I am confused.
A commenter on my Facebook post about vaccines is someone I respect. They are a committed climate action advocate. They run an effective sustainability initiative. They speak clearly about evidence, consensus, and corporate responsibility. Then they recommend a book arguing vaccines are unnecessary or harmful.
Those positions collide.
Climate science and vaccine science rest on the same foundations. Large bodies of evidence. Decades of data. Overwhelming expert agreement. Around 97 percent of climate scientists accept climate change as real and human driven. Around 97 to 99 percent of doctors and medical scientists support vaccination.
So what changes in people’s thinking?
Corporate behaviour sits front and centre.
Fossil fuel companies funded doubt and delayed action. Pharmaceutical companies overcharge, lobby aggressively, minimise tax, and protect shareholders. People see this pattern and draw a straight line. If corporations distort truth in one arena, they must be doing it everywhere.
That reaction sends attention in the wrong direction.
Vaccines sit across countries, health systems, and decades. Their impact shows up in fewer outbreaks, fewer children living with preventable disability, hospitals that cope during crises. Those outcomes appear regardless of which company supplied the product.
Here’s the problem.
When regulation weakens and transparency thins, trust drains away. Science takes the hit. Evidence gets treated as suspect. Risk shifts onto children and vulnerable people who never agreed to carry it.
What does being concrete about what to do next look like.
Regulate pharmaceutical power as seriously as carbon emissions.
Demand transparency in trials, reporting, and regulation.
Reject the idea that corporate misconduct cancels public health evidence.
Call out misinformation dressed up as justice.
Distrust unchecked power and protect evidence-based public health at the same time.
If you care about climate action, apply the same discipline here. Follow the evidence. Target the power structures causing harm. Protect the people who carry the consequences when trust collapses.
This is the choice in front of us.
