Description
ISBN: 9781761170058
Year: 2025
Publisher: NewSouth Publishing
Description:
A gripping journey through the past, present and future of vaccines.
Vaccination is arguably the greatest public health achievement in history, yet the disappearance of many diseases has also seen an increased focus on the side effects of vaccines and the rise of the anti-vax movement. The COVID-19 pandemic propelled anti-vaccination sentiment into the mainstream including from some leaders in the medical profession in an explosion of pseudoscience and disinformation that's made it increasingly difficult to separate fact from fiction.
In Vaccine Nation, internationally acclaimed epidemiologist Raina MacIntyre examines the history of vaccines and how they work, vaccine safety, public policy, cutting-edge new technologies, and the miraculous new developments in vaccines to fight cancer and other chronic diseases. At a critical time when vaccination rates are falling globally, MacIntyre argues that science must reclaim the stage or we will lose centuries of gains that vaccines have brought to the world.
'Vaccines helped us emerge from the worst of the COVID pandemic, yet rather than being a triumph, we now see anti-vaccine claims eclipsing public health policies. Raina MacIntyre outlines the history of vaccines and despairs at how the medical profession is among those pushing anti-vaccine myths. This important book documents where opposition to vaccination is leading the world and how science can reclaim centre stage.' Laura Tingle, author and journalist
'For the rst time in human history, we have the scientic know-how to vaccinate against most of the infectious diseases that killed our an