Immunization: How Vaccines Became Controversial, Paperback

As the world pins its hope for the end of the coronavirus pandemic to the successful rollout of vaccines, this book offers a vital long view of such efforts--and our resistance to them.

At a time when vaccines are a vital tool in the fight against COVID-19 in all its various mutations, this hard-hitting book takes a longer historical perspective. It argues that globalization and cuts to healthcare have been eroding faith in the institutions producing and providing vaccines for more than thirty years. It tells the history of immunization from the work of early pioneers such as Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch through the eradication of smallpox in 1980, to the recent introduction of new kinds of genetically engineered vaccines. Immunization exposes the limits of public health authorities while suggesting how they can restore our confidence. Public health experts and all those considering vaccinations should read this timely history.

About author(s): Stuart Blume is professor emeritus of science and technology studies at the University of Amsterdam. Educated at the University of Oxford, he has previously worked at the University of Sussex, the London School of Economics, and in Whitehall.