Wellness communities and vaccine hesitancy

• Published in: Media international Australia incorporating Culture & policy Vol. 193; no. 1; pp. 19 - 32
• Main Author: Daubs, Michael S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01-11-2024; University of Queensland, School of English, Media Studies & Art History
• Subjects: Celebrities; Community; Conspiracy; Journalists; Misinformation; Teachers; Yoga; influencers; disinformation; Vaccine hesitancy; affect; wellness; motivated reasoning
• ISSN: 1329-878X; 2200-467X
• DOI: 10.1177/1329878X241270526

This article articulates the intersection of wellness communities and anti-vaccine (‘anti-vax’) groups to demonstrate how vaccine misinformation and pseudoscience can propagate. This misinformation is often pushed by wellness influencers. One recent example is wellness figure Pete Evans, a celebrity chef and self-described ‘qualified health coach’. By 2020, however, Evans had developed anti-vax views and began to promote fake COVID cures, anti-vax misinformation, and COVID conspiracy theories from QAnon. This contribution examines this overlap to demonstrate how wellness influencers spread misinformation that fuel vaccine hesitancy. Evans is just one example; journalists have reported on yoga teachers in California protesting against lockdowns and on wellness influencers claiming that a ‘“shadowy cabal” of scientists and companies’ were responsible for COVID. These examples demonstrate how community intersections can amplify misinformation, pseudoscience and anti-vax views to a motivated and highly receptive audience.