Antivaccine Groups Are Having a Field Day With AstraZeneca’s Struggles

The fraught rollout could undermine vaccine confidence.

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The COVID-19 vaccine rollout is picking up speed: Nearly a quarter of adults have received at least one dose. Better yet, a Pew survey from early March suggests that our confidence in the vaccines is growing: 69 percent of Americans said they had already been vaccinated or were planning to be vaccinated, compared to 60 percent who said they planned to get the shot in a November poll.

That progress is great news—but it’s tenuous. Yesterday, I talked with Baylor College of Medicine vaccine scientist Peter Hotez, who warned that antivaccine activists are looking for any opportunity to erode Americans’ trust in the immunizations. He’s worried that recent hiccups in the rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine might provide the perfect opportunity for the spread of disinformation.

Indeed, the British-Swedish pharmaceutical company has had a rough few weeks. Earlier this month, there were reports of several cases of blood clots in people who had received AstraZeneca’s vaccine, and several countries in Europe suspended its use. Later, European authorities could find no evidence that the cases were related to the shots. Then, earlier this week, an investigation found that the company had used out-of-date data in analyzing how well the shot worked in the United States. On Thursday, the company released new data that confirmed that the shot was 100 percent effective at preventing severe disease and death. The new data showed that the shot was 76 percent effective at preventing mild disease, a drop of 3 percentage points from the initial analysis.

If those setbacks weren’t enough, on Wednesday the New York Times reported that Italian police had found a cache of 29 million AstraZeneca doses in a manufacturing facility. Some observers speculated that the company was hoarding them to ship overseas instead of to other countries in Europe, where vaccine progress has been slow. (The company said the doses were just awaiting quality control.)

None of these problems is a big deal on its own, but taken together, says Hotez, they threaten to tarnish the reputation of the vaccine—and maybe even COVID-19 vaccines in general. “All of that’s cumulative, and it will erode confidence,” Hotez told me.

I’ve been tracking antivaccine sentiment on social media since the beginning of the pandemic, so I decided to do a quick search to see whether the groups I follow have seized on the news around AstraZeneca. Indeed, in just a few short weeks, it’s become a major talking point.

Here it is at Children’s Health Defense, the antivaccine group founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.:

Children’s Health Defense

And here’s the far-right website Natural News claiming that researchers have discovered how the vaccine causes blood clots:

Natural News

It’s also making the rounds in regional antivaccine groups. Here, a Wisconsin Facebook group claims that the name “AstraZeneca” means “weapon that kills”:

Vaccine Choice in Wisconsin

And here’s a Facebook group called Vaccine Injury Stories taking the blood clots story and running with it: 

Vaccine Injury Stories

This kind of messaging could certainly sway Americans who are on the fence about getting vaccinated. More worrisome to Hotez, though, are the international implications. In most of the developing world, mRNA vaccines like those from Moderna and Pfizer won’t be available because of their cost and cold storage requirements. AstraZeneca’s vaccine may be one of the only shots available in those regions—and if its reputation is poor, acceptance will be low. “If public confidence is eroding in the United States and Europe, we know what happens—it translates pretty quickly to Africa and Latin America,” says Hotez. “I’m quite worried about this.”

You can watch Peter Hotez’s full remarks here

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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