Infekcinės ligos ISSN 1822-8771 | eISSN 2783-6665

The toll of anti-vaccination in the public sphere is wide reaching and severely impactful. From continuing outbreaks of cases in communities previously thought to have eliminated the disease, the heightened demand of health care facilities, to the enormous economic burden that is brought on by these outbreaks. Although preventable via wide-spread use of vaccination, the increasing frequency of disease outbreaks is proving to be a major issue for healthcare systems worldwide. These problems are large in scope, and with the increase of skepticism towards healthcare and government officials via aggressive misinformation networks, along with the abandonment of the paternalistic model in patient- physician relationships are proving to be a major burden on medical systems worldwide. With the growing influence of social media in the public discourse, platforms such as Facebook and Twitter provide a host for multitude of vaccine critical outlooks and prove to be difficult to manage especially heading into the future. This paper aims to highlight three timeframes via a focus on the impact of anti-vaccination in their perspective disease: the role of anti-vaccination in its early start as panic towards the importation of foreign medical procedures as a preventative tool for smallpox outbreaks, the modern battle against MMR vaccine misinformation and its consequences, to the future of the problem approaching the era of postCovid life and the potential of future global pandemics along with potential biological warfare and its consequences.

The toll of anti-vaccination in the public sphere is wide reaching and severely impactful. From continuing outbreaks of cases in communities previously thought to have eliminated the disease, the heightened demand of health care facilities, to the enormous economic burden that is brought on by these outbreaks. Although preventable via wide-spread use of vaccination, the increasing frequency of disease outbreaks is proving to be a major issue for healthcare systems worldwide. These problems are large in scope, and with the increase of skepticism towards healthcare and government officials via aggressive misinformation networks, along with the abandonment of the paternalistic model in patient- physician relationships are proving to be a major burden on medical systems worldwide. With the growing influence of social media in the public discourse, platforms such as Facebook and Twitter provide a host for multitude of vaccine critical outlooks and prove to be difficult to manage especially heading into the future. This paper aims to highlight three timeframes via a focus on the impact of anti-vaccination in their perspective disease: the role of anti-vaccination in its early start as panic towards the importation of foreign medical procedures as a preventative tool for smallpox outbreaks, the modern battle against MMR vaccine misinformation and its consequences, to the future of the problem approaching the era of postCovid life and the potential of future global pandemics along with potential biological warfare and its consequences.