Kira Ganga Kieffer is the author of the new book Unvaccinated Under God: Religion and Vaccine Hesitancy in Modern America. She is a visiting assistant professor of religious studies at Fairfield University.
Q: What inspired you to write Unvaccinated Under God?
A: I’ll explain what led me to write this book. Growing up, my family used traditional Western medicines, but each of us turned to alternative medical treatments, such as herbalism or acupuncture, when we struggled with health problems that were chronic or not easily treatable.
I learned from a young age that there were a variety of health frameworks out there and that modalities that were “alternative” were often dismissed by conventional doctors.
I went to graduate school at Boston University for my Ph.D. in Religious Studies during the late 2010s. I found myself gravitating toward topics in American religious culture spanning “alternative spirituality” and “alternative medicine.”
I was fascinated that these worlds were religious but not in a traditional way of being Christian, for instance, nor scripture based. I was working out how to think about contemporary healthcare through a lens of religion.
In 2018-2019, vaccine hesitancy came into my consciousness with news reports about measles outbreaks throughout the country, and even a mumps outbreak at Harvard.
I realized that there was a lot more driving vaccine concerns than ignorance about how effective vaccines are at preventing measles, mumps, or polio. I wanted to really learn what was going on for people, especially moms, who worried about vaccinating their kids.
As I read sources from the 1980s, ‘90s, 2000s, I recognized recurring existential questions about suffering, authority, and moral injury that I did not feel were represented in mainstream media coverage of these public health crises.
The project turned into a book shortly after Covid began when I realized that I had a lot to say about how vaccine hesitancy during the pandemic seemed different than in the earlier periods I was researching. I wanted to know why, and my training brought a unique perspective.
Q: The Kirkus Review of the book says of it and of you: “Although critics often dismiss dissenters as scientifically illiterate, she argues that vaccine hesitancy isn’t a lack of education—it’s a religious matter rooted in existential concerns about justice and morality.” What do you think of that description?
A: This description is on point! I want to push readers to expand what they think religion is beyond the traditional boundaries and players.
I do this by depicting vaccine dissenters as regular people who hold sincere beliefs that vaccines can be dangerous for some children and that forcing people to take them is morally unjust. These core beliefs motivated many people over hundreds of years to trust their individual intuition and research to subvert mainstream health authorities.
Vaccine-hesitant people have historically believed that they are morally responsible to call for justice for children who are harmed by medical policies that do not serve all children. Vaccination is mandatory for school attendance, it is supported by powerful institutions, and it is backed by scientific evidence.
Yet, people who are hesitant find validation for their beliefs through religious practices, such as witnessing and testifying to conversion to alternative medical worldviews, purifying and healing their children’s bodies from perceived toxins in the environment, and fighting to maintain legal exemptions to mandatory vaccines by calling on religious freedom protections.
Q: How did you research the book, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?
A: The project was inspired by current events. However, once I decided to really tackle it, I took a historical approach and worked chronologically from the 18th century to the present. The earlier history did not make it into this book, but it was in my dissertation.
Based on reading great historical coverage of vaccines and vaccination in the United States, I put together a timeline of important periods where there was controversy. A few of those foundational books were State of Immunity by James Colgrove, Vaccine Nation by Elena Conis, and Vaccine Court by Anna Kirkland.
For Unvaccinated Under God, I reconstructed vaccine hesitancy culture from 1982 through 2022, by finding primary sources in which hesitant people expressed their fears, concerns, and positions publicly.
I collected and analyzed newspaper articles, books, congressional testimonies, letters to the editor, documentaries, newsletters published by vaccine safety organizations such as National Vaccine Information Center and Children’s Health Defense, blogs, and social media posts.
I used my knowledge of American religious history to pull out core themes in each controversy and analyze them as expressions of mainstream religiosity that corresponded with the moment they were happening––this could be the rise of alternative spirituality and wellness culture or conservative White Christians fighting culture wars using religious liberty arguments.
It also was thinking about secular cultural trends, such as intensive mothering or health food lifestyles as demonstrating very religious qualities.
I think the number one thing that surprised me when I really started researching was that vaccine history and vaccine hesitancy are very much about children and mothers.
Q: Given the current political situation, what do you see looking ahead when it comes to vaccines and the health of the American people?
A: Right now, in May of 2026, our political climate remains very polarized, and how Americans feel about vaccines is tied––unfortunately––to our political identities.
We are seeing an increase in the number of kindergarteners who are utilizing non-medical exemptions to abstain from certain vaccines. This number has been trending upwards for many years. As a result, there will be more outbreaks of measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases.
My guess is that we will reach a tipping point, and the exemptions will slow down as more kids get sick.
However, as I show in Unvaccinated Under God, choosing an exemption for a vaccine is not driven by a belief that the vaccine does not work. It is based on the belief that the vaccine may do more harm than good.
I hope that our public health and medical professionals will start to drive the national conversation toward more nuance around what parents are fearful about with vaccination and less on shaming them for choosing not to vaccinate.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’m starting work on my next book, which will trace the history of political and religious conservatism and alternative medicine in the United States. It was inspired by the grassroots medical freedom activists who I cover in chapter 6 of Unvaccinated Under God.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Unvaccinated Under God tells a complex set of intertwining stories that explain people’s feelings toward vaccination at given time. In the book, I take people at their word and do not fact-check scientific claims because I want to give readers a template for seeing religion in unexpected places in their daily life and our national conversations about health.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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