France, the birthplace of vaccine pioneer Louis Pasteur, has a major problem with vaccines, reports The Verge.
Skepticism around the safety of vaccines has soared in the country, fueled by growing distrust in public health institutions and the pharmaceutical industry. French authorities hope that a new law will change that.
Last week, the French health ministry announced plans to make 11 vaccines mandatory for young children by 2018. French law currently mandates three vaccines — diphtheria, tetanus, and polio — for children under the age of two. The government’s proposal would expand that list to include eight other vaccines — including those against Hepatitis B, whooping cough, and measles — that were previously only recommended.
The proposal, which is to be presented to lawmakers by the end of this year, comes amid an ongoing measles outbreak across Europe, which the World Health Organization (WHO) attributed to low immunization rates. Italy passed a similar decree in May, requiring children to receive ten vaccines as a condition for school enrollment. Germany, while stopping short of a mandate, has moved to tighten its laws on child immunization.
But some experts question whether a vaccination mandate will sway public opinion in France, where distrust in vaccines has risen alarmingly in recent years. In a survey published last year, 41 percent of respondents in France disagreed with the statement that vaccines are safe — the highest rate of distrust among the 67 countries that were surveyed, and more than three times higher than the global average.
“It’s one of these decisions that, if it’s well managed, could be helpful,” says Heidi Larson, director of the Vaccine Confidence Project and lead author of the survey. “If it’s very top-down, [it] could totally backfire.”
Larson says the measure will “undoubtedly” rile up hard-line anti-vaccine activists; the home of a government spokesperson was spray-painted with anti-vaccine slogans this week, and far-right politician Marine Le Pen has already voiced her opposition to the proposal. But Larson says it’s important for the government to engage with more moderate skeptics, and to convince them “that this is not just a control effort, in terms of controlling people’s actions,” but a public health initiative.
France’s vaccination rates for diphtheria and tetanus are among the highest in the world, according to the OECD, but it lags behind in measles immunization, below the 95 percent threshold considered necessary to prevent outbreaks. More than 24,000 measles cases were reported between 2008 and 2016, according to government figures, and 10 people died from the disease during that period.
Vaccination policies vary widely from country to country, though Western European nations have generally preferred voluntary approaches to mandates. States in the US require vaccines for children to attend school, though all offer medical exemptions, and some offer exemptions for religious or philosophical reasons.
France stopped mandating vaccinations in the 1950s, classifying many newly developed immunizations as “recommended,” and vaccination rates remained high through the early 2000s. But experts say high-profile legal cases over alleged vaccine side effects undermined confidence in both the government and pharmaceutical companies, while anti-vaccine activists have effectively used social media to spread conspiracy theories.