A Biden administration that vowed to restore Americans’ faith in public health has grown increasingly paralyzed over how to combat the resurgence in vaccine skepticism.

And internally, aides and advisers concede there is no comprehensive plan for countering a movement that’s steadily expanded its influence on the president’s watch.

The rising appeal of anti-vaccine activism has been underscored by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s insurgent presidential campaign and fueled by prominent factions of the GOP. The mainstreaming of a once-fringe movement has horrified federal health officials, who blame it for seeding dangerous conspiracy theories and bolstering a Covid-era backlash to the nation’s broader public health practices.

But as President Joe Biden ramps up a reelection campaign centered on his vision for a post-pandemic America, there’s little interest among his aides in courting a high-profile vaccine fight — and even less certainty of how to win.

“There’s a real challenge here,” said one senior official who’s worked on the Covid response and was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “But they keep just hoping it’ll go away.”

The White House’s reticence is compounded by legal and practical concerns that have cut off key avenues for repelling the anti-vaccine movement, according to interviews with eight current and former administration officials and others close to the process.

  • @ATQ@lemm.ee
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    2 years ago

    There’s a pragmatic solution here:

    1). Make vaccines free. The government pays.

    2). Require vaccines for participation in publicly funded social programs. Schools. Social Security. Etc.

    3). Allow doctor authorized health waivers to number 2.

    4). Wait.

    Most people will get the free vaccines either because they’re reasonable people, because the vaccines are free, or because they want government services. Those that don’t will die earlier. Eventually even stupid people will notice or they’ll be dead.

      • Semi-Hemi-Demigod
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        282 years ago

        I got my first COVID vaccine and the booster at a drive-through clinic. My favorite part was the vibe there. We could finally do something to fight to get things back to normal and everybody was stoked.

    • cooljacob204
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      202 years ago

      If enough people don’t get the vaccine then a lot more then non vaccinated people will die.

    • Seraph
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      152 years ago

      Eventually even stupid people will notice or they’ll be dead.

      Apparently you haven’t been paying attention to this whole COVID deal? And to the other comments point you need to meet a threshold in the population for a vaccine to do what’s intended.

    • @jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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      72 years ago
      1. Find prominent anti-vaxxers
      2. Kill them
      3. That’s it you’re done.

      Obviously this isn’t ethical or practical, but it would result in net fewer deaths than doing nothing.

      • @Jax@sh.itjust.works
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        42 years ago

        Something something slippery slope something something life starts at conception something something all life has value something something murder bad.

        • @HerbalGamer@lemm.ee
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          22 years ago

          something something life starts at conception something something all life has value

          apart from that I mostly agree

      • @cricket97@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        15% of US adults are unvaccinated. No, killing them all would not result in fewer deaths. You are a crazy person.

        • @jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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          12 years ago

          15% of us adults are not prominent anti vaxxers.

          Many people cannot be vaccinated for legitimate reasons. They’re fine.

          It’s the people who go on YouTube or TV or a high office spreading anti vaccine misinformation that need to go in the ground.

            • @jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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              22 years ago

              Nah. If we just kill them, and a lot of the Republican party, the world gets markedly better.

              We could make a lot of progress on climate change, too!

              They’re bad people who want to kill me and my loved ones. I don’t see why I should treat them as anything less than an existential threat.

    • @LavaPlanet@lemmy.world
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      72 years ago

      And regulate misinformation and disinformation, make social media culpable, they’ll quickly change their tune if $ are at stake. The current model wants engagement, and click bait misinformation does wonders for that.

        • @cricket97@lemmy.world
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          12 years ago

          That’s a pretty genuine question you are sweeping under the rug. Let’s say theoretically a vaccine comes out that is undertested and has some very serious side effects, but still gets the job done. There is an extremely large financial incentive on behalf of Pharmaceutical companies to brush negative effects under the rug. Surely this can’t ever go wrong in the future.

            • @cricket97@lemmy.world
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              12 years ago

              Do you believe there is sufficient regulation in place to prevent the situation described from happening? Do you really want the government policing something as broad as “misinformation”

              • @LavaPlanet@lemmy.world
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                12 years ago

                Do you believe there’s sufficient regulation in place? Genuinely. Is that your fear? Have you tried looking into how a medical study is conducted and the regulations involved? It’s extensive. I’ve looked into it and I’m comfortable the experts are keeping things well regulated. And they create more regulations as they find they’re needed. Sometimes the misinformation isn’t trying to achieve what you think it is, what if the misinformation actually serves to remove the current regulations that work, what if it’s “big pharma” spreading the misinformation so as to cause regulations to be removed, or get a politician to head them they can manipulate to change things for them. Because all those anti vax news execs and politicians are vaccinated.

                • @cricket97@lemmy.world
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                  12 years ago

                  You’re comfortable, that’s great, you can make your own decisions. A lot of people believe that it’s entirely likely that big pharmaceutical companies are putting profit before human health. It happened with the rise of opiate based painkillers in the past couple decades, so it absolutely does happen, and most people in the system probably thought they were doing the right thing.

                  I for one am not comfortable relying on the government to prevent these monoliths from putting out products that harm people more than they help.

      • @renownedballoonthief@lemmygrad.ml
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        2 years ago

        Skip the fines entirely and introduce criminal charges for executives of platforms that host anti-vaxx content. Have a complaint about the contents or safety of a vaccine? Feel free to submit your study to a peer-reviewed journal, or shut the fuck up.

    • @utopianfiat@lemmy.world
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      52 years ago

      The antivax base are billionaires though, who can afford to fund their poorer devotees through the worst of their government service martyrdom

    • DaDragon
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      22 years ago

      Think about the optics though: if the vaccines are free, WHY are they free?
      The answer that group will give: Bill Gates is subsidizing his microchips so we will all be infected with them.

      • @Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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        42 years ago

        This is not an optics play, it’s a power play. When mandates were first issued to a lot of cops their conservative asses talked a big game about mass resignations and chaos in the streets, then the due date came and went and most just got vaccinated.

    • @milicent_bystandr@lemm.ee
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      22 years ago

      Eventually even stupid people will notice or they’ll be dead.

      Doesn’t work. Did early deaths stop all the smokers?

      1. is a problem, because it gives the government more reach to damage people with mistakes. What if the republicans (whom, I assume, you think evil) get in? How much of their policy detail would you like mandated (“for the public interest!”) and would you prefer to be able to say, I believe that’s harmful in my situation, so I chose to do differently. IMHO that sort of requirement that you’ve suggested should be very rare indeed - if ever. And wrt COVID specifically, retrospectively the vaccine results were much more muddy than we’d hoped, rather (in my eyes) proving the point.

      2. I like, and 3) whenever something approaching 2) is implemented.

    • @cricket97@lemmy.world
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      12 years ago

      Yeah forcing mandatory injections is definitely a really cool thing for a government to do. Can’t wait to see where that goes.