Charlie Means, Staff Writer
Regis has partnered with Tepeyac Community Health Center to provide free vaccines for all students at Regis, allowing students to protect themselves against a host of illnesses. However, the federal government has recently been steadily working to make it harder to obtain vaccines. For example, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently released the new Covid vaccine, but only made it accessible to people 65 or older, or to those that have pre-existing health problems. This is a drastic shift from the previous administration, which made the vaccine available to everyone. This reduction of vaccine accessibility is beginning to influence individual states throughout the country. For example, the state of Florida is moving to end all vaccine mandates. This sort of attitude towards vaccines can make it harder for populations to gain herd immunity to diseases and could see certain diseases and illnesses develop mutations that make vaccines less effective.
Stephanie James is an Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Regis, and helped run the vaccine program on campus. Dr. James said that the number of students that have gotten vaccines have gone down since the pandemic ended. This can be attributed to our increased distance from the height of the pandemic, and the former abundance of vaccine clinics and appointment availability. However, I think that numbers are also going down this year due to actions by the federal government. Again, this part is purely speculative, but I do think that there is a chance it might play a part in numbers going down.
Another reason that vaccine participation has gone down over the years is the rise in vaccine skepticism, which I understand. Having someone stick a needle in you and put something in your body that you might not know a lot about can be frightening. But, I do think that a big reason that vaccine skepticism is on the rise is the amount of misinformation that is easily accessible. With this convenient, never-ending source of information, people not only become skeptical of vaccines in their own systems, but also begin to not want them on the market at all, making a bigger impact than if it was just their personal choice.
Dr. James told me that the rise in skepticism and misinformation is a big concern within the scientific community at the moment. Dr. James talked about how a potential solution would be to implement more exercises in schools, even at the middle school level, about teaching students how to evaluate if a source is credible and teaching young students how to find evidence based data. I think this is a fantastic idea as it would allow people to continue to make their own choices, while also providing them with the tools to make the best possible choices for them, be it getting vaccinated or not.
To wrap things up, if you are interested in getting vaccinated, or if you want to find out more about vaccines, here is a list of resources I’d recommend: