A surgeon discourages parents from vaccinating their children in a recent episode of a podcast, claiming childhood vaccines contain “aborted babies,” aluminum, formaldehyde, “baby cow blood,” yeasts, and mercury.
Recommendation: Responding to each false claim may detract from priority talking points. Ensuring FAQs include informational and educational resources about vaccine ingredients is recommended. Prebunking messaging could highlight the anti-vaccine tactic of using fake and “scary” vaccine ingredients to discourage vaccination. Fact-checking sources: