Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All by Paul A. Offit M.D

Author:Paul A. Offit M.D.
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780465021499
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2010-12-28T06:00:00+00:00

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, public health officials at the CDC decided to eliminate measles from the United States. Their method sparked a series of lawsuits.

In the first half of the twentieth century, measles caused thousands of hospitalizations and hundreds of deaths every year. With the invention of a vaccine in 1963—and buoyed by the virtual elimination of smallpox and polio—the CDC saw an opportunity. Because measles occurred primarily in school-aged children, health officials reasoned that the best way to eliminate it would be to mandate vaccine for school entry. A famous photograph at the time—and one shown on Vaccine Roulette—was that of the CDC’s Alan Hinman holding up a sign that read “No Shots, No School.”

The CDC picked an opportune moment to launch its attack. Although measles vaccine had caused a dramatic decline in the disease, immunization rates had become stagnant. And measles cases increased. In 1970, forty-seven thousand cases were reported. By 1971, the number had risen to seventy-five thousand.

In addition to state health officials, CDC efforts drew on two powerful political groups. The first was the Joseph P. Kennedy Foundation, the second was that of Betty Bumpers. Kennedy was the father of President John F. Kennedy and senators Robert and Edward Kennedy. He was also the father of Rosemary Kennedy. Severely retarded from birth, Rosemary was lobotomized in 1941 and institutionalized from 1949 until her death in 2005. Moved by her struggle, the Kennedy Foundation provided services for the mentally disabled. The foundation was interested in measles because the virus caused encephalitis in four thousand Americans a year, often resulting in permanent brain damage. At the time of the CDC initiative, Edward Kennedy was a senator from Massachusetts and his sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, was head of the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity, created as part of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. Writing to governors and congressmen, the Kennedys used their considerable influence to promote the enactment and enforcement of local school-entry mandates.

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