Rethinking Vaccine Hesitancy

https://www.youtube.com/embed/m_TA1t1JFs8

Maya Goldenberg, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Guelph (Canada), will discuss her new book, Vaccine Hesitancy: Public Trust, Expertise, and the War on Science (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2021).

Vaccine Hesitancy challenges the common view that people who resist vaccines are scientifically uninformed or anti-science, arguing instead that vaccine hesitancy signals a crisis of trust between the publics and the institutions that structure civic life. More concretely, public resistance to vaccines is a demand for institutional structures and governance that are responsive to issues of justice and equity. Efforts to counter vaccine hesitancy must address and redress problems of scientific governance. Instead, science communications are almost entirely focused on educating the wayward publics. Goldenberg’s insights come from study of pediatric vaccine hesitancy in industrialized nations, yet the global pivot to COVID vaccination, and the presence of COVID vaccine hesitancy, bring new priority to equity and justice concerns regarding vaccination practices and how they support public health more generally.   

Biography:

Maya Goldenberg is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Guelph and a member of Graduate Faculty at the Institute for History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Toronto. Her research is in philosophy of medicine, philosophy of science, and bioethics. She is author of Vaccine Hesitancy: Public Trust, Expertise, and the War on Science (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2021) and journal publications addressing philosophical issues in evidence-based medicine, vaccination, clinical care, and women’s health.

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