UM: Vaccines

In an essay published in the New York Times, Howard Markel – a University of Michigan professor of the history of medicine – writes about the history of immunization: “Recently I found myself on the outskirts of an antivaccine rally in my hometown, listening to a succession of ill-informed diatribes with a mixture of dismay and fascination. As a pediatrician, I was baffled by scientifically baseless attacks on the substances that have tamed smallpox, polio and a host of other deadly and disfiguring diseases, at least in the developed world. But as a historian, I found it even more bewildering to hear speakers claim that government-sponsored vaccines were a violation of the founding fathers’ design.” [Source]