Vaccine Nation: Science, reason and the threat to 200 years of progress

(Paperback)

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A compelling journey through the past, present and future of vaccines and the forces dragging us back to the dark ages.

After the introduction of mass vaccination in Australia, infections like diphtheria, tetanus, polio and measles, which had caused thousands of deaths a year in the first half of the twentieth century, had dropped to almost zero by the year 2000. While vaccination is arguably the greatest public health achievement in history, the disappearance of these diseases has also seen an increased focus on the side effects of vaccines and the rise of the anti-vax movement. The COVID-19 pandemic propelled anti-vaccination into the mainstream, with some leaders in the medical profession fuelling anti-vaccination sentiment. An explosion of pseudoscience and disinformation makes it increasingly difficult to separate fact from fiction.

Vaccine Nation, from world-leading epidemiologist Raina MacIntyre, examines the history of vaccines, how vaccines work, vaccine safety, public policy, new technologies like mRNA and the effects of the COVID pandemic on anti-vaccination. At the same time as vaccination rates are falling globally, miraculous new developments in vaccines means we have new tools to fight cancer and other chronic diseases. At a critical time when the threat of an influenza pandemic is looming and disinformation is booming, MacIntyre argues that science must reclaim the stage, or we may lose centuries of gains that vaccines have brought to the world.

Author Bio

Raina MacIntyre is Professor of Global Biosecurity and NHMRC Research Fellow. She heads the Biosecurity Program at the Kirby Institute, UNSW. Her vaccine expertise is in older adults and immunosuppressed people, and she has done several clinical trials of vaccines in adults and transplant patients. She is on the WHO COVID-19 Vaccine Composition Technical Advisory Group and the WHO SAGE Smallpox and mpox advisory group. She is the author of Dark Winter (NewSouth, 2022).