We need your help now
Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.
You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.
If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.
Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
By continuing, you are indicating that you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
FRANCE HAS THE lowest levels of trust in vaccines globally, according to the world’s biggest survey on public attitudes toward health and science, which was published today.
A third (33%) of French people do not agree that immunisation is safe, and it is also the only country where a majority (55%) believe science and technology will reduce the total number of jobs available, according to the poll of more than 140,000 people across 144 countries.
The survey of people aged 15 and older was devised by Wellcome, a British medical charity, and conducted by Gallup World Poll between April and December 2018.
91% of Irish people agreed that vaccines are important for children to have. Within the rest of the report, Ireland was included in the regional group of Northern Europe.
The study found that in some places – like Northern Europe and Northern America – people with higher levels of science education are less likely to disagree with the statement that vaccines are safe.
It also found that 58% of those surveyed in Northern Europe strongly agree that vaccines are effective.
‘Complacency effect’
It found that people living in high-income countries have the lowest confidence in vaccines, a result that ties in to the rise of the anti-vaccination movement, in which people refuse to believe in the benefits of vaccinations or claim that the treatment is dangerous.
An estimated 169 million children missed out on the vital first dose of the measles vaccine between 2010 and 2017, according to a UN report issued in April.
In the US alone, the number of cases of the disease this year has exceeded a thousand, according to the latest official figures.
“I think we expected that general trend, because where we have seen that scepticism and concern about vaccines, that tends to be in more developed countries,” Imran Khan, Wellcome’s head of public engagement, who led the study, told AFP.
“But I think the extent of the difference is surprising and some of those numbers were really startling.”
Globally, 79% of people agreed that vaccines are safe and 84% said they were effective.
On the other end of the spectrum from France, Bangladesh and Rwanda had the highest levels of confidence in vaccines, with almost 100% in both countries agreeing they were safe, effective and important for children to have.
The lowest confidence levels in relation to vaccines were in Western Europe where more than a fifth (22%) of people disagree that vaccines are safe, and in Eastern Europe where 17% disagreed that vaccines are effective.
“I guess you could call it the ‘complacency effect,’” said Khan.
If you look at those countries in our survey which have very high rates of confidence in vaccines, places like Bangladesh and Egypt, these are areas where you do have more infectious disease.
“Perhaps what you see is the people in those countries can see what happens if you don’t vaccinate.”
He added this contrasts with more developed countries where, “if you don’t get vaccinated, you’re still less likely to catch that infection, and if you do get infected, you might not become as unwell or might not die, because we’ve got quite good healthcare systems in place”.
France was also the only country in the survey where most people believed science and technology would reduce jobs.
“Although much more research is needed to understand why this might be the case, the sluggish performance of the French economy over the last few years may be one factor that contributes to this sentiment,” the report said.
Gender gap
The report also found a global gender divide in self-reported levels of knowledge of science.
Globally, 49% of men worldwide say they know “some” or “a lot” about science, compared to 38% of women.
The gender gap existed even when men and women reported equal levels of science attainment, and was widest in the Northern European region.
“What’s likely to be going on there is men are more confident or overconfident for the same level of knowledge, or equally we can say that women are under confident,” said Khan.
Wellcome said it hoped its findings would provide governments with a baseline to monitor how attitudes change over time and help inform policy, particularly in regards to immunisation, with recent measles outbreaks demonstrating herd immunity can no longer be taken for granted.
Additional reporting from Adam Daly
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Eaten bread is soon forgotten. If their was a measles epidemic in the wealthier countries the anti-vaxx brigade would soon be lining their kids up.
@Danielle Cafolla: Yep too removed from the devastating effects of preventable diseases.
Wealthier countries have more internet access where any old Yahoo can make up some facts and write it….coincidence I don’t think so
@John Horan: 100% agree. I’d even go one step further with your analogy. I work in this area, and in my experience the vast majority of anti-vaxx parents are middle-class, and moderately educated. They consider themselves to be well-read on the topic, but unfortunately via unreliable sources, probably no better than Yahoo. The Dunning Kruger effect in action.
I have seen so many comments online, and twice face to face, where someone says something along the line of
“Sure we don’t need to vaccinate for . Nobody gets that anymore.”
It actually causes me physical pain where I hear such stupidity!
@The Bob:
And my personal favourite:
“We all had measles as kids, sure it never did us any harm…”
(*apart from the 50,000+ deaths it causes annually)
People in developed countries have more access to social media platforms and are subsequently influenced by Facebook pages endorsed by the anti-vaxxer movement. As such, they fail to vaccinate their children in the mistaken belief that it causes a raft of conditions such as autism, ADHD etc. it’s amazing how a few “likes”and “shares” lure the gullible in to unsafe practices regarding their children.
Always took the French as being intelligent. Sorry that my presumption is wrong.
Don’t forget to ask the questions, it’s amazing the lengths the Pharma will go to , to make a buck . My question would be are we 100% sure about these vaccines or is it a matter of they do the job , why now is there so many cases of autism in our children like never before. Many questions to be asked and answered but then there is no money to be made .
@rosemarie slamon: Your comment would be hilarious if there wasn’t kids dying over this level of stupidity. Can you join the idiots queue at the back please?
@rosemarie slamon:
Please point to ONE SINGLE study that has found a greater prevalence of autism in vaccinated vs. unvaccinated cohorts of kids.
I’ll wait (but I won’t hold my breath if that’s ok).
@rosemarie slamon: ah Jebus. So you mention “many” questions to be asked then pose precisely 2, that are easily answered. Yes we’re quite sure about the vaccines. And they have NOTHING to do with bloody autism. The increase in diagnosis you mention is because of (to list a few) the widening of diagnostic criteria, a greater understanding of autism among all stakeholders (general public, parents, educators, health and medical professionals), not reactively sticking those with autism in institutions and a society and economy that allows more people with autism (though not enough) to lead fulfilling successful lives which leads to greater visibility as a whole and a greater likelihood that they will have children & ASD is genetic so more people with ASD. Any other questions darling?
@rosemarie slamon: Maybe you could reach out to a grieving mother in the third world who has watched their child die of a sickness that is preventable, a mother who never had access to vaccination. Perhaps you could explain to her your illogical anti scientific privileged opinions based on Internet nonsense . I am sure she would be gobsmacked by the illogical nonsense you have accrued from your position of safety and luxury. Of course its easy to be illogical when you cushioned from the real world, the world where children die in the tens of thousands from lack of basics such as medical care or access to clean water and diseases that we thought we consigned to the past .
@rosemarie slamon: “why now is there so many cases of autism in our children like never before.”
Because milder and more numerous cases are getting diagnosed, the diagnostic has net has widened (diagnosing milder cases), more cases are spotted and fewer cases are slipping though. The real number has not changed.
To confirm that autism has not increased, psychologists went into the community in the UK to look for adults with undiagnosed autism, who were missed as children. They found autism is as common in adults as it is in children today, proving conclusively that autism did not increase over time.
“The prevalence of ASD in this population is similar to that found in children. The lack of an association with age is consistent with there having been no increase in prevalence and with its causes being temporally constant.”
So no, …. vaccines don’t cause autism and anyway autism isn’t really increasing in frequency.
References:
Brugha, T. et al. 2011. Epidemiology of autism spectrum disorders in adults in the community in England. Archives of general psychiatry, 68(5), pp.459-465.
@The Great Unwashed: I think Dr Whitfield did a great study once. In his shed I believe…
@rosemarie slamon: nothing you just said is true. I’d argue about it but don’t have the energy. I’d cite my credentials as someone with a background in genetics, medicine and statistics as grounds for what I’m saying but you’d probably just accuse me of being “brainwashed” or working for big pharma (or hilariously the time I was told my years and years of training make me “no more qualified” to weigh in than the anti vaxxer with a smartphone) anyway boils down to….
Vaccinations = good,
Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis as a result of measles = bad.
Autism = genetic developmental disorder unrelated to vaccinations but NOT in utero exposure to vaccine preventable diseases
Autism prevelence on the rise = baseless claim but even if trend was an increase numerous etiological and diagnostic factors would be at play the only one definitively not linked = vaccinations
@rosemarie slamon: Older men more likely to have kids further along the autistic spectrum. In general people are having kids at older ages, this trend has been in place (in developed world at least) since the 1960s.
@Sarah:
You need to be careful mentioning Dr Whitfield, I got banned from this website for making my opinion of that particular “Dr” abundantly clear.
@java_cakes: I’ve often wondered about that. For some reason, so often only women’s details are studied. They don’t seem to record the ages of the fathers. I don’t know if there is any actual study on this.
Why do we need to have faith in this?? It’s got a well proven track record. Leave the faith for the superstitious.
More worrying, 9% of Irish people surveyed, would’ve been better off being taken by one of the diseases they were most likely vaccinated against as children. Darwin is a great equalizer. I’ve said it before, what the world needs right now is a nice apocalyptic pandemic to even the playing field again.
The best one I heard was a parent sending out birthday invitations for their child that read at the bottom “only vaccinated children please” for the other parents to later find out that the parent sending the invitations hand not got their child vaccinated because they didn’t believe in it!!
They just have more options. In a poor country you take anything that keeps you healthy and pray not to get sick. Any risk associated with the vaccine is outweighed by your lack of ability to deal with illness.
Because how a person feels about something in wealthier countrys counts as rational thought.
Dunning-Kruger Effect in action
G Manning, lots of talk, but no evidence and could you please refrain from calling me darling
@rosemarie slamon: No evidence of what? It’s not darling he should be calling you by the way. You love, are away with the birds.
@rosemarie slamon: ok hon. Your delusion is impressive if nothing else given you’re trying to point to my lack of evidence when everything you said is nonsense. Vaccinations have no link to causing autism and it’s beholden to anyone making such a claim to prove it, which you can’t. I also explained your “increase” in autism for you though David Jordan put more effort in along with citations. Is there anything else we can resolve for you? Bigfoot, mermaids, why fedoras are never a good idea???
@rosemarie slamon: “lots of talk, but no evidence”
One could accuse you of the same.
G Manning, lots of talk but no evidence and could you please refrain from calling me darling
But they do use Mercury, aluminium and Formaldehyde in vaccines and that is what scares people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomersal_and_vaccines
https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/safety-availability-biologics/common-ingredients-us-licensed-vaccines
Just to say that since 1960s, vaccines came in and autism rates have increased. This is a correlation, not a causation.
In reality higher autism rates are caused by older fathers. In general men have been having kids at older ages since the 1960s.
Instead of labelling anti-vaxx people, please explain the above to them so they can see this is not some kind of giant conspiracy.
Without struggle people become self destructive?
Saying something stupid twice doesn’t make it any more true pet
@G Manning: see
@G Manning: for a second there I thought you were actually intelligent
@rosemarie slamon: well I’ve made a logical argument backed by facts. You’ve done the opposite. Willing to accept vaccines have nothing to do with autism? or are ya headin further down that online, unqualified, ignorant, “my mates friends aunties vaccinated donkey once bad touched a fireman who knew a person with autism…there must be a link!” Brigade?
Use precise geolocation data. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Store and/or access information on a device. Personalised advertising and content, advertising and content measurement, audience research and services development.
These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work.
These cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.
These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalisation. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then these services may not function properly.
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not be able to monitor our performance.
Cookies, device or similar online identifiers (e.g. login-based identifiers, randomly assigned identifiers, network based identifiers) together with other information (e.g. browser type and information, language, screen size, supported technologies etc.) can be stored or read on your device to recognise it each time it connects to an app or to a website, for one or several of the purposes presented here.
Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times an ad is presented to you).
Information about your activity on this service (such as forms you submit, content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (for example, information from your previous activity on this service and other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (that might include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present advertising that appears more relevant based on your possible interests by this and other entities.
Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on your advertising profiles, which can reflect your activity on this service or other websites or apps (like the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects.
Information about your activity on this service (for instance, forms you submit, non-advertising content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (such as your previous activity on this service or other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (which might for example include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present content that appears more relevant based on your possible interests, such as by adapting the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find content that matches your interests.
Content presented to you on this service can be based on your content personalisation profiles, which can reflect your activity on this or other services (for instance, the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects. This can for example be used to adapt the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find (non-advertising) content that matches your interests.
Information regarding which advertising is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine how well an advert has worked for you or other users and whether the goals of the advertising were reached. For instance, whether you saw an ad, whether you clicked on it, whether it led you to buy a product or visit a website, etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of advertising campaigns.
Information regarding which content is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine whether the (non-advertising) content e.g. reached its intended audience and matched your interests. For instance, whether you read an article, watch a video, listen to a podcast or look at a product description, how long you spent on this service and the web pages you visit etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of (non-advertising) content that is shown to you.
Reports can be generated based on the combination of data sets (like user profiles, statistics, market research, analytics data) regarding your interactions and those of other users with advertising or (non-advertising) content to identify common characteristics (for instance, to determine which target audiences are more receptive to an ad campaign or to certain contents).
Information about your activity on this service, such as your interaction with ads or content, can be very helpful to improve products and services and to build new products and services based on user interactions, the type of audience, etc. This specific purpose does not include the development or improvement of user profiles and identifiers.
Content presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type, or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times a video or an article is presented to you).
With your acceptance, your precise location (within a radius of less than 500 metres) may be used in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
With your acceptance, certain characteristics specific to your device might be requested and used to distinguish it from other devices (such as the installed fonts or plugins, the resolution of your screen) in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
Your data can be used to monitor for and prevent unusual and possibly fraudulent activity (for example, regarding advertising, ad clicks by bots), and ensure systems and processes work properly and securely. It can also be used to correct any problems you, the publisher or the advertiser may encounter in the delivery of content and ads and in your interaction with them.
Certain information (like an IP address or device capabilities) is used to ensure the technical compatibility of the content or advertising, and to facilitate the transmission of the content or ad to your device.
Information about your activity on this service may be matched and combined with other information relating to you and originating from various sources (for instance your activity on a separate online service, your use of a loyalty card in-store, or your answers to a survey), in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
In support of the purposes explained in this notice, your device might be considered as likely linked to other devices that belong to you or your household (for instance because you are logged in to the same service on both your phone and your computer, or because you may use the same Internet connection on both devices).
Your device might be distinguished from other devices based on information it automatically sends when accessing the Internet (for instance, the IP address of your Internet connection or the type of browser you are using) in support of the purposes exposed in this notice.
The choices you make regarding the purposes and entities listed in this notice are saved and made available to those entities in the form of digital signals (such as a string of characters). This is necessary in order to enable both this service and those entities to respect such choices.
have your say