Vaccine Hesitancy: Is this a War on Science?

With public protests against public health measures, anger directed at scientific experts, and rampant misinformation proliferating on social media, it is now common belief that we are experiencing a “war on science”. In this talk, Dr. Maya Goldenberg challenges this view. Focusing on vaccine hesitancy and refusal, she argues that vaccine hesitancy signals a crisis of trust between the publics and the institutions that structure civic life. More concretely, public resistance to vaccines is a demand for institutional structures and governance that are responsive to issues of justice and equity. To be effective, efforts to counter vaccine hesitancy should be addressing problems of scientific governance and bolstering public engagement.