According to a research presented at the American Public Health Association's Annual Meeting in Chicago, IL, most websites for anti-vaccination use a hefty amount of wrong information, as well as medieval science practices and tall tales to support the impression that vaccines are dangerous.
Childhood vaccines are important to keep children away from diseases and epidemics, but there is an increasing number of parents who choose to delay or ignore vaccination, for various reasons. The Internet is often indicated as the source of vaccine information - and also controversy.
Comparisons of pro-vaccine and anti-vaccine websites in the past showed that pro-vaccination sites were focused more on evidence-based scientific research regarding vaccines and government-endorsed vaccination-related practices. Anti-vaccine websites on the other hand focused on creating groups of people who were affected by vaccines and vaccine-related practices, conceiving a personal framework that is used to test the information given in the scientific literature and government documents.
Primary health communities are worried about the inadequate amount of success in convincing parents who do not wish to have their children vaccinated, even with the use of educational and misinformation-correcting notices. Last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported the highest number of measles cases since measles was declared eliminated in 2000.
The larger part of those who caught it was the unvaccinated ones. The CDC said that measles can spread when it reaches a community where groups of people are unvaccinated. The CDC also stated that if the majority of the people living in the community are unvaccinated, then this incident could trigger an epidemic.
Lead author of the current study and associate professor in the Bloomberg School's Department of Health, Behavior and Society, Meghan Moran and her colleagues wanted to analyze the plan of action through which anti-vaccine supporters create such powerfully held anti-vaccine demeanor and so they can create a more effective vaccine promotion strategies.
They have examined four search engines, Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask Jeeves, using key words like "immunization dangers" and "vaccine danger," and others identified using Google Trends. After eliminating similar results, they had a mix of nearly 500 personal websites and blogs, Facebook pages and health websites using persuasive strategies, and specific beliefs about vaccines were presented.