SURVEY – The epidemic is coming, but 70% of French people do not intend to be vaccinated against the flu. The anti-vaccine discourse is progressing in the population, fueled by crises such as that of the A H1N1 influenza in 2009. Pourquoidocteur investigated the reasons for this crisis of confidence which goes beyond the circle of anti-vaccine leagues and which sows trouble in the doctors themselves.
Multiple sclerosis blamed on HPV vaccination. When Marie-Océane Bourguignon filed a complaint in November 2013 against the Sanofi Pasteur laboratory and the National Medicines Safety Agency (ANSM), few then imagine the controversy she will raise in the country. Two years later, the couple Marc and Samia Larère attracted the attention of the media. Young Auxerre parents refuse to vaccinate their children against diphtheria, polio and tetanus. And bring the case before the Constitutional Council.
Two very media cases which illustrate a deep vaccination crisis in France. Evidenced by the rate of young girls immunized (18%) against the papillomavirus. This vaccine (Gardasil / Cervarix) is the only one that protects against precancerous lesions. France wonders when Denmark has a membership rate of 80%.
Proof of the general malaise, the influenza vaccination campaign has just been launched but the results of previous years have puzzled experts: less than one in two at-risk people was protected in 2014. However, if the coverage had been sufficient, 500 deaths could have been avoided. The vaccine opposition, this movement which was limited to a radical fringe of the population, has turned into a general hesitation.
France doubts its vaccines.
While MP Sandrine Hurel is writing the last lines of her report on vaccine policy, Why actor looks back on the main stages of this anti-vaccine wave. Who carries this speech? How did it manage to spread?
“No vaccination without reflection”
The vaccination act has never been unanimous. From its inception, vaccination was debated and raised opposition. “In the 19th century, it was found much more in working-class circles, there were also religious arguments”, underlines Patrick Peretti-Watel, researcher at the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm).
Patrick Peretti-Watel, sociologist at Inserm: ” Today we talk a lot about re-emergence but I think we are wrong, first of all because it is not the same opposition. “
How to distinguish between the historical opposition – represented by these leagues – and the recent movement – the citizens? The scientific literature is divided on the subject. “There are public health experts who see it as the re-emergence of old anti-vaccination movements,” explains Patrick Peretti-Watel. Hesitation is therefore a form of irrationality, a reaction to the disinformation found on the internet. We then find the profile of the reluctant of the nineteenth century: people with little education, low income or socially isolated. But Patrick Peretti-Watel puts forward an opposite theory, more in line with current events.
Patrick Peretti-Watel : ” In a society where people are increasingly being asked to take charge of their health, it is logical that they doubt vaccination. “
A speech that is democratizing
Associations and leagues have understood this well by adjusting their discourse to the ambient climate. Founded in 1954, the National League Against Compulsory Vaccinations was renamed the National League for the Freedom of Vaccinations (LNPLV).
Simple change of facade? According to its president, Jean-Pierre Auffret, the posture has changed fundamentally. “Our old formula is:” We are not systematically against vaccinations but against systematic vaccinations “. We have adopted a more concise formulation in recent times: “No vaccination without reflection” “, he sums up, defending himself from any” sectarian “attitude.
The leagues speak differently, play pedagogy. And their slogan hits the nail on the head: 2 to 3 in 10 French people do not trust vaccines, according to recent surveys.
Sonia Delomel is part of this majority of skeptics. At 24, the young woman from Châtillon (Hauts-de-Seine) hesitated for a long time before having her two-and-a-half-month-old daughter vaccinated. “My mother, who is a nurse, told me about adjuvants in vaccines. She advised me not to give my daughter vaccines with aluminum salts, she recalls. But in the end, we have the pediatrician’s prescription, the pharmacist gives us the vaccine and we don’t really have a choice. “For Sonia, the pediatrician’s opinion won out, but the practitioner did not necessarily answer her questions. But what will happen with the next vaccination? Sonia Delomel has not sought to contact leagues for information, but others are.
Sonia Delomel, early childhood educator: ” My pediatrician recommended that I vaccinate my daughter. Then we wonder what is in these vaccines. To find out, I do like everyone else, I look on the Internet, I talk about it with friends … “
H1N1: the roots of the crisis
Lack of information for professionals, lack of transparency of policies, it is in 2009 that the divide occurs. The year of the influenza A (H1N1) pandemic when everything changed. Opponents and supporters of vaccination agree on this. “We can greatly thank Ms. Roselyne Bachelot (then Minister of Health, editor’s note) of its action which brought us a flood of members and which raised a certain number of debates, in particular on the adjuvants ”, smiles Jean-Pierre Auffret.
In fact, several mistakes were made. They have totally discredited the political discourse on vaccination. The major problem was to completely bypass doctors and pharmacists. At the time, invitations were sent directly to people at risk. Campaigns are organized outside health establishments. Pharmacists do not see the shadow of a vaccine. “A madness of the cabinet of Mrs. Bachelot who has ensured that the largest public health network in this country has been sidelined, observes Serge Blisko, doctor and president of the Interministerial Mission for vigilance and the fight against sectarian excesses. If we’re talking about a flop, it’s good about it, not about the fact that the pandemic was less severe than expected. The crisis of confidence in the word of the political world was immediate. Its consequences can still be observed.
Patrick Peretti-Watel : ” The opposition to the H1N1 flu vaccine may have fueled opposition to vaccination in general. We will see in a few years to what extent this may have caused delays in children’s vaccinations. “
Doctors uncomfortable
But ten years earlier, the situation had already deteriorated. In 1994, Philippe Douste-Blazy, another Minister of Health, launched a vaccination campaign against hepatitis B, following the recommendations of the World Health Organization. While it should only concern infants and 10-11 year olds, the minister is imposing catching up on adolescents and young adults. The success was short: two years later, cases of multiple sclerosis were attributed to the vaccine. Associations are mobilizing, the Medicines Agency is launching studies to determine the existence of a link. Despite the successive convictions, of the State in 2006, of the GSK laboratory in 2009, no association could be demonstrated. But most of the undermining work had already been done. Public health would have been sacrificed on the altar of industrial interests.
To this distrust of the general public, is added that of a fringe of the medical profession. The very media professor Henri Joyeux is in fact only the mouthpiece of a base of practitioners who advise patients. And who wonder. According to a recent study by the Directorate of Research, Studies, Evaluation and Statistics (DREES), 16% of doctors have reservations about the risks and effectiveness of certain vaccines. They are even 8% to say they are not very confident. Here again, the crisis is rooted in mistrust of health authorities. A discomfort that Why actor secondly tried to understand.
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The anti-vaccine discourse put to the test
Drifts on the web
Where can I find an anti-vaccination pediatrician? How to find an antidote to a vaccine that we have not been able to escape? The most radical anti-vaccine movements are on the web. Concerned about this phenomenon, the Interministerial Mission for Vigilance and the Fight against Sectarian Abuses (MIVILUDES) took up the matter. “Obviously, the refusal of vaccination is not strictly speaking a sectarian drift,” immediately tempers Dr. Serge Blisko, its president. But the development of anti-vaccine theories on the Internet is particularly problematic, since no hierarchy exists between the sources of information. “The Internet is a vast forum where even the strangest ideas are exposed”, deplores Serge Blisko. In fact, alongside the recommendations of the Ministry of Health on influenza vaccination, it is possible to learn about the clay method … which consists of “purifying” yourself after a vaccination!
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