Recognizing the societal factors that have eroded trust in medical institutions, anti-vaxxers are attempting to direct this distrust to benefit their own cause. ![]() More concerning is that they have begun to deliberately target racialized communities with anti-vaccine disinformation and propaganda. In present times, the leaders of anti-vaccination movements are still predominantly white, with many receiving millions in revenue from their activities. (Library of Congress) Today: Anti-vaxx targeting of racialized people ![]() Two men read notices pasted to a wall in downtown Chinatown, San Francisco, 1896-1906. Yet the medical oppression of non-white communities was ignored by anti-vaccination leaders, who instead used their platforms to retain the medical freedoms of dominant white communities. Washington has vividly demonstrated how Black communities were frequently enrolled in medical research trials for testing new medical treatments and vaccines, often without their knowledge or consent. In 1900, city health officials in San Francisco issued mandatory plague vaccination orders for all Chinese individuals after a few cases of plague were found in the city.Īmerican writer Harriet A. On the West Coast, civic public health officials actively enforced compulsory vaccination on Asian communities based on racial profiling during disease outbreaks. Throughout this period, Indigenous children in Canada were forced to attend residential schools, where vaccination was either implemented or ignored at the will of federal or school officials, with little regard for parental or individual choice. ![]() In North America, the freedom to choose vaccination was already defined by racial identity in many places. These people used their social standing to loudly condemn perceived limitations of their rights, while blindly ignoring the systemic absence of the same freedoms for racialized and low-income communities. One of their main arguments was that compulsory enforcement was a “tyrannical interference with the rightful liberties of the people,” an accusation often levelled at health officials attempting to increase vaccine uptake in the general public. The racialized language utilized by these early anti-vaxxers was all the more potent when weaponized by white leaders of anti-vaccination leagues (or organizations).īetween 18, numerous anti-vaxx leagues were founded in Britain, the United States and Canada. Throughout this work he consistently referred to vaccination as a “savage rite” performed by “the Medicine Man” on helpless innocent children.Īn illustration from Charles Higgins book ‘Horrors of Vaccination Exposed and Illustrated’ (Internet Archive) Medical freedom, white freedom One of the most potent examples of this was in 1920, when vocal anti-vaccination writer Charles Higgins published a book against vaccination. These racial slurs served the purposes of anti-vaccinationists who sought to discredit the practice. Opponents to the practice declared it a “filthy, useless and dangerous rite” akin to using the “charms and incantations of an African savage.”īy the turn of the 20th century, racialized language began to appear in anti-vaccination dialogues which, on the surface, had little to do with race. These non-western origins fuelled some anti-vaccination criticisms during the 19th century. Its use in North America was initiated by the knowledge of an enslaved man, Onesimus, who famously taught the procedure to puritan minister Cotton Mather during a smallpox outbreak in the early 18th century. Indeed, inoculation was practised in China for centuries before it made its way to Europe, as well as in the Middle East and North Africa. This type of inoculation had its foundation in a number of non-western cultures before it was incorporated into western medical practice. This would ideally convey a mild form of the disease and thereby protect the recipient from more deadly forms. ![]() Inoculation originally referred to the older form of vaccination, where pus was taken from the pustule of someone with a mild form of smallpox and purposely scratched into the arm of a healthy person. The intrinsic racism of anti-vaccination movements began with their historical origin in the 19th century.
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