The history of vaccination is replete with suspicion and rejection due to factors such as fear of side effects and safety, leading to anxieties about cancer, infertility, or other long-term damage, distrust in institutions (governments, pharmaceutical companies), past vaccine and drug trial scandals contribute to this distrust, the spread of misinformation, religious or cultural beliefs, past negative experiences with medical interventions, and the difficulty in perceiving disease risk when vaccines have been successful.
Vaccines are inarguably the most important medical advance in human history. Immunisation remains the most effective modality for the prevention of avoidable deaths from infections. Scientists at Emory University summarised their tremendous power this way: 10 historically fatal diseases have been reduced by 92-100 per cent since the 20th century. Smallpox has been eradicated, and polio is nearly gone. Extrapolating over the decades and around the world, it is no exaggeration to say that vaccines have saved literally tens of millions of lives and prevented hundreds of millions of cases of disease, if not more. The overwhelming scientific consensus is clear— vaccines are safe, effective, and necessary.
So, Why Are People Still Avoiding Vaccines?
With the rise of social media and the internet, vaccine hesitancy and vaccine denial may seem to be new phenomena. However, since the first vaccine was administered over 200 years ago, some form of vaccine hesitancy has existed. By examining these historic vaccination campaigns, perhaps we can learn to address concerns and use this knowledge to inform the rollout of new vaccines.
Smallpox is an ancient disease, likely emerging when humans first started to settle into cities. Egyptian mummies have evidence of smallpox scars, and it was likely first described in text by Thucydides in 430 B.C.E. as the Plague of Athens. Mortality rates can reach as high as 80 per cent.
The first formal vaccine for smallpox was developed in the 1790s when English physician Edward Jenner noticed that exposure to a less serious version of the disease, cowpox, could protect against smallpox. When Dr Jenner developed his vaccine, it was initially met with scepticism. Some decried it as being opposed to God’s will. Others played on the public’s misunderstanding of the vaccine and fears of putting foreign substances into one’s body by publishing cartoons satirising people morphing into cows after being vaccinated (sound familiar?). Nevertheless, as its efficacy was demonstrated, scientific and public support grew, and vaccination began to spread, first in Europe and then around the world.
It wasn’t long before the United Kingdom and the US introduced laws mandating smallpox vaccination, and organisations rose to protest those laws. Yet despite two centuries of opposition, the vaccine would prove to be one of humanity’s greatest success stories. In the early 1950s, smallpox was gone in North America and Europe, and by 1980, it was eradicated from Earth, thanks to an intensive campaign led by the World Health Organisation. Today, no one needs to be vaccinated for smallpox nor fear this disease that had plagued humanity for over 10,000 years. Empowered, scientists began to turn their eyes towards exterminating the next virus. Continue next week
