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People's willingness to use a Zika vaccine when it's available will be influenced by how they weigh the risks associated with the disease and the vaccine, but also by their misconceptions about other vaccines, a new study has found.
While a Zika vaccine is in development, the study by researchers at the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania examined factors that will affect the eventual acceptance or rejection of such a vaccine.
The study, published in the Journal of Public Health, found that people's erroneous beliefs about an association between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism were a predictor of people's lessened intention to get a Zika vaccine. The study also found that people's perceptions of the severity of the Zika virus as well as their general belief in the power of science to solve problems increased their intention to get the vaccine.
"When a new disease arises, people who lack understanding of the new threat may extrapolate from their knowledge of other diseases," said Yotam Ophir, a Ph.D. candidate at Penn's Annenberg School for Communication who co-authored the study with APPC Director Kathleen Hall Jamieson. "We found that the misbelief about the MMR vaccine's association with autism was more influential on the decision of whether to get vaccinated for Zika than even perceptions of Zika itself, which is worrisome, especially in light of the persistence of that misinformation."
[...] The bogus association between the MMR vaccine and autism has been disproven in numerous studies. However, the argument is still prominent among people who oppose vaccinations. "Scientists often look at the effect of misinformed beliefs about the MMR vaccine on people's intention to vaccinate children with the triple vaccine, but they don't as often look at the dangerous spillover effects that these misbeliefs can have," said Ophir, who will be joining APPC as a postdoctoral fellow.
He said that prior research has shown that it is very hard to completely debunk misinformation, such as the mistaken belief that the MMR vaccine causes autism, but the study results suggest that accurately communicating about the risks of Zika can help lessen the detrimental effects of the misbelief. "Even if we can't change what people think about the MMR vaccine, if we can give them an accurate picture of how vulnerable they are to a disease such as Zika, they can make a more informed decision about it," Ophir said.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 19 2018, @02:17AM (6 children)
There are lots of brain-destroying things spread by mosquitoes. We keep discovering more, including ones that aren't even that rare but just weren't sufficiently noticed.
Are we going to get 50 vaccines for mosquito-borne illness? Shall we reserve room in a vaccine schedule for that, maybe taking kids to weekly doctor visits?
We could just slay the bloodsuckers. Send out GMO males, DONE.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday March 19 2018, @02:47AM (2 children)
No, we couldn't. We couldn't selectively 'slay' certain weeds, and those have lower ability to migrate than the mosquitoes.
Do you realise that the natural population of non-gmo males are well above in numbers than anything that humans can economically prepare for some decades ahead?
Besides, are you sure you won't trigger an avalanche of other species extinctions?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Monday March 19 2018, @04:24AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochliomyia_hominivorax [wikipedia.org]
Florida was a mistake
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday March 19 2018, @01:40PM
Actually, we probably could, it's just that the most effective technique has potential to go horribly wrong, and it would almost certainly spread across entire continents, and quite possibly globally, no matter how badly we wished to contain it.
I'm speaking of course of gene-drives, splicing bacterial DNA editing tools (CRISPR) into a mosquito's genome so that (very nearly) 100% of its descendants are male. Excellent way to exterminate a species, in theory. In practice you have to worry about it spreading beyond the intended species since despite conventional wisdom different species can in fact occasionally interbreed successfully, and as the drive runs its course there's going to be an awful lot of hard-up males looking for whatever action they can find. Might work fine, might wipe out all the non-human-bloodsucking mosquito species as well, might spread even further than that.
In a population that size there's also a slim but non-zero possibility that off-target effects and/or natural mutation could disarm the gender forcing, while leaving the advanced DNA tools in its genome, which evolution would likely find a use for eventually.
And possibly the biggest lingering threats with gene drives is that, short of the host population going extinct, there's no way to remove them. You could release a new gene drive that replaces the original, but that one will likewise leave the CRISPR technology lingering in the genome.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 19 2018, @09:31AM (2 children)
That's a rather stupid thing to say.
There are very few things that mosquitoes spread and they are actually beneficial and needed for other insects. There are other parasites that are quite useless, and we can't get rid of them. Things that actually are major vectors of bad diseases. Like the beloved TICK.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday March 19 2018, @01:43PM
Except there's only one invasive species of mosquito, now found globally, that's responsible for virtually all mosquito-born human diseases. Most mosquitoes don't feed on humans, and the one or two other species that will, don't act as an effective disease vector.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday March 19 2018, @04:57PM
There are very few things that mosquitoes spread and they are actually beneficial and needed for other insects.
Huh? Citation needed. AFAIK, the only thing mosquitoes are good for is feeding dragonflies and bats. But from what I've read, for bats at least, mosquitoes just aren't a very sizeable meal for them, and there's plenty of other flying insects for them to eat. Mosquitoes have been vectors for many nasty diseases, most infamously malaria. Also, I'm pretty sure that I've read that the mosquito found most commonly on the East Coast which spreads disease here is actually an invasive species from Africa. Has anyone done a really good study of what would happen if we eliminated the mosquito? And what if we just eliminated that one species (which I think most proposals suggest)?
Ticks should also be made extinct; they're nothing but trouble, for humans and other animals.