France establishes citizens' panel to counter vaccine antipathy

Vaccine-wary France turns to citizens’ panel to boost trust in COVID-19 shots Panel advice on vaccines could counteract legacy of mistrust from past health scandals Science | AAAS

All across Europe, coronavirus vaccines are in scarce supply. But in France, they are also surprisingly unwanted: Recent polls suggest just 57% of the country intends to get vaccinated, whereas in the United Kingdom, 89% wants to get a shot for COVID-19.

With persistent, world-leading rates of vaccine skepticism, France is adopting a new tactic to boost trust. A 35-member citizens’ vaccine panel, built from a random but demographically representative slice of the country, met for the first time last month in an effort to steer government strategy on COVID-19 vaccinations. The panel is one of an increasing number of citizen assemblies that have been set up across Europe to grapple with thorny questions at the intersection of science and society.

The panel’s first advice is due in a progress report on 23 February. Alain Fischer, a pediatric immunologist at the College of France and president of the government’s vaccine strategy board, hopes the group can identify the information the public wants and how it should be presented, so it can be “understood by everyone, regardless of their knowledge of vaccines.” He also expects the panel to provide practical tips, such as how to provide vaccinations in remote rural areas. “Citizen panelists usually have a good grasp of the issues,” he says. Some critics, however, say the government already receives plenty of citizens’ input, and they question the need for the new body.

Heidi Larson, who directs the Vaccine Confidence Project at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, says the memory of past health scandals accounts for some of the French wariness about vaccines. In the 1980s, HIV-contaminated blood transfusions are thought to have infected hundreds of people with hemophilia, while the anti-diabetes drug Mediator may have killed hundreds of people before regulators finally took it off the market in 2009. “This is partly why the French people’s default position is distrust,” Larson says.

Her project’s 2016 study of vaccine confidence showed France ranked last among 67 countries, with 41% of respondents saying they believed vaccines were unsafe. Larson says the findings helped the French government realize how big the problem was, and since then, trust in vaccines has risen a bit. Her project’s latest polling, from December 2020, shows France fifth out of 32 nations for vaccine antipathy. “The French are incrementally more confident, but they are still at the low end in international comparisons,” Larson says. The government has “made a significant effort in communication, but needs to focus more on the listening side of the dialogue.”