Anti-vaccine activism

Anti-vaccine activism, which collectively constitutes the "anti-vax" movement,^[1] is a set of organized activities proclaiming opposition to vaccination, and these collaborating networks have often fought to increase vaccine hesitancy by disseminating vaccine-based misinformation and/or forms of active disinformation. As a social movement, it has utilized multiple tools both within traditional news media and also through various forms of online communication. Activists have primarily (though far from entirely) focused on issues surrounding children, with vaccination of the young receiving pushback, and they have sought to expand beyond niche subgroups into national political debates.^[2]

Although concepts such as various myths and conspiracy theories alongside outright disinformation and misinformation have been spread by the anti-vaccination movement and fringe doctors in a way that has significantly increased vaccine hesitancy (and altered public policy around the ethical, legal, and medical matters related to vaccines), no serious sense of hesitancy or of debate (in the broad sense) exists within mainstream medical circles about the benefits of vaccination. One scholarly article from 2021 has described the present scientific consensus as "clear and unambiguous".^[3] At the same time, however, the anti-vax movement has partially succeeded in distorting common understandings of science in popular culture.^[2]