Stuck

June 1, 2020
How do rumors about vaccines start, and how do they harm public health? In this timely, fascinating book, Larson clearly explains why conspiracy theories thrive when people feel uncertain and afraid, inducing them to distrust health workers and the government. The consequences can be serious. Immunization rates dropped for years after Andrew Wakefield and his colleagues published their now-retracted case study that falsely linked autism to the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines. Unfortunately, social media increases the rapid spread of doubt, although the first anti-vaccine league started in the mid-1850s in protest against a U.K. law making the smallpox vaccine compulsory. Pamphlets decried vaccines as being against God's plan and imposing on our freedom, our rights. Indeed, vaccination has always walked a tense line between personal choice and public health, writes Larson, a professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. With COVID-19 rampaging and hopes pinned on the quest for a vaccine, Larson's convincing argument that our quality of life depends on vaccines, which she calls an experiment in collectivism and cooperation, rings loud and clear.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)