All told, up to the present, Jenner’s vaccine appears to have saved more than half a billion lives since 1800, notes Dr. D.A. Henderson, who led the effort to eradicate smallpox. Jenner should be counted as one of the great heroes of the modern world, yet he is forgotten while everybody knows of Napoleon. That’s emblematic of the way vaccines get short shrift.
In reporting on poverty worldwide, I’ve seen how much vaccines improve human well-being. I understand how troglodytes in the Taliban or Boko Haram can be suspicious of vaccines, but politicians here in affluent, well-educated America? Moms and dads in Santa Monica?