Educating About Mass Vaccinations in a Post-Truth Era

The development of vaccines against a range of deadly or debilitating diseases represents one of the major medical advances of our time, saving many millions of lives. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to extensive media coverage on vaccination. As a consequence, vaccination views and varied sides of the debate have become a common topic of social conversation and argument worldwide. Despite the undoubted benefits vaccines have provided, there is still skepticism about their safety amongst some sections of society. Anti-vaccine messages are being amplified and disseminated widely by social media, sometimes invoking either pseudo-science or anti-scientific justification. The prevalence and apparent influence of the current anti-vaccine movement suggest that the goals of science education including scientific literacy, critical thinking and argumentation based on reliable evidence, and sound reasoning are not being met for a substantial proportion of the population. This chapter will examine some of the non-scientific arguments currently being communicated about mass vaccination on social media platforms and the implications for science education in engaging with this problematic socio-scientific issue.