Stories of vaccine-related harms are influential, even when people don’t believe them

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Mon, June 06, 2016

A recent internet study on the effect of the VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) on vaccine acceptance and trust was featured in "The Conversation." This study found telling participants about VAERS, without having them read the actual reports, improved vaccine acceptance only very slightly. However, when participants read the detailed reports, both vaccine acceptance and trust in the CDC’s conclusion that vaccines are safe declined significantly. This was true, even though the vast majority of respondents believed that the vaccine caused few or none of the reported deaths and disabilities.

For the original study:

Scherer LD, Shaffer VA, Patel N, Zikmund-Fisher BJ. Can the vaccine adverse event reporting system be used to increase vaccine acceptance and trust?. Vaccine. 2016 May 5;34(21):2424-9.

Research Topics: