Why don’t parents have their children vaccinated? Sociologist Jennifer Reich is researching this question. She advocates better communication and warns against making judgments too quickly.
In recent weeks, reports of measles infections have been increasing worldwide. Does that surprise you?
No, unfortunately there are now very few things that surprise me at this point. I have been working on the topic of vaccine refusal for a long time. I started doing this in 2002 and 2003, when there were these fears of bioterrorism in the US and the concern that viruses could be used as weapons. At the time, the unanimous opinion among experts was that the issue had been settled. People would get vaccinated. We didn’t think about it anymore. Then the measles cases suddenly appeared in 2014.