Covid-19 vaccines for children aged 5 to 11: Medical professionals and misinformation experts warn that the push to vaccinate children for Covid-19 has already pushed various groups to want to spread anti-vaccination messages!
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Dr. Natasha Burgert is well aware of the concerns parents have about Covid-19 vaccines. The Kansas pediatrician, who is a spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics, said she is already counseling some parents about their fears. And she worries that they are entering a particularly sensitive period — a time that anti-vaccination advocates could exploit.
"If the anti-vaccine industry starts doing what we expect, with these very graphic and emotionally charged videos, and highlighting their supposed experts, I think it will influence a group of parents," he said.
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Burgert and many other doctors, public health experts and misinformation researchers are expecting a flood of propaganda against vaccines for younger children after last week’s vote by a Food and Drug Administration advisory committee that approved the Pfizer-BioNTech for children ages 5 to 11. On Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices unanimously recommended Covid-19 vaccines for children ages 5 to 11. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky signed the approval later that evening, opening the door to vaccination for more than 28 million children.
Some fringe groups have already begun promoting the kind of videos that the modern anti-vaccine movement was built on: intimate, unverified videos and testimonials from children with alleged problems caused by vaccines that are effective, yet they paint a false picture of the overall safety and importance of vaccines. These accounts pose a challenge to platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook, and an opportunity for anti-vaccine activists to reach new audiences.
Vaccine advocates point to a recent example spreading rapidly on social media as a harbinger of the kind of misinformation they fear most.
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The video, which was first posted on a fringe anti-vaccine website and then spread to mainstream sites like YouTube and Facebook, is 30 seconds long. In a carousel of vignettes, a little girl with a bright smile digs in the dirt, dances in the grass, and celebrates her birthday with her family. The footage then cuts to a close-up of the girl’s face, which is writhing in pain, her head wrapped in bandages, and a tube stuck in her nose. Later, three adults lift her frail body into a wheelchair, then she quickly removes her hospital clothes and an IV line from her arm. At the end, the video shows her shaking uncontrollably and convulsively.
The cause of the little girl’s condition is unclear. Her mother told a panel Tuesday in Washington, D.C., hosted by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., that she suffered from issues from a Covid-19 vaccine administered as part of a Pfizer trial at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. The family’s attorney, Aaron Siri, claims that doctors investigating the case misdiagnosed her myriad injuries as unrelated to the vaccine and then downplayed them as abdominal pain. Meanwhile, anti-vaccination groups have used the girl’s image on their posters.
The girl's mother and the team behind the ad have not provided any evidence to prove that the girl has been diagnosed with what she suffered from the Covid-19 vaccine.
The ad was paid for by the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation, an anti-vaccine group founded last month by veteran Silicon ValleySteve Kirsch, known for his anti-vaccination activism.
Burgert warned that these tactics could be effective.
According to a recent poll by the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation, Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy among parents is already high. 27 percent of parents plan to vaccinate their children ages 5 to 11 “right away,” 33 percent will “wait and see,” and 30 percent say they “definitely won’t vaccinate” their children. 5 percent said they would vaccinate their child only to comply with a school mandate.
Source of information: nbcnews.com
