Oxford COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy Scale
Critical Thinking, Desire for Informed Consent, Appropriate Caution--All Ignored in a New "Disease" Score
By Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH
For COVID-19 vaccination, hesitancy and refusal of the novel products for so many was a lifesaving medical decision. However, the medical literature casts vaccine hesitancy like a disease, and now it is measured by the Oxford Vaccine Hesitancy Scale. This scale was developed in the UK BEFORE the vaccines rolled out and of note, does not ask about the major reason for hesitancy—vaccine safety.
Larson et al in the New England Journal of Medicine put a scientific lens on vaccine hesitancy and characterize it as mutable—implying that social media and doctors should be co-opted to change opinions to favor vaccines.
“Timing is everything when it comes to vaccine acceptance or hesitancy, and the mutable nature of vaccine hesitancy calls for new modes of analysis to characterize not only the temporal features of hesitancy but also the spatial (e.g., regional) features and the many behavioral manifestations and their effects on vaccine uptake. Such real-time data also allow investigation into contextual events that can help us understand the drivers of hesitancy. Vaccine acceptance can be increased, but responsiveness to emerging concerns is key. Given that physicians and other health care providers are still among the most trusted figures when it comes to health care advice, local information about the nature and scope of vaccine hesitancy in their communities may help them anticipate and support important conversations in the clinic.”
Others have characterized vaccine hesitancy like a syringe and only when the plunger has thrust the product into the body does the color turn blue. Americans will readily recognize the political implications of this red to blue syringe.
Recently Kura and Abubakar summarized 20 studies using the imperceptive Oxford Hesitancy Scale and found it performed reliably, that is, people are consistently hesitant to take COVID-19 vaccines, but nowhere in the paper do the authors mention vaccine side effects or perceived safety.
In summary, there is an entire vein in the medical literature that treats vaccine hesitancy like a disease but does not get to the root cause of the issue, which is appropriate concern over vaccine safety. Be wary of authors and manuscripts on this topic. Many are using vaccine hesitancy as a weaponized tool to change popular opinion in the clinical sciences as well as public social media.
This rap titled “Just Say No” from RC The Rapper assisted by Chris Sky sums up the most of the determinants of vaccine hesitancy discussed above which were intensified by authoritarian lockdowns, mandates, and coercive government actions against the people. Kid should get some credit for being on point early—”Just Say No.”
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Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH
President, McCullough Foundation
In Australia we had a terrible event back on the 28th of April 1996, A lone gunman killed 35 people and injured 23 with a Military grade weapon at a local tourist site called Port Arthur in Tasmania where I live.
This event was the catalyst for sweeping gun control law changed across the country - banning automatic and semi automatic weapons, more stringent background checks and training, restrictions on firearm ownership.
This also caused a large degree of firearm hesitancy in the community and rightly so given the needless loss of human life that could of been avoided.
Are these people who are hesitant now suffering a disease? No of course they’re not. Is someone who was mauled by a savage dog and now scared of all dogs suffering a disease? No they aren’t.
Yet people like myself who have had their lives ruined and put a risk by a product that was marketed as “Safe and Effective” had the side effects hidden, refused medical care once the side effects presented & the find out these Vaccines were in fact “Gene Therapy” never used before in humans (in-fact outlawed), There are over 770 known adverse events & I have to live with life long scarring on my heart & adverse effects after being the fittest and healthiest I had ever been at 37 years old who followed the Govt advice and did the right thing to ensure others were protected (but now we know the vaccine doesn’t stop transmission) are considered to be suffering some kind of medical disease? The thousands of vaccine deaths and injuries in Australia go unnoticed & we’re silenced and shamed when 35 can change the whole country? Something is very wrong
Dr McCullough -- you have heroically stood up against government tyranny to advocate early treatment, expose the dangers of the Covid shots, and generally educate people around the world about the Covid fiasco, probably saving millions of lives in the process. Here you helpfully expose how the usual suspects abuse the idea of "vaccine hesitancy" to manipulate people into taking the dangerous injections. The arguments you make here also could be made about the statin narrative. One of your recent articles talks about people being "hesitant" to take statins, erroneously arguing it is only hubris that keeps people from taking the drugs. As with the Covid injections, however, it isn't hubris at all -- it's knowledge about statin dangers and a long list of severe adverse effects coupled with little to no offsetting benefit that have caused many to refuse them. Substitute "statins" for "vaccines" in one sentence of this article and you would have a good explanation for why many refuse statins: "In summary, there is an entire vein in the medical literature that treats statin hesitancy like a disease but does not get to the root cause of the issue, which is appropriate concern over statin safety."