What is in the Vaccines? 265The idea of vaccination originated with an English doctor, Edward Jenner, in
- Jenner, located in a rural area, performed the first vaccination by inocu-
lating the pus from a cowpox lesion from a milkmaid’s hand into an 8‐year‐old
boy [9,10]. Vaccines as we know then today can be credited to the renowned
microbiologist and chemist, Louis Pasteur, who created the first “vaccine” for
rabies in 1885. He developed an antitoxin that was used as a post infection
antidote via passive immunization. He is recognized for introducing attenu-
ated and inactivated microorganisms into the human body to elicit an immu-
nological response thereby preventing infectious disease (prophylactic
vaccination) [9,10]. By the 1900s, after better understanding of the immune
system, especially the adaptive arm of the immune system and the antigen–
antibody relationship, individuals began receiving “vaccinations” to prevent
the future occurrence of certain illnesses. It was not until the 1940s that the
USA began recommending that all children be vaccinated. At the time, only
diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus (DPT), and smallpox were targeted with vac-
cines. Today more than 25 doses of vaccine are administered within 24 months
of birth (https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/hcp/imz/child‐adolescent.
html; Tables 9.1 and 9.2). To this day, vaccines remain one of the leading factors
that contribute to the welfare of children and their long, healthy life span.
Therefore, it is reasonable to suggest that our modern societies cannot remain
healthy and robust without vaccination. The major point of dispute is that we
make sure that vaccines are safe and do not cause any unreasonable degree of
risk to the recipients of the vaccines, both children and adults.
What is in the Vaccines?
The development of vaccines predates the discovery of the immune system [9]
and our understanding of germ prevention and therefore it was not uncom-
mon for individuals to acquire other diseases when receiving a vaccine. The
very first vaccine was the smallpox vaccine that was derived from a live cowpox
virus. Although it was similar to the deadly smallpox virus, it only caused local-
ized ulcers at the site of inoculation and prevented infection from the highly
pathogenic smallpox [11–14]. At this point, it would be pertinent to briefly
mention that smallpox, like several other human pathogens, has been used as
a biological weapon. Smallpox has deliberately and unwittingly been used as a
weapon of biological warfare. Its arrival via an infected slave from the Narváez
1520 expedition is believed to be responsible for the massive post‐Columbian
depopulation of Central and South America, which played an influential role in
the conquest of Mexico and Peru [14]. The British are known to have employed
smallpox as an agent of death during the French and Indian Wars (1754–1763)
[14]. In Australia, it has been suggested that the British used smallpox pur-
posefully in the 1789 defense of fragile military positions [14]. Throughout the