Ana Santos Rutschman (Saint Louis University – School of Law) has posted Vaccine Hesitancy Across Time: Legal and Policy Interventions from the Dawn of the Anti-Vaccination Movement to the Era of Social Media (North Carolina Journal of Law and Technology, Vol. 23, No. 3, 2022) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
This symposium article explores the intertwined topics of hesitancy and trust towards vaccines. It traces the evolution of anti-vaccine sentiments, their consolidation into organized movements, and their recent evolution as vaccine misinformation and disinformation circulates with unprecedented ease through digital channels. The Article then examines selected legal and policy interventions that have been used to counter vaccine hesitancy—sometimes through top-down or mandatory frameworks, other times through voluntary ones. In particular, the Article examines vaccination mandates, as well as rules imposing or promoting vaccination; mechanisms designed to increase the flow of information about vaccines; and nudges to vaccination, such as lotteries and other prize-like mechanisms.