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T he controversy over vaccines has persisted since their introduction in the eighteenth century. While many studies have addressed the concerns and motivations of the general population regarding hesitation and resistance to vaccination (especially parents, concerning routine childhood immunization), the present study was designed to examine this issue among professionals from a victimological perspective, thus its uniqueness. Study participants were researchers and practitioners involved with vaccines who hold a critical position on vaccines and their ways of dealing with what they perceived as suppression of dissent in the field of vaccination. The motivations identified among the researchers and practitioners in our study referred to ethical aspects of professional obligation to patients, patient rights, freedom of choice, and lack of trust in the medical establishment. The participants also perceived themselves as victims of suppressive tactics due to their critical position, to which they responded in two contrasting ways: continuing to dissent while insisting on their right to have their voices heard or abandoning their public dissent due to the reactions and repercussions they faced. The article discusses the implications of these findings in the context of scientific integrity, violation of democratic and ethical values, freedom of speech, and its impact on the public’s trust in science and medicine.

Two publications by Merzon and colleagues in the Journal of Attention Disorders (JAD) suggest that attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) increases the risk of COVID-19 infections (2020) and severe outcomes (2021). Adherence to stimulant treatments was recommended to attenuate the spread of the pandemic (2020). The conclusions of these timely studies attracted considerable attention, probably due to their wide-scope implications for the public health. But how valid are they? Furthering our earlier critique published in this journal, the current article outlines seven severe gaps in these publications, including inconsistencies in the definitions and rates of ADHD, inadequate definition for ADHD medications, omissions of crucial information, unsuitable analyses, and unmet declarations regarding conflicts of interests and data availability. In fact, the latter, which constitutes a repeated avoidance of data sharing (up to this day, March 28, 2023), seems to have led the editor-in-chief of JAD to propose the write-up of the current article (which he then judged, after the peer review process, as "worthy of publication," but also that JAD is "not the best placement" of its publication—despite its specific focus on several JAD articles). To complete the picture regarding this burning public health issue, this article also provides a glimpse into the problematic happenings that took place behind the scenes, which included a personal defamation and various stalling tactics, along with an elaborated and fully-referenced response that was sent by the authors of the current article to the reviewers and the editor-in-chief of JAD in real time (Appendix). Together, the discrepancies and problematic ethical conducts that are exposed in the current article suggest that the speculation regarding the link between a neurodevelopmental diagnosis (ADHD) and a respiratory virus (COVID-19) has not been subjected to adequate scientific inquiry. On the contrary, the lack of transparency, the observed gaps, and the existing extensive literature on stimulant-related cardiovascular risks, including the recently published guidelines for starting ADHD medications by one of the authors of the 2021 study, raise concerns regarding the potentially dangerous implications of stimulant use during a global epidemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The controversy over vaccines, which has recently intensified following the COVID-19 pandemic, provokes heated debates, with both advocates and opponents raising allegations of bias and fraud in research. Researchers whose work raises doubts about the safety of certain vaccines claim to be victims of discriminatory treatment aimed at suppressing dissent, including the unjustified retraction of their published research. Such practices have previously been discussed in other controversial fields in science (e.g., AIDS, the environment, and water fluoridation) but not in the field of vaccines. The purpose of this study was to analyze, for the first time, the subjective views of researchers whose papers were retracted. Study participants are active researchers, most with international reputations in their respective fields. They perceived retraction as a means of censoring and silencing critical voices with the aim of preserving the pro-vaccination agenda of interested parties. Participants also reported additional measures aimed at harming them personally and professionally. These findings point to the need for a fair, open, and honest discourse about the safety of vaccines for the benefit of public health and the restoration of trust in science and medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water fluoridation is a controversial issue in public health. Despite the uncertainty regarding its efficacy and safety, health officials continue to communicate it as ‘unequivocally’ safe and effective. Our focus is on how health officials and policy-makers in Israel frame the issue of water fluoridation in terms of certainty while promoting a mandatory fluoridation policy. According to van Asselt and Vos, the uncertainty paradox describes situations in which uncertainty is acknowledged, but the role of science is framed as providing certainty. Our study is an analysis of documents and media articles emphasizing the paradoxical language used by official representatives on the controversial topic of fluoridation. A central contribution of this study is that we coin the term ‘uncertainty bias,’ in which policy-makers do exactly what they accuse laypeople of doing, framing uncertainty in biased terms. We found that in order to establish mandatory regulation, health ministry officials expressed information in an unbalanced format, promoting the topic of fluoridation by framing it in exclusively positive terms. This study does not focus on the practice of water fluoridation per se, and is not intended to decide for or against it, but rather, to explore how the debate regarding it is communicated. Understanding this particular case can shed light on how other controversial topics are transformed into health policy that is characterized in equivocal terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on newspaper coverage of the Hickox quarantine incident, using it as a case study to examine how the media characterized the spread of disease in an ongoing crisis situation characterized by uncertainty. The study builds on Slovic et al.’s research, who argue that risk perception is comprised of both emotional and analytical aspects. We employed a qualitative approach, first examining articles on Hickox’s story inThe New York TimesandNew York Daily Newsbetween October 25 and 31, 2014; and second, readers’ comments in response to these articles. The findings from the newspaper articles show that in their treatment of the quarantine debate, the media did not address the issue of uncertainty, and thus continued the health authorities’ neglect of this issue. Although the media gave expression to various sides of the debate, it emphasized those who objected to the quarantine policy, thus raising the claim that the conflict was between ‘science’ and the public’s ‘irrational fears,’ and that the governors decided on quarantine in response to the public’s panic and fears. From our analysis of readers’ comments, it appears that these claims are unjustified. First, we found that the public did not speak in a single unified voice, but rather, was divided into supporters and opponents of quarantine. Both sides used scientific arguments and resorted to similar terminology, and tended to cite and present studies backing their arguments. As for irrational fears, although quarantine supporters expressed emotions, they indicated mainly concerns, not panic or hysteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current research focuses on the 2013 polio outbreak in Israel as a case study to analyze the sources of information used in new media platforms, examining whether the new media have changed the ways in which we communicate about health issues. Specifically, we tracked and coded polio-related references on Hebrew news websites, blogs, forums, and Facebook posts. Overall, 24,388 polio-related references constituted our sampling frame. The findings suggest that there is a moderate-level correlation between the platform and the type of sources chosen by users. Beyond the differences between various platforms, we found that online information platforms rely not only on popular or pseudoscientific sources, but also on high-quality information. In fact, the analysis indicates that online news websites, forums, blogs, and Facebook posts create a unique blend of information, including scientific literature, medical professionals, and government representatives, as well as pseudoscientific research. These findings suggest a more optimistic view of the Internet as a source for health-related information in times of crises. Although the fact that members of the public are exposed to scientific sources does not indicate to what degree this affects their actual decision making. Exposure to a wider variety of sources may enhance health literacy, resulting in a better understanding of information needed to make informed decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study examines vaccination hesitancy or refusal following the 2013 polio outbreak in Israel, based on two theoretical models. The first is Sandman’s theoretical model, which holds that risk perception is comprised of hazard plus outrage. The second model is the affect heuristic that explains the risk/benefit confounding. It aims to expose the barriers that inhibited parental compliance with OPV vaccination for their children. The study employed mixed methods – a questionnaire survey (n = 197) and content analysis of parents’ discussions in blogs, Internet sites, and Facebook pages (n = 2499). The findings indicate that some parents who normally give their children routine vaccinations decided not to give them OPV due to lack of faith in the health system, concerns about vaccine safety and reasons specific to the polio outbreak in Israel. Some vaccinated due to a misunderstanding, namely, they believed that OPV was supposed to protect their children, when it was actually for overall societal well-being. This study highlights the difficulty of framing the subject of vaccinations as a preventive measure, especially when the prevention is for society at large and not to protect the children themselves. The findings of this study are important because they provide a glimpse into a situation that can recur in different places in the world where a disease considered to have been ‘eradicated’ returns, and the public is required to take measures which protect the public but which might put individuals at risk. The conclusions from the analysis of the findings of this study are that the public’s risk perception is based on a context-dependent analysis, which the communicating body must understand and respect. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]