Wellness communities and vaccine hesitancy

Abstract

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.