France leads the world in mistrust of
vaccines
Send a link to a friend
[June 19, 2019]
By Matthias Blamont and Kate Kelland
PARIS/LONDON (Reuters) - For Marie-Claire
Grime, who works in a pharmacy northeast of Paris, questions about
vaccines are a daily challenge. They come mainly from parents who say
they're worried about "a lot of chemicals" being put into their
children, she says. She does her best to allay such fears.
|
"We spend time deconstructing the myths. We try hard to convince
them of the huge advantages vaccination brings," Grime told Reuters
at her shop in the town of Bobigny. "It is sometimes discouraging to
find ourselves repeating the same things all over again."
The French have emerged in a large global survey as the biggest
skeptics in the world about the safety of vaccines.
The study, conducted by Gallup and funded by global health charity
The Wellcome Trust, found one in three French people think vaccines
are unsafe – the highest rate in the world - and almost 20% believe
they are not effective.
Researchers say the picture in France is the result of factors that
have undermined public confidence - not only in vaccines, but also
in science more broadly, in the government and in the pharmaceutical
industry.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2019/Jun/19/images/ads/current/dare_sda_PROM_2019.png)
This "cumulative breakdown" of trust in turn has led some French
people to delay or refuse vaccines, says Heidi Larson, director of
the vaccine confidence project at the London School of Hygiene and
Tropical Medicine.
The World Health Organization says making vaccines mandatory is one
of the best ways to boost immunization rates. France decided last
year to up the number of compulsory vaccines to 11 from three for
babies under two years old.
David Zumino, a 47-year-old intellectual property consultant and
father of three children, including a one-year-old, says that rule
change means he and his wife are again "constantly trying to assess
whether vaccination is really worth it".
"Of course, we understand there are medical benefits for the
children," he told Reuters as he visited the Paris pharmacy where
Grime works.
[to top of second column] |
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2019/Jun/19/images/ads/current/graue_preowned061819.png)
"But ...I can’t help thinking that there is a huge pharma lobby
operation to convince the public there is a threat that needs to be
addressed. And that sounds suspicious."
David Loew, an executive at the drug- and vaccine-maker Sanofi
Pasteur, puts French scepticism down to misinformation.
"There have been in the past years a lot of theories connecting
vaccines to various health issues. There is also fake news
circulating on social media which poses a real problem," he told
reporters last week.
Loew said the best way to address the issue was to ensure health
professionals - who the Wellcome study showed are broadly trusted by
members of the public in France - are equipped with robust
information and accessible to those who have concerns.
Yet one such health worker - Helene Salliet, a 35 year-old mother
and social worker at a hospital in southwest Paris - says government
officials need to avoid a top-down approach.
"Authorities must take into consideration that we are not just
subjects that have to obey," she told Reuters. "We, parents, must
get the right tools to understand and make well-informed decisions."
(Reporting by Matthias Blamont in Paris and Kate Kelland in London;
editing by John Stonestreet)
[© 2019 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2019 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2019/Jun/19/images/ads/current/charrons_bch041713.png) |