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Vaccines save millions of lives every year, and one man, Maurice Hilleman, was responsible for nine of the big fourteen. Paul Offit recounts his story and the story of vaccines Maurice Hilleman discovered nine vaccines that practically every child gets, rendering formerly dread diseases--including often devastating ones such as mumps and rubella--practically forgotten. Paul A. Offit, a vaccine researcher himself, befriended Hilleman and, during the great man's last months, interviewed him extensively about his life and career. Offit makes an eloquent and compelling case for Hilleman's importance, arguing that, like Jonas Salk, his name should be known to everyone. But Vaccinated is also enriched and enlivened by a look at vaccines in the context of modern medical science and history, ranging across the globe and throughout time to take in a fascinating cast of hundreds, providing a vital contribution to the continuing debate over the value of vaccines.… (more)
User reviews
Most of it is about some pretty down and dirty, nose to grindstone type of techniques. Reading about them made vaccines understandable in a way that they never were before. Simply put before I read this book I had only the vaguest idea of how vaccines worked and where they came from. Scientists did it! With magic! Ha. No really, after years and years of hearing about vaccines being made from weakened or dead diseases I get it now. Now I know how they weakened diseases. They forced them to evolve. Stick it in a chicken egg. Force generation upon generation to acclimate to life in a chicken egg until it's not so good at life in a person, but still enough like the original disease that the body can learn to make antibodies from it.
Offit presents how various vaccines were developed and it's fascinating how much the ingredients list sounds like witchcraft. Really. The rabies vaccine was first made in rabbit spines. Offit also does a good job of looking at the political and corporate involvement in vaccine production, both positive and negative. It's all very human. Hilleman was kinda a hardass, but you had to respect how completely committed he was to developing the best vaccine for the people. It's a shame that egos, fear-mongering and bottomlines can do so much damage to such important work.
Dr. Offit uses Hilleman's work to organize the book and take readers through the history of biological research and humanity's relationship with disease. He also examines myths that have dogged Hillman's work: that fetuses were killed to provide material, that the hep B vaccine contained HIV, that the MMR vaccine causes autism, that ethyl mercury (formerly contained in vaccines) causes autism. And he reminds his readers just how necessary vaccines are. I recommend this book to everyone, regardless of scientific background. A lay person could read this just as easily as a microbiologist--and should. Knowledge is power!