Vaccines and Their Metaphors

What do memories, raincoats, and snakes have in common? They have all been used as metaphors for vaccines by people with vastly different views and communicative goals. This book explores how, why, and with what consequences metaphors shape vaccine communication across diverse voices, including scientists, politicians, parents, and celebrity anti-vaxxers, and contexts, from popular science books and social media to government press conferences and public health campaigns.

Drawing examples from the UK, Italy, Pakistan, Australia, and the USA, each chapter examines specific communication types, revealing how metaphors achieve varied goals. For example, the COVID-19 vaccine development has been described as “safe as a restaurant serving multiple courses simultaneously”. In contrast, others have used metaphors to fuel conspiracy theories, portraying vaccines as weapons in a sinister battle against ordinary people. The book demonstrates that metaphors are central and inescapable in vaccine discourse, equally powerful for pro-vaccination explanation and reassurance as for anti-vaccination obfuscation and fearmongering. Overall, the book shows how the use of metaphor constitutes both a challenge and an opportunity for promoting vaccines as a public health intervention.

This text is the first comprehensive account of vaccine metaphors drawing from diverse sources, contexts, and countries, examining both pro- and anti-vaccination perspectives. It is written in an accessible style for anyone interested in understanding how language shapes our perceptions of vaccines and public health. This is vital reading for students and researchers of language and health communication, applied linguistics, medical humanities, discourse analysis and metaphor studies.