Results from a large online survey of adults in France find that, despite the large uptake in mRNA COVID-19 vaccines in France (93%), uncertainty about them still exists within a majority of the French population. This hesitancy isn’t simply restricted to a few ‘anti-vaxxers’ but concerns about long-term safety of mRNA vaccines exist amongst the general population and are a big factor in vaccine hesitancy. In their conclusion, based on the survey, the authors suggest that “public health experts and decision-makers should abandon their tendency to label all forms of doubts about scientific consensus and beliefs that run counter to it as a rejection of science itself”.
The COVID-19 pandemic enabled mRNA vaccines to be used on a large proportion of the population (in France the uptake rate was 93% with similarly high uptake rates in many other countries), showcasing their potential to combat infectious diseases, including cancer. However, the survey found that only a small majority of the participants (51%) supported the idea that “Messenger RNA is a promising technology for tomorrow’s medicine”, despite the high uptake in the country.
Only 15% of survey respondents strongly agreed with the view that “In the event of a new epidemic, mRNA vaccines will be useful” with 31% agreeing, 35% don’t know, 10% disagreeing and 9% strongly disagreeing. Similarly, there was no strong consensus that it was “Thanks to the mRNA vaccines that the COVID-19 epidemic was bought under control”, with 11% strongly agreeing with this statement while 14% strongly disagreed with the statement; as for most of the questions, the don’t knows were the largest group (32%).
A question about the long-term side-effects of mRNA vaccines was the only question where a clear majority of respondents supported the statement posed, with 62% of respondents agreeing with the statement that “There is still a lot we don’t know about the long-term effects of messenger RNA vaccines”. Among these respondents, 15% were unvaccinated, 50% had doubts despite vaccination and 35% were vaccinated and comfortable with it. Notably, 78% of these respondents supported vaccination overall and trusted science and doctors, similar to the general population. However, they exhibited lower confidence in Government, health agencies and the pharmaceutical industry. This group, representing nearly two-thirds of the French population, displayed scepticism towards political and economic influences on science during the pandemic.
Those expressing doubts were not categorically anti-vaccine but questioned aspects of the technology and governance surrounding it. Such scepticism doesn’t inherently reject science but reflects public unease navigating science’s intersection with politics and economics. Labelling dissenting views as ‘anti-science’ oversimplifies complex dynamics. Policy responses should move beyond information dissemination, addressing systemic issues and integrating diverse perspectives to foster trust and informed decision-making in public health.
Dr. Maggie Cooper is a pharmacist and research scientist.
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I’ve put a large cardboard box out two weeks running, which they’ve refused to take; presumably because there’s a couple of tiny polystyrene balls at the bottom. I’ve now burnt box at back of garden and will no longer play their silly game of separating the trash. I’m surprised it’s taken me so long to stop playing.
Time to haul out another idiot politician to pay for the sins of our tyrannical bureaucrats.
It’s getting a very long list of them isn’t it?
I once put some rubbish in a rubbish bin, too.
I know, it’s a good job Marcus Aurelius knew isn’t my real name!
Good Lord!
Oh, not that either?
You’re a monster.
Now you tell us, Marcus!
As the saying goes “no good deed goes unpunished”. I would always recommend not binning anything with your intact name or address on it in case the garbage stasi want to trace it back to you. An indelible marker pen or shredding should do the trick.
At least, through incidents like these, people are starting to see how unhinged the environment movement has become.
Been doing that for years. Didn’t think I’d be worrying about the bin police though.
That said, this news should also be used to emphasise the risk of ID theft. Not only could someone go through the bins to identify you – this shows that someone actually did.
I went round, under the cover of darkness, covertly dumping bin bags full of stripped wallpaper in the neighbours’ bins in the street, the night before bin collection.
It’s when we first moved in and the previous owners were obviously fans of the ‘multi-layer’ approach to wallpapering over the decades. We ended up with our garden shed crammed full of these bags.
You’re meant to take it to the tip but we didn’t own a car then and we’d have had to pay through the nose for the council to take it away. It took several weeks but I got shot of it all. ‘Off-territory’ dumping for the win! Fortunately my neighbours are all very chill and helpful, one even suggested I do that, but god knows how much I’d have been fined in Brighton.
I am a master. I’ve got rid of TONS of waste like this. The council employee at the tip told me to do it when I looked aghast at the prospect of having to pay AGAIN for the council to take a few old bricks. Thing is, my neighbours don’t know about this… arrangement… so like you say, darkness and stealth are key
We put an old car engine in a wheelie bin once, back in the 1990s the bins were much bigger. Council truck groaned a bit when it compacted it but there it was, gone..
When wheelie bins were first introduced, as long as it fitted in the bin, you could put it in. True, dat. That was the whole point of them. The only time one wasn’t emptied was when I filled it with garden rubble…it was so heavy it was almost impossible to wheel the bin, so had to take some out and spread it out over a few weeks!
Well I just call it using your initiative. I feel like as the years go by there seems to be more and more rules for us to abide by. The vast majority being totally pointless.
We’ve got some used beer bottles that aren’t made of glass so can’t be recycled. They’re mega heavy and appear to be made from stone or granite. They’ll be getting off-loaded 2 or 3 at a time down at the bins in the car park at the top of the street.
I figure that as long as I don’t do a secretive dump in the dog poo bin I’m not actually doing anything wrong..
There is actually a bin for dog poo———–It’s called a politicians mouth.
I got rid of a bath by chopping it up and putting a bagfull of it in my bin for each collection. Eventually got rid of it over many weeks. This between the time that councils started charging for DIY domestic waste (by claiming it wasn’t domestic’) and the recent change which stops them imposing these charges.
This has turned into quite the “Dumpers Anonymous Confessional”, hasn’t it? You bloody axe maniac you! Or were you more of a Leatherface, in your weapon of destruction choice?
I am pretty sure that they don’t recycle anything like what they claim. I suspect most ends up in landfill. So they have us jumping through all these hoops for nothing. GREEN has to be the most insidious and disgusting political ideology ever imposed on an easily manipulated public, who thought they were living in a free country. —–Once their gas central heating is ripped out and they have 10 plastic bins in their garden some people might actually wake up one day and say “Eh, what is going on here exactly”?
I find the last part of this story particularly vexing. £400 fine for litter picking. My wife does at least an hours litter picking most days. She has early onset AD. If she is fined for putting something in the wrong bin there will be hell to pay.
#excited is trending in the legal community.
My solution is to dig holes and bury it. Keeps you fit digging and yields topsoil to go in raised beds.
I am jusy continuing the practice of the former owner of my home, who was a haulage contractor for a large nearby chemical company. They paid him to take it away and he tipped a lot of the useful bits and pieces in the back garden. For the last three decades it has yielded much useful stuff for an enterprising cheapskate like me.
For a fist full of rubble?
We found an old coal fire back boiler buried in our garden – didn’t know what it was at first.
Hunger games type behaviour, may the odds always be in yr favour.
In Essex visits to waste disposal sites (“recycling centres” in swamp language) requires prior reservation giving phone number, email addreess and vehicle registration number. I have found the staff who check admission allow some leeway on time which is just as well because local roads are often choaked.
Staff in the centre are very interested in metal waste, so much so I wonder if they sell it privately. There is no assistance available for heavy items.
This seems to me just another way of monitoring the public.
Council waste tips have always been obliged to take metal. Yes, I strongly suspect that the staff scavenge and sell-off the good bits. I’m a bit of a car renovation nut – the local guys have got used to me dumping old driveshafts and suchlike.
This level of micro surveillance and stupidity has not yet reached Scotland, as far as I am aware. The response from the typical Jock would likely be far more colourful than awa’ and bile yer heid….
It is sad then that the typical Jock could not manage “awa’ and bile yer heid….” when the Scamdemic and associated nonsense were being rolled out.
No personal criticism intended.
It’s high time everyone told their councils to F themselves. This is rule without consent.
The level of the fine constitutes a cruel and unusual punishment, totally out of order.
How can it even be a crime to put waste in a bin, it’s not industrial quantities of waste, it was one piece of cardboard.
The Highland Council (SNP) is similarly anal about street litter bins, all sorts of threats and incitement to snitch, horrible notices.
Could the FSU help to challenge this or help organise an appeal for funds.
“You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing.”
Thomas Sowell
With respect, the people of Brighton shouldn’t complain.
They voted for the greenists.
PS maybe try some direct democracy and sneak out at night and plant some cardboard boxes in the greeny’s bins?
We will soon have a bin that goes out once a year for toe nail clippings. Try not to put it out on the wrong day though or the toe nail wardens will slap you with a heavy fine.
One for the left foot and one for the right.
Years ago (before I retired) after each meal in the company’s dining room we meticulously separated out plastic and polystyrene cups placing them in special containers. One day I happened to be in the service yard where I witnessed the two separate containers being emptied into the back of the same dust cart! After that I made a point of placing plastic cups in the polystyrene container and vice versa.
Simple solution: don’t pay the fine. Inundate the council for evidence of any contract and shower them with FOI requests. Basically, tie them up in legal knots. They’re just out to rob you after all.