Vaccine hesitancy, social media and a federal role in vaccines

Recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) published the Ten threats to global health in 2019 and among the ten is vaccine hesitancy. WHO states: Vaccine hesitancy – the reluctance or refusal to vaccinate despite the availability of vaccines – threatens to reverse progress made in tackling vaccine-preventable diseases. Vaccination is one of the most cost-effective ways of avoiding disease – it currently prevents 2-3 million deaths a year, and a further 1.5 million could be avoided if global coverage of vaccinations improved. In this podcast taken from a recent episode of Outbreak News TV, I ask Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, Amesh Adalja, MD his thoughts on the vaccine hesitancy issue. In addition, I ask him about social media and vaccines and the role, if any, of the federal government in vaccine regulation in this segment.