Vaccination

How Smallpox Inoculation Brought a New Nation Together

The need to control smallpox outbreaks helped a public-minded spirit of disease prevention to override rampant individualism in the years surrounding the American Revolution, argues historian Andrew Wehrman.

Even for Polio, Parents were Slow to Vaccinate their Kids

Dropping the historically unsupported contrast between the uptake of the polio and COVID vaccines by parents of young children should prompt us to stop moralizing and start considering the social, political, and economic factors, including poor healthcare access, that always hinder vaccine campaigns in the US.

The First Smallpox Vaccinator in the 1780s Got Abuse Instead of Thanks

by Rod Tanchanco

Benjamin Jesty correctly intuited that exposing himself and his family to cowpox could shield them from the recurrent smallpox pandemics of England. Twenty years ahead of Edward Jenner, he became a local pariah. 

With COVID, None of Us are Safe Until All of Us are Safe

by Robert Brent Toplin

Deference to the patent claims of pharmaceutical companies are slowing the urgently needed distribution of COVID vaccines to poorer nations. Residents of rich nations will pay a price as new, potentially dangerous variants like Omicron spread. 

An Illustrated History of Vaccine Requirements for Schoolchildren

Vaccine mandates for school attendance are two centuries old. An illustrated history.

Comparing Unvaccinated Kyrie Irving to HIV-Positive Magic Johnson? Not So Fast

"Shut up and dribble" falls by the wayside when right-wing media figures can make a convenient ally out of a prominent athlete. 

Frustration, Anger, and Deaths Won't Convince the Unvaccinated

by Matthew Newsom Kerr

"Vaccine resisters in the 19th century significantly stymied public health efforts, and the anger felt by health officials shaped their responses — not always for the best."

Ending COVID in Our Lifetimes Requires Seeing the Bonds of Shared Humanity

by Michael Hogan

"In the end, like those who sought to escape the plague in Poe’s “Masque of the Red Death,” we are all vulnerable and at risk if we do not look to see that our fellow human beings both at home and abroad are safeguarded as well."

The Legal Standard Encouraging Religious Exemptions to Vaccination is Baffling

by Charles McCrary

American courts have established sincerity of individual belief as the standard for recognizing a religious accommodation or exemption. Even though no major religions ban vaccination, this standard could still sustain widespread refusal of coronavirus vaccines. 

Policing Religious Exemptions to Vaccines

A lawsuit against Creighton University, a Jesuit institution, would expand the justification for religious exemptions to vaccination from explicit declarations of opposition by a religious body to any impulse of individual conscience. 

The Limits of My Empathy for Covid Deniers

by Tressie McMillan Cottom

"This is a social problem with big structural issues. That does not absolve me of my responsibility for seeing the humanity in people I vehemently disagree with, but it does make me feel less guilty about being unable to save them."

Vaccination Mandates Are an American Tradition. So Is the Backlash

Historians Michael Willrich and Elena Conis explains the history of vaccination resistance and the civil liberties and political conflicts that have accompanied it. 

If Fighting Terrorist Attacks Is a Government Responsibility, So Is Fighting a Killer Virus

by Claire Potter

"Vaccine refusers are killing their children and killing each other to support an extreme idea about human freedom that is unsupported in United States law."

Mandates For COVID Vaccines Spark Controversy

As Republican governors and legislatures refuse to require vaccination, the Biden administration institutes significant federal mandates. Historians discuss vaccination, choice, and public health.

It's the Moment the Antivax Movement Has Been Waiting For

by Tara Haelle

The antivax movement has appropriated common-sense ideas like parental control and bodily autonomy to sow widespread fear and hostility toward the COVID-19 vaccinations.

Fear and Misinformation Plagued the Polio Vaccination Campaign, Too

Chicago Sun-Times Columnist Neil Steinberg offers some cold comfort: media voices spreading misinformation about COVID vaccinations have clear forebears in the press.

There is No Precedent for the Politicization of the Pandemic

by Howard Markel

The COVID pandemic is going to be the future baseline case study for the social impact of pandemics, and is unfortunately likely to be a cautionary tale, says a medical historian. 

The Long History of Vaccine Mandates

by Lindsay M. Chervinsky

President Biden's recent call for mandatory vaccination for federal workers follows the precedent set by George Washington's order to inoculate the Continental Army for smallpox.

Paying People to Get Vaccines is an Old Idea Whose Time has Come Again

by Margaret DeLacy

John Haygarth devised a system for rewarding working-class residents of Chester for receiving the risky smallpox inoculation and maintaining social distance afterward. The effort was largely superseded by the more effective and safer Jenner vaccination, but was a foundational public health experiment that pays dividends today.

Anti-Vaxxers are Claiming Centuries of Jewish Suffering to Look like Martyrs

by Sarah E. Bond

"Anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers would have us believe that the evil of being encouraged to get a vaccine is the same as the project of ethnic labeling and cleansing undertaken by the Third Reich. It appears at first a farcical analogy, but it’s not without its dangers."