Confidence in vaccines has been suffering in America for years, thanks in large part to a roundly debunked "study" that linked the MMR vaccine to autism, a study later retracted by the journal that published it and that got its author kicked off the British medical register.
Despite the lengths that have been taken to show that the MMR vaccine does not cause autism, including a Danish study that involved more than 650,000 participants, anti-vaccine rhetoric remains stubborn and troublesome.
And with a new, necessary vaccine rolling out, battling hesitancy around vaccines will be just as important as any of the efforts to try to stamp out the COVID-19 pandemic once and for all.