Fox News bemoans that ‘vaccine confidence is at an all-...

Studies have found that vaccine hesitancy increased dramatically among regular viewers of Fox News. Fox News medical contributor Marc Siegel sounded the alarm on Tuesday that the measles outbreak impacting the southwest United States “is not going to be stopped without the vaccine,” all while lamenting that “vaccine confidence is at an all-time low.”.

Image Credit: The Independent [RFK Jr, a known vaccine sceptic, is under the spotlight amid a large measles outbreak in southwest America.]

“The best thing to do for measles is vaccinate,” Siegel said. “That vaccine, if you take both doses as a child, is 97 percent effective. In Gaines County, where this has started, we’re only having an 80 percent uptick of that vaccine because of all the exemptions. And more laws have been passed in the state of Texas, and they are about to be passed, allowing more and more exemptions.”.

Siegel added that, among the unvaccinated, measles leads to hospitalizations in about one in 10 cases and that over a dozen Texas patients are currently in the hospital with the disease. “This is not going to be stopped without the vaccine,” he added.

Hemmer, meanwhile, pointed out that the United States had declared measles eliminated in 2000, meaning that the disease had not spread domestically for over 12 months. However, measles – which is especially dangerous for children under five – is now spreading once again in this country.

“Look, Bill, vaccine confidence is at an all-time low. We know why. Vaccines were pushed on people,” Siegel declared. “What I do is I have a conversation with people in my office and I explain what vaccines are for, how they work, why we need them the way I just did. We have to meet people where they live. That’s the way back to vaccine confidence.”.

“The study found that people who reported consuming more conservative media were significantly less likely to be vaccinated and boosted,” the study noted. “The researchers noted that, for example, Fox News pundit Sean Hannity told viewers at the time that COVID-19 was made up by the ‘deep state,’ and then-Fox business anchor Trish Regan characterized the virus as ‘a scam.’”.

“Our results show that Fox News is reducing COVID-19 vaccination uptake in the United States, with no evidence of the other major networks having any effect,” the ETH Zurich study concluded. “[T]here is an association between areas with higher Fox News viewership and lower vaccinations… media emphasis on minority viewpoints against scientific consensus is linked to vaccination hesitancy.”.