This document summarizes vaccine controversies throughout history in 3 sentences or less per topic: [1] Smallpox vaccination faced resistance since it began in the late 18th century, and early vaccines had safety issues like a contaminated yellow fever vaccine infecting 300,000 soldiers in WWII. [2] The polio vaccine success in the 1950s was briefly marred by a manufacturer's faulty batch that caused paralysis, and the pertussis vaccine faced skepticism over side effects despite reducing a major childhood killer. [3] Recent controversies include links alleged between vaccines and autism based on since-discredited research, mercury-based preservative scares, HPV vaccine politics, and international incidents like

1. National Press Foundation
Vaccine Webinar Series
VACCINE CONTROVERSIES
Seth Mnookin
November 22, 2011

3. Anti-Vaccine Fears:
As Old as Vaccination Itself

4. Smallpox
• Epidemics recorded for
over 3,000 years
• Inoculation may have
begun 2,000 years ago
• 1st effective vaccine:
1796; resistance
ensued

5. Successes and Failures
• New vaccines in 20th
century save millions
of lives …
• But contaminated
yellow fever vaccine
infects 300,000 GIs
in World War II

6. Polio
• Only the atomic bomb
scared Americans
more in 1950s
• More people knew
about Salk vaccine
trials than knew
President
Eisenhower’s full
name

7. Polio Vaccine: Good News – and Bad
Nationwide
• April 12, 1955:
celebration
• April 26, 1955: First
reports of paralysis
from vaccines
manufactured by
Cutter Laboratories

8. Pertussis and “Vaccine Roulette”
• Leading childhood
killer tamed by vaccine,
despite side effects
• 1982 TV program
sparks parents’
movement

9. Andrew Wakefield
Measles and Autism

10. Thimerosal
• The Bundaberg
Tragedy and
thimerosal
• Ethylmercury versus
methylmercury
• Robert Kennedy
“Rolling Stone” article
– later retracted

11. HPV Vaccines
• Cervical cancer vaccine
becomes embroiled
controversies over
lobbying, parental
rights, and social
conservatism
• Presidential politics
and HPV

12. International Vaccine Issues
• Nigeria – rumors in
2003 about polio
vaccines led to
decrease in
vaccination, increase
in cases, spread to
more than 10
neighboring countries
• Vaccines and catching
Osama bin Laden?

13. Causation Versus Correlation
• Correlation between
two variables does
not automatically
imply that one
causes the other
• Does drinking milk
cause cancer?
• Do vaccines cause
autism?

14. The Role of the Media
• What is a “controversy”? Are
there two sides to every story?
• Giving scientists and “the
University of Google” equal time
• Stories that don’t get told