“The annihilation of the smallpox, the most dreadful scourge of the human species, must be the final result of this practice,” Jenner wrote in 1801. And he would be proved right. In 1980, after a decades-long public health campaign that included widespread vaccination, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared smallpox had been eradicated. It remains the only infectious disease where this has been achieved.
A sleugh of other vaccines have been developed against other diseases, from influenza to human papillomavirus infections that cause certain cancers and the Sars-COV-2 virus behind Covid-19. In the past 50 years, an estimated 154 million lives have been saved by vaccines, according to one recent study.
Yet, opposition to vaccines – or hesitancy about accepting them – is widespread and on the rise in many parts of the world, even percolating into the uppermost branches of governments responsible for improving public health. This week, US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr was quizzed by the Senate Finance Committee over his vaccine policies, resulting in fiery exchanges. On the same day, the surgeon general of Florida also announced plans to end vaccine mandates in the state. (Read more about why vaccine distrust is on the rise.)
So, is this a recent phenomenon, or has distrust in vaccines been around for as long as the jabs themselves? Why do they face protests from relatively small, but vocal, segments of the public? And how have these arguments evolved? This is a look at the long, and strange history of the anti-vax movement.
Back in the early 1800s, a series of controlled experiments by Jenner and other doctors quickly showed inoculation to be extremely effective, granting immunity against smallpox in well over 95% of those vaccinated. Public health authorities worldwide took action to roll it out. In the UK, a series of Vaccination Acts, passed in 1840, 1853 and 1871, made immunisation for children first free, then compulsory.
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