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Internal Affairs
European Pharmaceutical Students’ Association
Vaccination in the era of misinformation - from complexity to value During recent 16th EPSA Autumn Assembly in Porec Croatia, our students - “generation Z” could debate the digital transformation of pharma profession and the challenges in promoting knowledge and reliable sources of information over social media. The debate started with background information about manufacturing complexity and explanations regarding technology standing behind production of vaccines. In the second part, students were enrolled in an exceptional fake news online game from Dutch scientists to see how effective they are in tackling medical fake news and misinformation. During the last part of the session, interactive panel session with experts in healthcare policies and immunization programs, as well as industry representatives took place.
We were hosting various experts from governmental bodies such as: Siniša Varga - Member of Croatian Parliament and WHO Consultant for Healthcare, Dr Vladimir Draženović - Director of the WHO Centre for Influenza in Public Health Institute in Croatia and Zvonimir Mlinarić - pharmacy student.
Dr Vladimir Draženović, Director of the WHO Centre for Influenza in Public Health Institute in Croatia agreed to answer a couple of burning questions about the challenges in reaching European goals for vaccination coverage. EPSA: Many of the anti-vaccination parents are well educated and affluent. Why do you think that there is such fertile ground for anti-vaccination theories? Dr Vladimir Draženović: In those days, there was a big concern in public because of climate changes as well as pollution in the environment. People are afraid of pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics and any kinds of chemicals. And then you have a Vaccine which you apply more than ten times on babies in their first year of age. They cannot manage all this data and this constitutes a very fertile ground for all kinds of misunderstanding.
