Anti-Vaccination Movement

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2010-03-13
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Virginia Tech
Abstract

The current anti-vaccination movements that have established themselves in the United States as well as other regions in the world are like a hydra of discourse. Right when one effective measure is created to convince people to vaccinate two more anti-vaccination movements sprout up in its place. These anti-vaccination movements are driven by cultural beliefs, ideologies, medical exemption laws, non-medical exemption laws, distrust of the government, distrust of large pharmaceutical companies, denialism and so on. These antivaccination movements also have developed many methods of distributing their beliefs to the masses. The internet is a huge resource for these anti-vaccination movements and allows them, with relative ease, to get their anti-vaccination message out to a large number of people. Postcards, newspaper, magazines, journals, and pamphlets are other widely used resources for spreading antivaccination information to the general public. If the U.S. wants any chance of gaining the upper hand on this growing anti-vaccination movement in the 21st century it too must use the internet to create positive vaccination rhetoric that reaches the masses. This rhetoric must specifically focus its positive vaccination messages towards these specific anti-vaccination groups to pinpoint and alleviate their expressed concerns.

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