Vaccination in America: Medical Science and Children’s Welfare (Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology)

The success of the polio vaccine was a remarkable breakthrough for medical science, effectively eradicating a dreaded childhood disease. It was also the largest medical experiment to use American schoolchildren. Richard J. Altenbaugh examines an uneasy conundrum in the history of vaccination: even as vaccines greatly mitigate the harm that infectious disease causes children, the process of developing these vaccines put children at great risk as research subjects. In the first half of the twentieth century, in the face of widespread resistance to vaccines, public health officials gradually medicalized American culture through mass media, public health campaigns, and the public education system. Schools supplied tens of thousands of young human subjects to researchers, school buildings became the main dispensaries of the polio antigen, and the mass immunization campaign that followed changed American public health policy in profound ways. Tapping links between bioethics, education, public health, and medical research, this book raises fundamental questions about child welfare and the tension between private and public responsibility that still fuel anxieties around vaccination today.-- Provided by publisher Front Matter ....Pages i-viii Introduction: To Vaccinate, or Not to Vaccinate (Richard J. Altenbaugh)....Pages 1-8 Front Matter ....Pages 9-9 Living on the Edge (Richard J. Altenbaugh)....Pages 11-27 Bad Odors, Nasty Dust, and Dangerous Bugs (Richard J. Altenbaugh)....Pages 29-48 Not My Child! (Richard J. Altenbaugh)....Pages 49-66 Front Matter ....Pages 67-67 Invisible Bugs Are Bad for You (Richard J. Altenbaugh)....Pages 69-91 Schoolhouse Medicine (Richard J. Altenbaugh)....Pages 93-112 Capstone Events (Richard J. Altenbaugh)....Pages 113-129 Front Matter ....Pages 131-131 Mistakes and Misdeeds (Richard J. Altenbaugh)....Pages 133-143 Blood (Richard J. Altenbaugh)....Pages 145-171 A Moral Compass? (Richard J. Altenbaugh)....Pages 173-195 A Problematic Process (Richard J. Altenbaugh)....Pages 197-212 School Days (Richard J. Altenbaugh)....Pages 213-230 Front Matter ....Pages 231-231 “Operation Needle” (Richard J. Altenbaugh)....Pages 233-253 The Complexities of Mass Immunization Culture (Richard J. Altenbaugh)....Pages 255-265 Front Matter ....Pages 267-267 A Little Knowledge Is a Dangerous Thing (Richard J. Altenbaugh)....Pages 269-287 What Is Science? (Richard J. Altenbaugh)....Pages 289-302 Back Matter ....Pages 303-355 The success of the polio vaccine was a remarkable breakthrough for medical science, effectively eradicating a dreaded childhood disease. it was also the largest medical experiment to use American schoolchildren. The author examines an uneasy conundrum in the history of vaccination: even as vaccines greatly mitigate the harm that infectious disease causes children, the process of developing these vaccines put children at great risk as research subjects in the first half of the twentieth century, in the face of widespread resistance to vaccines, public health officials gradually medicalized American culture through mass media, public health campaigns, and the public education system. Schools supplied tens of thousands of young human subjects to researcher, school buildings became the main dispensaries of the polio antigen, and the mass immunization campaign that followed changed American public health policy in profound ways. Tapping links between bioethics, education, public health, and medical research, this book raises fundamental questions about child welfare and the tension between private and public responsibility that still fuel anxieties around vaccination today.