Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Palgrave Macmillan
Book cover

Vaccination in America

Medical Science and Children’s Welfare

  • Book
  • © 2018

Overview

Authors:
  1. Richard J. Altenbaugh

    1. University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

  • Offers an engaging study of the Salk polio vaccine trials, the largest in history, placing them in the context of earlier vaccine trials in the first half of the twentieth century
  • Foregrounds the understudied role of the public education system in the history of vaccination
  • Examines the contemporary antivaccination movement in the United States and its roots, tracing the development of parents’ perceptions about the risks that vaccinations posed for their children

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this book

Log in via an institution
eBook USD 109.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 139.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 139.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

Licence this eBook for your library

Institutional subscriptions

Table of contents (16 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-viii
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction: To Vaccinate, or Not to Vaccinate

    • Richard J. Altenbaugh
    Pages 1-8

  3. Diseases, Death, and Disability

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 9-9
      Download chapter PDF

    2. Living on the Edge

      • Richard J. Altenbaugh
      Pages 11-27

    3. Bad Odors, Nasty Dust, and Dangerous Bugs

      • Richard J. Altenbaugh
      Pages 29-48

    4. Not My Child!

      • Richard J. Altenbaugh
      Pages 49-66

  4. Friendly Persuasion

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 67-67
      Download chapter PDF

    2. Invisible Bugs Are Bad for You

      • Richard J. Altenbaugh
      Pages 69-91

    3. Schoolhouse Medicine

      • Richard J. Altenbaugh
      Pages 93-112

    4. Capstone Events

      • Richard J. Altenbaugh
      Pages 113-129

  5. Ethical Authority?

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 131-131
      Download chapter PDF

    2. Mistakes and Misdeeds

      • Richard J. Altenbaugh
      Pages 133-143

    3. Blood

      • Richard J. Altenbaugh
      Pages 145-171

    4. A Moral Compass?

      • Richard J. Altenbaugh
      Pages 173-195

    5. A Problematic Process

      • Richard J. Altenbaugh
      Pages 197-212

    6. School Days

      • Richard J. Altenbaugh
      Pages 213-230

  6. Line Up and Roll Up Your Sleeves

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 231-231
      Download chapter PDF

    2. “Operation Needle”

      • Richard J. Altenbaugh
      Pages 233-253

    3. The Complexities of Mass Immunization Culture

      • Richard J. Altenbaugh
      Pages 255-265

  7. Intellectual Authority?

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 267-267
      Download chapter PDF
Back to top

Keywords

About this book

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. 

Reviews

“This could be a book for parents whose children would be vaccinated. … More widely, it is a book for practitioners who have to cope with parental refusal of vaccination, historians of social medicine and, possibly, students of the history of medicine thanks to its interdisciplinary approach combining bioethics, education, research, and public health policies.” (Alain Touwaide, Doody's Book Reviews, May 31, 2019)

Authors and Affiliations

  • University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA

    Richard J. Altenbaugh

About the author

Richard J. Altenbaugh is Adjunct Professor at the University of Pittsburgh, USA, and former Visiting Fellow at St. Edmund's College, University of Cambridge, UK. His most recent book is The Last Children’s Plague: Poliomyelitis, Disability, and Twentieth-Century American Culture.

Bibliographic Information

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Back to top

Search

Navigation