“All manner of ills”: The features of serious diseases attributed to vaccination

Anti-vaccination writings have linked vaccines with a wide range of negative outcomes. The majority of evidence negates such connections raising the question of what makes these attributions attractive. This research identified diseases and conditions which are claimed to have been caused by vaccines and identified their shared societal features. They shared an idiopathic origin; apparent rise in incidence; face-value biological plausibility of a link to vaccines; dreaded outcomes; and their onset having close proximity to immunisation. Any attempt to re-frame erroneous claims about vaccination first requires an identification of the deeper anxieties in which they are located.