We used to be a country that whole heartedly embraced a preventative for small pox, polio, and influenza
Yea, no… you got a very rosy image of history in your mind. There were massive protests and constant public pushback against vaccines for as long as vaccines have existed.
The fight for widespread adoption of vaccination has been rough fought against the tides of the confidently ignorant who let their irrational emotions control them.
There were massive protests and constant public pushback against vaccines for as long as vaccines have existed.
There were a handful of outspoken reactionary groups in the early 19th century who registered outsized alarm. But when you look at the data, the rapid decline in smallpox over the century was the direct result of the success of inoculation domestically. By 1898, the mandatory imposition of vaccinations was functionally unnecessary, due to the near complete eradication of the disease on the island. People were - by and large - more than happy to undergo inoculation at a level that provided herd immunity.
The fight for widespread adoption of vaccination has been rough fought against the tides of the confidently ignorant who let their irrational emotions control them.
Confident ignorance has been as much a benefit to vaccine campaigns as an opposition to it. People are, by and large, trusting and appreciative of advancements in medical science, especially when they are subject to regular and repeated trauma from a chronic malady.
Quackery succeeds on this sense of naive desperation. Vaccination does, too (with the added benefit that it actually works). A straightforward solution to an immediate problem is an easy sell.
The real detriment to vaccination policy is its own success. Once you’ve systematically eliminated a disease, the social memory of the disease’s consequences fades through generations. People aren’t afraid of Polio because they don’t have a President in a wheelchair who fell victim to it. People aren’t afraid of measles because they’ve never experienced it, or had to care for children suffering from the disease.
The rapid adoption of prophylactics in the sex work community comes from people who are regularly faced with the threat of STIs, both personally and in their peer groups. People with little direct or indirect exposure to recreational sex are a much harder sell. And so we see STIs flood through religiously insular communities (ex. the sudden surge in Syphilis in Salt Lake City) that had historically shown very low rates of incidence.
This tends to set off a rebalancing of behaviors, as the community rapidly adopts the techniques for prevention. When news of an outbreak spreads, vaccine hesitancy collapses in its wake
Yea, no… you got a very rosy image of history in your mind. There were massive protests and constant public pushback against vaccines for as long as vaccines have existed.
https://historyofvaccines.org/vaccines-101/misconceptions-about-vaccines/history-anti-vaccination-movements
The fight for widespread adoption of vaccination has been rough fought against the tides of the confidently ignorant who let their irrational emotions control them.
There were a handful of outspoken reactionary groups in the early 19th century who registered outsized alarm. But when you look at the data, the rapid decline in smallpox over the century was the direct result of the success of inoculation domestically. By 1898, the mandatory imposition of vaccinations was functionally unnecessary, due to the near complete eradication of the disease on the island. People were - by and large - more than happy to undergo inoculation at a level that provided herd immunity.
Confident ignorance has been as much a benefit to vaccine campaigns as an opposition to it. People are, by and large, trusting and appreciative of advancements in medical science, especially when they are subject to regular and repeated trauma from a chronic malady.
Quackery succeeds on this sense of naive desperation. Vaccination does, too (with the added benefit that it actually works). A straightforward solution to an immediate problem is an easy sell.
The real detriment to vaccination policy is its own success. Once you’ve systematically eliminated a disease, the social memory of the disease’s consequences fades through generations. People aren’t afraid of Polio because they don’t have a President in a wheelchair who fell victim to it. People aren’t afraid of measles because they’ve never experienced it, or had to care for children suffering from the disease.
The rapid adoption of prophylactics in the sex work community comes from people who are regularly faced with the threat of STIs, both personally and in their peer groups. People with little direct or indirect exposure to recreational sex are a much harder sell. And so we see STIs flood through religiously insular communities (ex. the sudden surge in Syphilis in Salt Lake City) that had historically shown very low rates of incidence.
This tends to set off a rebalancing of behaviors, as the community rapidly adopts the techniques for prevention. When news of an outbreak spreads, vaccine hesitancy collapses in its wake