That's the million-dollar question. If I had the answer, I would give it to you.

The first thing is for people to understand what decisions were made based on science and what decisions were made for political reasons. I don't know how easy that is. I don't know how to rebuild, except to start discussing and talking and be able to say that there are some things that we don't know but there are other things we have good evidence for.

One thing that is not about trust is the storytelling. As you said, you've seen polio cases, but most of us have not. Grandparents who used to go to the pool in the summer and not come back in the fall to school are not there anymore. How do we ensure that parents understand that we have the data to prove that vaccines are safe, but that on top of that they are a great help to our health and that in fact they save our health?

I think with the pandemic we were seeing more and more meningitis and other bacterial cases. Some of them are vaccine-preventable and some are not. It's just understanding that we still face infectious diseases. You're saying measles is back and syphilis is back. We're seeing congenital syphilis cases that we weren't seeing before. That's not a vaccine-preventable disease, but it's just a matter of understanding that these diseases are back and if you don't maintain a good vaccination coverage, they will be back and will have deadly consequences.

I don't know where to start to rebuild trust except to discuss and have frontline doctors and nurses discuss with their patients and make sure that those who are in contact with parents are able to have all of the knowledge they need to have that conversation and to ensure that in medical and nursing schools we do have those conversations and those classes to make sure that people feel well tooled—or outillés, I'd say in French—to be able to answer those questions parents will have, because in the end those people who we listen to mostly—“we”, as in parents—are the people who take care of our children.

I trust my physician. When my doctor asks if I've read about this and that for my child, I say, “No, I trust you. If you tell me that my child needs whatever medication, I will trust you.” Trust starts there with our health care workers.

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