When You Wish Upon a Star: Celebrities and the fight for vaccination
To say that vaccination remains an extremely hot-button issue is an understatement. Thirteen years after Andrew Wakefield began a controversy over the MMR vaccine and autism, and 2 years after the author of that controversy was discredited for fraud, the opponents of vaccination are still going strong. I previously wrote on this subject for The Magazine in Give it Your Best Shot. There, I discussed how safe vaccines have been shown to be and how, to support this argument, the pro-vaccine movement needs to co-opt the power of narrative and story in the same way the anti-vaccine movement has utilized it. They must augment data with stories of children who suffered needlessly from vaccine-preventable diseases to counter stories from people like Jenny McCarthy whose son supposedly became autistic after vaccination. Others have since supported this view in the scientific literature. But there's something else the pro-vaccine movement has also quietly began to co-opt: the power of celebrity.
In the months since I wrote about vaccines, Jenny McCarthy, the well-known former playmate who has often been the face of the anti-vaccine movement, was thrust back into the limelight by being hired as a co-host for The View. At the time this was announced, in July, the pro-vaccine medical and science journalism community rallied to argue why this position was inappropriate for her, and that she should not be given a broader platform for her anti-vaccine views. ABC went on to hire her and may yet regret it. (On second thought, maybe not) But in the meantime, other celebrities who have been quietly pro-vaccine have begun to step up their public presence. Amanda Peet has long been a spokesperson for Every Child By Two, a wonderful pro-vaccine organization. But in May she spoke at a media summit on how to use one's celebrity as a platform, and also on what inspired her to use it for the pro-vaccine cause. In her case, she is interested in increasing vaccination not just in the US but also abroad and in the developing world in particular. Like Jenny McCarthy, she of course used her own child's experience--a story--for support. Her daughter contracted pertussis as a toddler, before fully completing the vaccine series, and only survived because of access to advanced medical care that most of the developing world does not have. That pertussis was even an issue for her vaccinated daughter in the first place is due to under vaccination and loss of resulting herd immunity--something I discuss in my previous piece and something that is lacking in the developing world where vaccine uptake is poor.
But Amanda Peet is a known entity in this fight, who has even been directly targeted by Jenny McCarthy for her views. These two are the heavyweights in the fight. Are there others entering the fray? On the anti-vaccine side, there really have not been too many. Indeed, the pro-vaccine side might actually now be winning the media war, with journalists being increasingly unwilling to give voice to the other side. A Google search for "vaccines autism" or "vaccines bad" turns up more links to the CDC homepage, anti-Jenny McCarthy websites, or pro-vaccine articles and blogs than it does anti-vaccine pages. So one can imagine it is precisely this turn towards normalcy regarding pro-vaccine views that has begun to attract other celebrities to the cause. Celebrities who aren't being spokespeople and who don't have a horse in the race, but who are just concerned citizens who happen to be famous. You know, like Kanye West and Kim Kardashian.
As anybody who follows celebrity gossip would apparently know, Kim Kardashian recently had a baby and, like all babies, until she has her first shots at 2 months of age, Kim's daughter is at increased risk of illness if she is exposed to a vaccine-preventable disease. Thus, it has become the recommended practice to re-immunize adults against pertussis--something known to have waning vaccine-induced immunity--when they will be near or caring for an infant. And to his credit, Kim Kardashian's family doc recommended this to Kim and her family. How do we know this? Because it was on TV. In the October 27th episode, #107, "All Signs Point to North," the Kardashian family received Tdap vaccines to protect them and baby North against pertussis or whooping cough. While I myself did not see the episode, it was dutifully chronicled by two pro-vaccine medical bloggers here and here. And apparently when one of the Kardashian sisters tried to get out vaccination, she was told she could not visit the baby without it. She dutifully received the shot.
While one reality show episode will not convince the staunchest anti-vaccine advocates, the fact that another celebrity joined the pro-vaccine bandwagon is evidence of a trend that, on the whole, might: people are just getting vaccines. Kim Kardashian did this because she trusted her doctor and cared for her baby. She is not seeking to be a pro-vaccine spokesperson, nor is she blogging or speaking about this outside the show. The moment happened, was noticed by those who watched it, and passed. But in its normalcy, this moment spoke volumes more than any fanfare would have. Vaccines are good. Vaccines are safe. We know this, but now we can see it on TV. The West-Kardashians are simply parents doing right by their child--in front of a national audience. We can only hope their approach is a lesson to other celebrities--don't be like the Jenny McCarthy's of the world. It's okay to come out of the vaccine closet. It's okay to admit you vaccinate--heck, now that the Kardashians do it, it's probably even cool.
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