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Vaccine hesitancy and coercion: all eyes on France

Nature Immunology volume 20, pages 1257–1259 (2019)Cite this article

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With record levels of vaccine hesitancy and one of the most drastic reinforcements of vaccine mandates in recent years, there is much to learn from the French experience.

In late February 2019, a French family went on holiday to Costa Rica. They brought with them more than their heavy suitcases: their unvaccinated child was infected with measles. This was Costa Rica’s first documented case in five years. Fortunately, the authorities placed the family in quarantine quickly enough to avoid the spread of the disease throughout Central America. The fact that France is at the center of this story is not surprising. In the past 10 years, epidemics of measles have multiplied in Europe, particularly in France, largely because of what has come to be called “vaccine hesitancy.”

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Fig. 1: Opinions regarding vaccination in general: trends since 2000 (France, adults 18+ years, N = 15,000–30,000).

Barometers from 2000 to 2017, Santé Publique France

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Santé Publique France for providing access to the Health Barometers databases. This work was supported by a CNRS Momentum grant (to J.K.W.), funds by the Institut Hospitalo-Universitaire (IHU) Méditerranée Infection, the National Research Agency (convention. 15-CE36-0008-01) and the program ‘Investissements d’avenir’ (convention ANR-10-IAHU-03), the Région Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, the European funding FEDER PRIMI, the Institute for Research in Public Health (convention 17-PREV-39), and the ITMO Cancer (Plan cancer 2014–2019). The funding sources had no involvement in the research nor any role in the writing of the manuscript and the decision to submit it for publication.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CNRS, Université Paris-Sorbonne, GEMASS, Paris, France

    Jeremy K. Ward

  2. Aix Marseille Université, IRD, AP-HM, SSA, VITROME, Marseille, France

    Jeremy K. Ward, Patrick Peretti-Watel, Aurélie Bocquier, Valérie Seror & Pierre Verger

  3. IHU-Méditerranée Infection, Marseille, France

    Patrick Peretti-Watel, Aurélie Bocquier, Valérie Seror & Pierre Verger

  4. ORS PACA, Southeastern Health Regional Observatory, Marseille, France

    Patrick Peretti-Watel, Aurélie Bocquier & Pierre Verger

  5. INSERM, F-CRIN, Innovative Clinical Research Network in Vaccinology (I-REIVAC), Paris, France

    Patrick Peretti-Watel & Pierre Verger

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Correspondence to Jeremy K. Ward.

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Ward, J.K., Peretti-Watel, P., Bocquier, A. et al. Vaccine hesitancy and coercion: all eyes on France. Nat Immunol 20, 1257–1259 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41590-019-0488-9

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