• Andrew Thurston

    Editor, The Brink Twitter Profile

    Photo of Andrew Thurston, a white man with black glasses. He smiles and wears a maroon polo shirt.

    Andrew Thurston is originally from England, but has grown to appreciate the serial comma and the Red Sox, while keeping his accent (mostly) and love of West Ham United. He joined BU in 2007, and is the editor of the University’s research news site, The Brink; he was formerly director of alumni publications. Before joining BU, he edited consumer and business magazines, including for corporations, nonprofits, and the UK government. His work has won awards from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, the In-House Agency Forum, Folio:, and the British Association of Communicators in Business. Andrew has a bachelor’s degree in English and related literature from the University of York. Profile

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There are 9 comments on How to Fight Vaccine Misinformation

  1. What an interesting and timely study! I’m always searching for ways to stop misinformation among my peers, and it sounds like personal stories and local health care providers might be the most persuasive. I’ve tried several ideas at work, including pop art drawings with facts in thought bubbles and Dr. Fauci quotes.

    Posting a picture of my mask with COVID-19 1st and 2nd dose stickers (after each vaccine) seemed like it got people at work engaged and discussing their vaccine experiences. There is a great deal of vaccine hesitancy at my government job.

  2. I think some people are concerned about the long term effects of this new vaccine, that does not mean they are anti-vaccine. All of the vaccines that are mandatory today, we have decades of data to prove their safety long term. These Covid vaccines could cause life-long issues, we just don’t know until there is sufficient data.

  3. I am so thankful that BU will not be able to enforce a mandatory Covid vaccine while it is still under an EUA. I think some people will become very angry once the supply outweighs demand in the next 2 months. The emotional thinkers will likely become unhinged…scary. Is it too much to ask for at least 2 years of data before mandating a brand new vaccine delivery technology?

    1. Oh I’m so happy to hear this! I was fully planning on looking for another job if BU made it mandatory. My fiance developed guillain barre syndrome when he was younger following a flu vaccine, and I had a gran mal seizure following a number of shots to go to Central America years ago (can I prove 100% it was the vaccines? No, but it’s the only seizure I’ve ever had in my entire life). Frankly I feel it is wise for us to be hesitant on the vaccine front, and I’m sick and tired of BU’s vaccine propaganda articles that don’t take the full picture into account.

  4. How or who decides what is information and what is misinformation? Given the incredible level of financial conflicts of interest or just plain corruption in public health organizations from WHO to university research, this is a very important question.

  5. This little experiment is nothing short of ‘mind-manipulation’ .. how do we convince people to believe in something after they’ve been lied to by the same people for months .. it’s total gamesmanship

    For several months in 2020, EVERY main stream media outlet flooded their airwaves/print/digital networks with opinion that vaccines should be seriously questioned – mostly because they were being developed by the Trump Administration and because it was believed that there was some political advantage to be gained from doing so … there was NO WAY a vaccine could be safely created/NOBODY should trust Trump to deliver on his vaccine promise/Trump is an incompetent fool incapable of ordering lunch let alone creating a vaccine/you’d have to be a fool to believe that corners weren’t cut along the way, etc etc etc ..

    A vaccine was delivered – in fact, SEVERAL were delivered in ‘warp speed’ and the MSM and virtually EVERY state government was caught flat footed .. the Trump Administration delivered and the states largely fumbled the rollout as they were totally unprepared .. even still, there were in excess of 1m doses being administered EVERY DAY when the Biden Administration arrived – even if Joe couldn’t remember that he’d been handed the solution .. the Biden folks promised 100m vaccine doses/injections in 100 days – the Trump team was already on that path

    The media has lost ALL/ANY credibility is ever had .. it’s NOT to be trusted and in fact should be heavily checked – and often against your own eyes!

    People ‘may’ or ‘may not’ take the vaccine .. let’s hope that they do, but then not be surprised when they don’t .. and in the future, be very careful with the mind manipulation games as sometimes you actually ‘get’ what you wanted

    1. This is so true. The vaccine is likely safe but we just don’t know long term. And guess what? the companies developing these vaccines are not overly worried because they cannot be sued. I am not saying they want to harm people, but they are certainly not taking the same level of precautions that the typical legal exposure would require. They are happy to sell as many doses of their experimental vaccine as the government will buy. If someone wants to take it then fine, but do not get mad at others who wish to see the long term data before taking the shot. Also this vaccine only produces antibodies to one single spike protein. How will these antibodies react to other tissues/organs in the long term? I am not anti-vax, but all the vaccines we are required to take have minimum 10 years of data before becoming mandatory. This one does not even have 10 months

  6. It’s sad that the world has become a bipolar place. If you don’t take whatever vaccines that come your way, you are labeled an anti vaxxer. There is no place for middle ground or critical thinking. The thing I’m most worried about is that they will force all children to take this vaccine, otherwise they won’t be allowed to go to school. No one knows the long-term effect of this vaccine. No one! And this virus, though detrimental to a lot of people, has largely spared children and young, healthy people.

    There is a large body of research on the effects of vitamin D, vitamin C, zinc, nasal spray, etc. that helps fight this virus. It is just being completely ignored by health officials. Let’s focus on our health, let’s open those windows, let’s think about how to better ventilate the existing buildings. Let’s continue using technology to avoid unnecessary travel. There are a lot of effective measures we can take to fight this virus.

    Vaccines won’t be the ultimate solution. With more variants coming up, are you going to vaccinate every single person on Earth every few months? Don’t compare this virus with measles or polio. They are vastly different.

    I hope BU will evaluate the raw data, not the manipulated data from the media, and won’t force the vaccines on its employees and their students. A higher institution should be a beacon of critical thinking, and should stand up to real science.

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