Karen Ernst, Executive Director, Voices for Vaccines
Anuradha Gupta, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance
Joslyn Prince, Jarvis Christian College, COVID-19 is Color Blind; CGI U Student Action Fund Awardee
Moderator: Chelsea Clinton, Vice Chair, Clinton Foundation

MPW Next Gen 2020: Combating Vaccine Hesitancy: Today’s Fight Against Misinformation Online

Karen Ernst, Anuradha Gupta, Joslyn Prince

Uncategorized

Amid the backdrop of today’s fight against misinformation, we’ll discuss the importance of vaccine advocacy and how we can support and promote factual health messaging during the COVID-19 pandemic.


central to moving beyond the pandemic and getting fully back to business is the development of a vaccine. But there's another crucial element that goes beyond development. Its acceptance of the vaccine and willingness to get vaccinated. So much of this comes down to factual information and proper messaging, joining us now to lead a conversation on this important topic is Chelsea Clinton, vice chair of the Clinton Foundation Foundation healthy. Thank you for being with us today. Hi everyone. Thank you so much better for the introduction and thank you to fortune for featuring this important conversation this afternoon, at least this afternoon for me in new york. Perhaps this morning or this evening for wherever you all. Maybe I'm incredibly grateful to our extraordinary group of panelists for joining us today and I want to invite them onto the screen with me so that we can jump into our conversation. Uh First we have Karen ernst, the executive Director of voices for vaccine. Next we have Anuradha Gupta, the deputy chief executive officer of Gavi, the vaccine alliance. Uh and finally, but certainly not least we have a Jocelyn Prince uh student at Jarvis christian college. The founder of Covid 19 is Color blind and a clinton Global Initiative. University Student Action Fund awarding. Thank you all so much for being here this afternoon. I want to start with a question to each of you and uh perhaps we'll just go in order. So Karen, europe first, you know what drew you to the pro vaccine work and the kind of anti anti vaccine work that you now do every day. It was really personal for me because I had a 10 day old newborn who was exposed to chickenpox. Unfortunately he didn't get it. But it really drove home the importance of having highly vaccinated communities everywhere, for people who are vulnerable for reasons that they can't control like being a brand new baby and sort of one thing led to another for me and there was a church one n one pandemic followed by a measles outbreak in my city, which really led me to know more about vaccine misinformation that was being spread. I went looking for someone who was working with parents on combating vaccine misinformation and there wasn't anyone. And so I sort of got launched into this work and now I'm super thrilled about what I'm able to do every day, working with amazing parents and students and other advocates on combating misinformation and making sure people have good information about vaccines and and a lot of the same question, you know, for you and especially as I know that it's been an increasing focus for Gavi um to recognize that it's not only about kind of marshalling and equitably distributing vaccines around the globe is also ensuring that parents everywhere, you know, why it is so important to vaccinate their Children and also themselves. Could you talk a little bit about what drew you and Gabi to the fight against vaccine inclusion in the fight for vaccines? Yeah, so it was uh nearly 10 years ago Chelsea when India accounted for half of the global polio burden that I got an opportunity to lead India's polio program and really get the country over the finish line. So, because with the help of vaccines that we eradicated polio that had crippled millions of Children in our country and in parallel in I forced them to have access in the country and and went ahead to introduce hill vaccine and and make sure that it was available to all the Children in the country, which really went a long way in eliminating disparities between rich and poor. And that is the time when I first hand saw the power of vaccines in reducing death, disease and disability and Jocelyn you know, could you just please talk about kind of what drew you to this kind of pro vaccine work And also especially talk about your Covid 19 is color blind project and work. Yes, our COVID-19 project is getting the word out about everyone, mainly black and brown people of color who can get sick and die from this virus. And that's just the first step. We need a vaccine that keeps people from getting this virus. And I want to be a part of this panel two to find out how we can get people of color who can get sick. And I I'm sorry you're doing great. Take the care once we get one. Sorry about that, Jocelyn, you have nothing to apologize for. And you're doing A great job with us here today. And even more importantly, a great job kind of reaching out to your fellow students and kind of people in your community um to share real information about what's happening with with the COVID-19 pandemic And also real information about um the development of COVID-19 vaccine. Um, I certainly want to remind everyone that you will be able to ask questions uh toward the end of the panels. If you have them, please submit them so that we can get to them, you know, and rod, I wanna kind of return to you and I just hope that you can talk a little bit about what Gabi is doing to combat misinformation around vaccines, around kind of vaccines broadly as a public health intervention, and also kind of specifically kind of what you've seen to work in different uh in different countries to really kind of build confidence in demand for vaccinations. Excellent question Chelsea. And really our view is that the best antidote to misinformation is good information so forth. On the one hand, we are working with facebook and other social media platforms, uh, to really make sure that the users are referred increasingly to authoritative sources of information on vaccines such as the CDC and and W. H. O. And that they really sort of restrict the distribution of misleading content on on vaccines. And just now I heard facebook's announcement saying that they would ban advertisements, you know, that discourage people from coming forward for Covid 19 vaccines. But a very important part of a strategy really is to enhance awareness at the community level. You know, by by using channels that communities trust and their health providers that they rely on. Typically the religious leaders, faith based organizations and the civil society. And as a part of our structure, systematic work, we equip these health providers and different champions and ambassadors and senior leaders very good information and interpersonal tools so that they can sport humors. They can set of uh respond to the questions that the communities may have and and they actually third demand which is sustained, you know, for for vaccination. Another important aspect of our work is to really strengthen health systems so that the quality of service experience for care givers is enhanced and bolstered because if mothers and other care givers bring their Children for vaccination and and they think, you know, welcomed that. Then we know that they'll come back with the Children for the rest of the vaccines. And Karen a somewhat similar question to you because I know so much of your work really is in talking to parents and caregivers, could you just share um kind of what you found to be effective um kind of sometimes on on facebook and social media platforms and sometimes kind of in in real life because we know that you know parents and caregivers want the best for our Children. Um and so how do you kind of start with recognizing that and then start or continue really with what and radha said by giving actually good information as an antidote to whatever kind of miss and mao information they may have otherwise um received and been influenced by. That's a really great question. And I really feel like some of what stops parents from engaging with other parents about vaccine misinformation or disinformation is that they feel as though they need to have some sort of expertise in it, but we really try to emphasize that they do not need to be the experts and vaccination to know when something is incorrect and that it doesn't come from an expert source and that they can merely point that out just saying to someone, you know, I really trust my doctor and that is not what she recommends for our family or you know, I heard dr Fauci say this on tv and it doesn't align with what you're saying right now. But there's also another part where people really try to or want to change someone else's mind because you want your loved ones protected, you want the Children of your friends protected. And so that is it's really important at that point to be a good listener as well as a good talker to listen to find out what it is that is behind the persons hesitancy about vaccines or why they're listening to a particular kind of misinformation about say masks or other covid related items. And to really work with that person with a kind of empathy and to emphasize your shared values with that person around protecting your family, protecting your friends, that you that you are engaging that person because you love them and you care about them and you want the best for them. And that is a very slow way of going about changing a person's mind or engaging misinformation. But it's also very important because the moment that you just try to prove them wrong or you try to look smarter than they are than the conversations over forever. And you have someone who is very much more dug in. And so those are really some of the skills that we teach parents is that you can give a simple statement like that doesn't sound right or I'm pretty sure that's not what most doctors recommend. And you can also be a listener and take in what they're saying and have some empathy for them and then deliver some good information or point them to good sources to find more information, You know, and Jocelyn when you were speaking earlier about your COVID-19 is color blind project. You were talking about how so much of the work kind of up to this point has really been focused on helping um Black Americans and uh underrepresented minorities understand a disproportionate um kind of the deeply unjust impact that COVID-19 has had on communities of color in our country. And yet you also know some of your work going forward will really be about helping people you work with understand why it will be important to get a Covid back then once we have one or maybe more than one that's been proven safe and effective. Just thinking about what Karen was saying about the conversations that she has with parents. You know, how do you think about the conversations that you have had or will be having and of with with your friends or kind of other people that you may know who, who may not want to get a vaccine against Covid, who may not believe that it's safe and effective regardless of what Dr Fauci may say, who think that maybe it's just better to wait. How will you respond? Um, to those sorts of questions I would say that we have to like take action because this coronavirus is not a joke and we should like really participate in like do like social distancing and wear mask and use like handsome advisors. So if all the people that will come up to me and say like, hey, I'm not gonna do that, I would just say like we need to so we can like stop the spread. You know, I, I once was asked in an interview if I would ever let my Children play with an unvaccinated child and I said no. And the interviewer then said, well isn't that very judgmental? And I said yes, like I'm their parent, it's the most important role in my life to make judgments on on their behalf. Um, and, and I just, you know before hopefully and we have some questions from the audience would really appreciate you talking about um, where we are kind of with the status of global vaccinations because while we are focused on kind of the Covid vaccine here, um, we know we still need to be vaccinating Children in some parts of the world against polio, Children in all parts of the world against kind of measles and pneumonia. Kind of where are we? And what do you want the audience today listening to? Just know about um kind of the power of vaccines around the globe, but also kind of the peril that we're in right now in this moment. Absolutely. So Chelsea I really want to Sort of share with the audience that knock on impact of COVID-19 is actually terrible. You know, so all of us are very focused on COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines. But the secondary fact, you know, and Children, you know, are just so heartbreaking. And there are some recent estimates that are suggesting that more than one million Children could die within a span of just about six months because of disruption of health services. And that is something we must absolutely prevent at all costs. We also have no analysis. We suggest That if mothers continue to bring their Children for routine immunization services, then for every for the risk of even a single COVID-19-related death. Actually, you're saving the lives of more than 100 Children by the sustaining vaccination services. So my request to the audiences to actually spread this message among their families, friends and communities that that vaccines save lives. They save lives of Children. They are not an inoculation just against diseases, but they are an inoculation against poverty because that is where most of the disease and deaths are concentrated. And there is lack of access. Two vaccination vaccine large, the best marvel of medical science and it is a vaccine that helps this world wide, a horrific disease like smallpox of the face of the earth. And they might be able to do it again with folio. So, if you could just take that message, I think that would be very helpful in saving the lives of millions of Children. I couldn't agree more. And now I know I think we have three questions um, from jen now I think hi Chelsea, hi everyone. Um we have another question from Katherine Real who asked the social media help or hurt the misinformation problem with vaccines, goodness. Karen. Maybe you can try men here. Social media is a sort of neutral as far as what it does. But there are certainly ways that social media could tip the scales if it wanted to in favor of truth And social media does. The company's people choose to do that on the whole. And so what social media does is it not only increases the spread of misinformation because it's a lot easier to share a piece of misinformation with 500 of your closest friends than it is to walk up to a group of three people and have it spread that quickly. It also groups people together so that they're incorrect ideas don't seem as abnormal as they otherwise would. And so people can find like minded individuals so much easier across social media in for example, facebook groups or at twitter hashtags. And that is really where social media companies could act in sort of breaking up the ability to organize around misinformation. And you know, as pinteresque has done in instagram has done in some cases banning some hashtags and not allowing it on their platform. And so it doesn't have to be the way it is. But right now it's functioning as a very dry tingling for some very bad fires well. And we saw this with the study that was published in nature last year, that kind of misinformation about measles spread many, many, many times. Uh, more than actual factual science based information. Did um, jim maybe another question. Yeah. This is a tough one from jennifer Ristic who asked, I know a child who is vaccine injured. The rare side effects are possible. Can you please talk about these instances and explain how to respond to parents who are hesitant to vaccinate? Oh, goodness! Maybe Narada and Karen, you could both kind of address this. Yeah. So I think this is a very important aspect of vaccine program management that we openly and honestly talk about adverse events following immunization. So a lot of time. So I think it is really the good surpassing the side effects because there is no drug, you know, we don't have any side effect. The vaccines are very safe and effective. However, in some very rare cases they can be some adverse effect. However, when we talk about adverse events following immunization, you know, they may not be a causal relationship, you know, between some of the symptoms that are caused after vaccination and the vaccine itself. And I know when I was in India this this was a huge sort of priority for us because we wanted to proactively monitor adverse advanced following immunization, investigate them as quickly as possible, see whether there is a causal relationship or not. And then go back to the community. And I think if we are honest and transparent about communication, then then uh the trust of communities and vaccination is maintained. But if we do not pay attention to A. F. I. Reporting and and do not respond to the concerns of the community, then of course we are at huge risk of of community losing interest, you know, and and actually attributing uh, sort of injuries or uh, death to vaccines. And then that is not the case. Well, I think unfortunately, we're out of time. Um, so I just want to say thank you to everyone. I'm sorry that we didn't get to the third question. I hope that if you want to support any of the work of the extraordinary uh, women who have joined us today, please um, reach out to them, uh, and please please, uh, the voices for vaccines in your families, in your communities online and offline because our public health and our individual health needs this now, more than ever, thank you Fortune for having us today.