What we get wrong about vaccine hesitancy

August 13, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

Dr. Elizabeth Marnick grew up unvaccinated. Her parents, conservative evangelical Christians, believed scientists could not be trusted because they lacked the family’s moral compass. She never questioned that view until college, when she met real scientists—her professors, her friends—and saw they were “just moms and dads and sons and daughters.” She fell in love with immunology, got herself vaccinated before starting her PhD, and now runs the Evidence Collective, a science communication organization that works to get accurate health information onto social media and into communities. Her personal trajectory gives her an unusual vantage point on vaccine hesitancy: she has been inside the distrust, and she knows that facts alone do not dissolve it.

The spectrum of hesitancy, not a single enemy

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What you'll learn

1 (00:00) **Introduction & Host Set-up** - Host Flora Lichtman frames the episode with the news of Trump's executive order on separating the MMR vaccine and the ongoing measles outbreak, then introduces Dr. Elizabeth Marnick.
2 (02:27) **Dr. Marnick's Personal Story: From Hesitancy to Advocacy** - Marnick describes growing up believing vaccines were dangerous and not questioning it until college.
3 (04:26) **How She Found Immunology** - Marnick shares her path to studying the immune system.
4 (05:09) **What Pro-Vax People Get Wrong About Vaccine Hesitancy** - Marnick identifies two key misunderstandings.
5 (06:33) **Who Do People Trust Today?** - The conversation shifts to trusted sources of health information.
6 (07:37) **The Work of the Evidence Collective** - Marnick describes her organization's approach to countering misinformation.
7 (08:29) **Training Scientists in Storytelling** - Marnick explains a core part of her strategy.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

Over 2,400 people have contracted measles in the United States so far this year, topping the total number of cases for 2025 in just seven months. At the same time, vaccination rates have been declining, and there’s a lot of conversation about what’s driving vaccine hesitancy and how to combat misinformation.

Elisabeth Marnik has lived in both worlds: She wasn't vaccinated as a kid because her parents were concerned that vaccines could do harm. In high school, she fell in love with science. She went to college, got vaccinated, and then earned a PhD in immunology. She joins Flora to talk about what people misunderstand vaccine hesitancy, and how she approaches science communication in today’s messy information ecosystem.

Guests:

Dr. Elisabeth Marnik is an immunologist and the executive director of The Evidence Collective.

Transcripts for each segment will be available the week after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.

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