A couple of hours after the UK decided to grant emergency approval to Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine this week.

I called up Heidi Larson.

When there's big news in the vaccine world, Heidi's job is to open up a listening post, monitor social media conversations, look to see how science

is affecting everyday life. I wanted to know how the rest of the world reacted when they got

the same push notification I had. Well, I think that on the one hand, it's, you know, people are

enthusiastic and oh, finally it's here. And then on the one hand, it's, you know, people are enthusiastic and, oh, finally it's here.

And then on the other end is like, told you it was too fast.

This is moving too quickly.

Heidi runs an organization called the Vaccine Confidence Project.

Fast to politicians and scientists is a good thing.

Fast to the public means, hmm, something's fishy here.

Heidi has studied all the reasons people have for rejecting vaccines.

And they've had their reasons since the very beginning when the Smallpox vaccine was rolled out at the beginning of the 19th century.

There were a lot of anxieties that it's not natural.

It's against God's plan.

There are incredible illustrations of people turning into cows in the archives of the Welcome Trust here.

So was there literally a rumor that you could turn into a cow by getting a vaccine?

Oh, yeah. That was a perception because it was derived from cows.

Earlier this year, Heidi noticed a similar rumor about one of the coronavirus vaccines.

It had been designed using chimpanzee virus, and Russian news agencies began implying it might turn

people into apes. There was even a photo of Prime Minister Boris Johnson,

walking around outside Downing Street with a photoshopped chimp face.

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