Vaccine Hesitancy, Anti-Vax, COVID-Conspirationism: From Subcultural Convergence to Public Health and Bioethical Problems

Vaccine hesitancy is not in itself a novel social and individual phenomenon, yet the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is associated with increasing degrees of widespread sociopolitical weaponization of such attitude, becoming a major threat to the progress and success of vaccination campaigns. While still not precisely quantified, this phenomenon deserves an appropriate bioethical discussion, which could be helpful not only along with the current pandemic but also for possible future similar situations of societal and/or individual illness denialism. In this perspective, bioethicists, as well as psychiatrists, must be aware of the challenge that the Anti-Vax movement is posing to the evaluation of extreme cultural beliefs, whose widespread diffusion may be enhanced by social media in current globalized and connected western society, especially when they harbor a clear potential for a huge impact in terms of public safety and individual decision making.