Vaccine

Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine's Greatest Lifesaver Paperback – May 17, 2008

Author: Visit Amazon's Arthur Allen Page | Language: English | ISBN: 0393331563 | Format: PDF, EPUB

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Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine's Greatest Lifesaver – May 17, 2008
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From Publishers Weekly

Vaccines are one of the most important and controversial achievements in public health. Washington-based journalist Allen explores in depth this dark horse of medicine from the first instances of doctors saving patients from smallpox by infecting them with it to the current controversy over vaccinating preteen girls against the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer. One thing becomes very clear: fear of vaccination is not a recent problem. In colonial America, inoculations against smallpox were seen by many as a means of deflecting the will of God. In the 20th century, the triumphs of the Salk polio vaccine and the eradication of smallpox may actually have led to current antivaccination movements: "as infectious diseases disappeared, in part thanks to vaccines, the risks of vaccination itself were thrown into relief." Allen's comprehensive, often unexpected and intelligently told history illuminates the complexity of a public health policy that may put the individual at risk but will save the community. This book leaves the reader with a sense of awe at all that vaccination has accomplished and trepidation over the future of the vaccine industry. 16 pages of illus. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Pulling together years of accumulated research on a topic he has written about for several national publications, Allen recounts the 200-year history of vaccination, from its first employment to combat smallpox, "the first and only contagious disease ever eradicated" by a vaccine, to the present, in which decades of unanswered questions plus low profit margins for vaccine development threaten its future. Allen undertakes a ponderous mission indeed because there has been so much controversy, most recently regarding an alleged link between autism and a vaccine, and disagreement over the efficacy of various vaccines. A 2005 study found little difference in fatality rates between elderly flu shot recipients and those who didn't get the shots, and then there's the whole discussion about how much social responsibility the individual must bear when getting a vaccination that puts the recipient at risk of unwanted side effects but also helps protect the community from an epidemic. Thorny issues all, which Allen deftly maneuvers as he wrangles myriad aspects of a very complicated issue into a comprehensible text. Donna Chavez
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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• Paperback: 544 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition (May 17, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393331563
• ISBN-13: 978-0393331561
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #237,171 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #13 in Books > Textbooks > Medicine & Health Sciences > Medicine > Clinical > Preventive Medicine
  • #40 in Books > Medical Books > Medicine > Preventive Medicine

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"In telling the story of vaccination, this book makes an assessment that is as fair as I can make it, based on the available evidence. I [the author] am neither a scientist nor someone with personal experience of a severe vaccine reaction [vaccines carry some measure of risk to the patient]...This book deals with preventive vaccines [that produce an artificial immunity] against infectious diseases [smallpox, polio, measles, whooping cough, etc.)...a vaccine's success as a public health measure relies on three legs of support: (1) the public, which must be confident of the safety and worth of the procedure; (2) manufactures, who seek to generate profits by making vaccines; and (3) government and public-health [workers] who...[help] further population-wide health goals. As [the reader] will see throughout this book, none of these legs is entirely stable."

The above is found in the introduction of this well-researched, easy-to-read book by writer Arthur Allen. Be aware that the author also says in the introduction the following: "I do...bring personal agendas to this book." The book itself is divided into three parts.

In the first two parts, Allen describes the history of the development of vaccines in a time when there were no clinical ethics boards or informed consent laws, the defeat of such infectious diseases as smallpox & polio, and public resistance to widespread vaccination. There's a lot here to disturb both proponents and opponents of mandatory vaccination.

The author devotes the third and last part of his book to the vaccine controversies of the last few decades. I found that this relatively brief analysis was not well connected to the first two parts.

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