of the sand and end the polarization and divisiveness
After the 5th Vaccine both my special needs children’s bowels stopped working correctly with a few days. Both boys are missing Chromo #3 and yes it is the Vaccine that caused it. The 1st covid vaccine caused extreme seizures on one of the two that is epileptic. The second one had no visible side effects. The third one again triggered high fever and seizures. The 5th one caused both boys to need assistance to empty their bowels every 2-3 days on-going. No more covid vaccines for our family. Not enough testing where done in cases with missing chromosomes and it is my children that are paying the price.
As a European we have a certain amount of that “them v’s us” rhetoric that goes around but by and large most people here can clearly see the advantages of vaccinations. We have watched in almost disbelief at the antics of Donald Trump (to name but one) who has either been given the wrong information to begin with, or really is that stupid.
It is somewhat backed up by the greed and incompetence of our own former conservative government under Boris Johnston, that has come to light during recent investigations that reveal just how bad they were at processing information, but worse still, some of them were blatantly ignoring their own advice and others were profiteering by awarding contracts for PPE to friends and family.
Many more people died here than was necessary. Care homes for the elderly where hit hard when covid patients were sent home from hospitals to ill-equipped and unprepared homes with untrained staff all because of government incompetence and many died as a result.
Even if at base level you take covid as “just a flu” such actions were criminal at all levels, and yet nobody is being prosecuted. Literally everyone I know has had a dose of covid and those that did not get vaccinated suffered more than those that had. Full stop. No other explanation is needed, the vaccination helped those that had it to not only recover quickly but to “downgrade” the virus to what felt like a very nasty flu, and as a result from that simple “on the ground” analogy it’s not hard to work out who is right. At the end of the day, as an adult you are perfectly within your rights to refuse any medical help, but just because you “read it on the internet” does not mean its true. Do some research, check the credentials of those you seek information from, are they qualified to give you that information and can that information be verified from a known and trusted source, not some internet bulletin board frequented by the same tin foil hat wearing rednecks.
Thank you …As an aside, read Dr Peter Doshi, assistant editor of the BMJ Dec 2020 article. He discussed how rare severe Covid was among clinal trial participants
In other words, although you may think vaccines diminished COVID’s impact , the reality may be that the vast majority vaxXed or unvaccinated, experienced manageable flu like illness
Thank you for clarifying the facts about Covid-19 vaccines that most of the vaccinated already knew. It is really good to see the statistics and links to other studies that show there is a very large base of data collected and knowledge about the Covid-19 vaccines and all other vaccines. It is difficult to believe that a group of people are even refusing the vaccines for such communicable diseases as mumps, measles, rublla, polio, whooping cough and the others, claiming they trust risking their children’s health and life with getting those diseases more than they trust the vaccines that have been around for many, many years.
Vaccine hesitancy and vaccine skepticism are increasing primarily because there is reason to be skeptical about the “highlight benefit, downplay risk” approach that is being used to hype these interventions.
The propaganda and mis-/ dis-/ malinformation that has been spread is being questioned, and it’s being questioned not just by patients, but also by doctors and scientists.
Derogatory labeling of these good people is fueling divisiveness and polarization, which subsequently further fuels vaccine hesitancy and vaccine skepticism.
It’s well past time for this unhealthy debate to end.
I agree. Villifying intelligent, well educated individuals who have good reason and a right to question the science and the influence of corporate greed is not allowing policy makers to get a complete picture. Big Pharma is being elevated to a status undeserving of an organization which manipulates data to serve their own needs. Calling the unvaccinated “anti-vaxxers” is inaccurate and unfair.