Personal experiences push moms toward anti-vaccine stance

+ Ramadan in Gaza US Edition - Today's top story: Vaccine-skeptical mothers say bad health care experiences made them distrust the medical system [View in browser]( US Edition | 11 March 2024 [The Conversation] [The Conversation]( Top headlines - [Mental illness, suffering and the ethics of assisted dying]( - [The factors pushing more Chinese migrants to US border]( - [What an ancient Roman coin tells us about voting rights]( Lead story I’ve always been all in on vaccines. Growing up with a family member who was paralyzed by polio – a disease now preventable by vaccine but that wasn’t when she was young – underscored how devastating the alternatives to vaccination could be. So I’ve shared the frustration of public health officials as the number of Americans who are hesitant or refuse these safe, preventive treatments has grown. But research conducted by University of Maine cultural anthropologist Johanna Richlin [complicates what is often a simplistic picture]( of why some American women skip vaccines for their children. In interviews, vaccine-skeptical moms told Richlin how their own negative experiences with doctors and the medical system made them distrustful and wary of vaccines. Their anti-vaccine attitudes, Richlin writes, “do not emerge solely from ignorance, conspiracy thinking, far-right extremism or hysteria, but rather the historical and ongoing harms endemic to the U.S. health care system itself.” [ [Understand what’s going on in Washington and around the world. Get our Politics Weekly newsletter.]( ] Maggie Villiger Senior Science + Technology Editor Women’s own negative medical experiences influence their vaccine decisions for their kids. AP Photo/Ted S. Warren [Vaccine-skeptical mothers say bad health care experiences made them distrust the medical system]( Johanna Richlin, University of Maine Vaccine skepticism, and the broader medical mistrust and far-reaching anxieties it reflects, is not just a fringe position in the 21st century. International - [Chinese migration to US is nothing new – but the reasons for recent surge at Southern border are]( Meredith Oyen, University of Maryland, Baltimore County A gloomier economic outlook in China and tightening state control have combined with the influence of social media in encouraging migration. - [In Kyrgyzstan, creeping authoritarianism rubs up against proud tradition of people power]( Keith Brown, Arizona State University Recent laws and pro-Putin sentiment by Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov have sparked concern that the Central Asian country is backsliding on democracy. 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