The Globe and Mail and the National Post spoke to Prof. Maya Goldenberg, Department of Philosophy, about mistrust of vaccines — a topic in which she specializes.

As a researcher in the philosophy of science and medicine, Goldenberg discussed with The Globe and Mail about how to encourage racialized Canadians to accept the vaccines.

The article noted that racialized Canadians face some of the pandemic’s worst inequities in health care, labour and housing yet also often have a mistrust of governments. Goldenberg said family doctors and other primary health care professionals tend to be considered the most trustworthy of authorities and are thus best suited to discussing vaccines with those who are wary.

Speaking to the National Post, Goldenberg noted that trust in public health officials and politicians has been eroded over the last year because of perceived contradictions in messaging and by reports of these leaders flouting their own advice on travel.

She noted that vaccines are a “signal of how much trust people have in the system,” because they require trusting the institutional structure that created and approved them.

The article cites many of the arguments Goldenberg makes in her new book Vaccine Hesitancy: Public Trust, Expertise, and the War on Science, which will be released this spring.