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A review by ergative
Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine's Greatest Lifesaver by Arthur Allen
5.0
This was a really, really thorough discussion of the cultural and political pressures that affected the development of vaccines, starting with smallpox variolation and moving on through to the early 2000s (the book was published in 2007). I think what was most eye-opening about the history was the following three facts:
(1) Vaccines were always political, even back when people were sending cow-udder pus through the mail to get cowpox protection from smallpox (some good stories there--doctors would bring cowpoxy cows into inner London to reassure residents that the cowpox vaccine was all natural, freshly scraped from a pus-covered cow udder).
(2) Vaccines were most definitely not always safe and effective, especially pertussis, which had some really severe side-effects right around the time I was getting the shots in the 1980s.
(3) Vaccines are terrible business for vaccine-manufacturers, especially as more and more regulations were put in place to address (2) above. Governments should definitely take over the job of manufacturing vaccines so that the manufacturers themselves don't quit the business and leave the country high and dry.
Of course, vaccines have taken on a new importance in the public eye recently, so maybe the manufacturers of other vaccines will feel more confident entering that market, but even so: I was really struck by how political resistance had dogged vaccine development and distribution for the entire history of the practice. It's not new to Wakefield and the autism hoax.
(1) Vaccines were always political, even back when people were sending cow-udder pus through the mail to get cowpox protection from smallpox (some good stories there--doctors would bring cowpoxy cows into inner London to reassure residents that the cowpox vaccine was all natural, freshly scraped from a pus-covered cow udder).
(2) Vaccines were most definitely not always safe and effective, especially pertussis, which had some really severe side-effects right around the time I was getting the shots in the 1980s.
(3) Vaccines are terrible business for vaccine-manufacturers, especially as more and more regulations were put in place to address (2) above. Governments should definitely take over the job of manufacturing vaccines so that the manufacturers themselves don't quit the business and leave the country high and dry.
Of course, vaccines have taken on a new importance in the public eye recently, so maybe the manufacturers of other vaccines will feel more confident entering that market, but even so: I was really struck by how political resistance had dogged vaccine development and distribution for the entire history of the practice. It's not new to Wakefield and the autism hoax.