The anti-vaccine movement in Poland: The socio-cultural conditions of the opposition to vaccination and threats to public health

Abstract

The article analyses the cultural and political contexts of the revival of the anti-vaccine movement in Poland. According to the authors, the attempt to institutionalise and politicise anti-vaccine activists is part of the wider phenomenon of political populism in Eastern Europe. The attempt to abolish compulsory vaccinations, which is supported by right-wing populists, shows that the anti-Enlightenment and anti-Western shift in the public sphere in Eastern Europe can also affect the area of health protection. Western pharmaceutical concerns may be the same target of populist attacks as refugees and migrants. The authors claim that, like in the case of political nationalism, a widespread educational campaign and bottom-up social legal and political measures need to be implemented to combat disinformation about vaccination.