The sun was setting over the historic city of Dijon, in eastern France. A group of people milled around the courtyard of a conference center on the edge of town, drinking kir cocktails. The occasion was the annual meeting of the Association Liberté Information Santé, an organization that campaigns for what it terms “medical liberty” – or the right to refuse vaccines. This year, one topic dominated the agenda: the human papillomavirus injection, given to girls at puberty to protect them from a leading cause of cervical cancer. 

“They’re virgins, they’re sacrificial virgins,” Robert Lidon, the gathering’s organizer, told me. He was using a favorite trope of the anti-HPV vaccine movement: painting girls either as innocent victims of a cynical and exploitative pharmaceutical industry or in danger of succumbing to the promiscuity that they believe inoculation against HPV encourages. This thread of old-fashioned sexual morality runs through many of the movement’s constituent parts, from Christian conservative groups to secular activists like Lidon. 

Regardless of religious conviction or other motivations, anti-vaccine campaigners sit on a spectrum. Some falsely believe that immunization programs pose serious mental and physical health risks, while others go much further, subscribing to conspiracies that they are part of a shadowy population control project. 

On my second night in Dijon — while many attendees adjourned to a nearby, but more expensive cafe — I had dinner with a 30-year-old woman, who I found sitting alone in the conference center’s canteen.