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PETER MACDIARMID/GETTY IMAGES; FROM DPT: VACCINE ROULETTEdiphtheria (a bacterial infection),
pertussis (whooping cough) and
tetanus. The documentary focused on
the inoculation’s supposed health risks,
told many times through interviews
of mothers with sick kids. But
health oficials said the documentary
overplayed the risks and ignored the
beneits of inoculation.
Then, about 15 years later, the
MMR vaccine took a hit. Physician
Andrew Wakeield and colleagues
published a paper in 1998 in the
British medical journal The Lancet
that claimed a possible connection
between MMR and the onset of
autism spectrum disorder. The paper
immediately sparked criticism and
was eventually retracted by 10 of the
12 authors.
But the damage was done. A small
but vocal segment of the American
population has remained skeptical
of MMRs, and not necessarily
because they think it causes autism.Little attributed his death to the
vaccine. Several years later, she
became editor of The Liberator, a
magazine critical of modern medicine,
including vaccination.
Organized opposition to vaccines
was also ramping up. In 1879,
a wealthy businessman named
William Tebb founded the Anti-
Vaccination Society of America in
New York. Other leagues popped
up in Pennsylvania, Maryland and
Massachusetts.
SUPREME COURT DECISION
By the early 20th century, nearly half
of the states had vaccine requirements.
But enforcement
was uneven,
and some states
repealed mandated
inoculations because
of vaccine protests,
writes Michael
Willrich in Pox: An
American History.
The turning point
came in 1902. A smallpox outbreak
in Cambridge resulted in the city
making inoculations mandatory.
(Massachusetts had created legislation
giving cities power to mandate
vaccines.) Oficials enforced the
legislation, bumping heads with
residents, one of whom was named
Henning Jacobson. He had refused
the vaccine, claiming that as a child
an inoculation had made him sick.
Jacobson also said his son had become
ill after being vaccinated.
The city iled charges against
Jacobson, and the case wound its way
through the courts, eventually reaching
the U.S. Supreme Court. In a landmark
decision in 1905, the court afirmed
that states had the power to create laws
making vaccinations mandatory.
After that decision, activism quieted
until 1982, when a documentary
aired on American television called
DPT: Vaccine Roulette. DTaP, as the
CDC calls it, is a triple vaccine for
The reasons echo those of activists in
the late 19th century, says Willrich:
impingement on parental authority
and personal liberty.
“Parents don’t like to be told how
to take care of their children,” says
Willrich.THE NEXT OUTBREAK
Today, measles, smallpox, mumps,
polio and yellow fever are gone or
mostly gone, thanks to mandatory
immunization. But that also means
people have forgotten how horrible
the diseases are, says Willrich. That
has contributed to the rise of the
anti-vaccine movement.
Continued education of the public
about vaccines, and redoubling efforts
to understand why people might be
concerned, could cut back on the
uncertainty and debate surrounding
the life-saving treatment, says Willrich.
“Vaccines remain mysterious to many
people,” he says.
Though all 50 states make speciic
vaccines mandatory, most states
allow exemption for religious beliefs,
according to the National Conference
of State Legislatures. And 18
states allow so-called philosophical
exemptions, which offer a wide range
of reasons to opt out.
After the Disneyland outbreak,
the state of California passed a law
removing personal belief exemptions
from vaccination requirements. As a
result, the number of unvaccinated
kindergartners last year dropped to
3,133, the lowest that the state has seen
in over a decade. More loopholes like
this one need to be closed across the
country, says Hotez, the director of the
Texas Children’s Hospital Center for
Vaccine Development.
“I’m worried,” he says. “With
vaccination rates at just 40 percent in
some schools, the next [outbreak] could
be devastating.” DSara Novak is a freelance journalist based in
Charleston, South Carolina.Physician Andrew
Wakefield, top, tried
erroneously to make
a connection between
MMR vaccines and
autism. At left, a 1982
documentary focused
on supposed health risks
of a triple vaccine.History
Lessons