In 2009 in Australia, a citizens' campaign was launched to silence public criticism of vaccination. This campaign involved an extraordinary variety of techniques to denigrate, harass and censor public vaccine critics. It was unlike anything seen in other scientific controversies, involving everything from alleging beliefs in conspiracy theories to rewriting Wikipedia entries. Vaccination Panic in Australia analyses this campaign from the point of view of free speech. Brian Martin describes the techniques used in the attack, assesses different ways of defending and offers wider perspectives for understanding the struggle. The book will be of interest to readers interested in the vaccination debate and in struggles over free speech and citizen participation in decision-making.

In 1998 Andrew Wakefield claimed to have found a link between a common childhood vaccine and autism. Wakefield based his findings on a case study of just a dozen children, and his methods and conclusions almost immediately came under fire. Rather than appealing to his colleagues, however, he went to the press, who seized on the story of a maverick doctor standing up to the powerful pharmaceutical industry. Within months, vaccination rates across Europe and America had started to fall, resulting in deaths from diseases previously thought to be disappearing. The panic triggered by Wakefields study is part of a much bigger story about fear, myth and medicine. Decisions about childrens health have always aroused strong passions, but the rise of alternative medicine and the internet have magnified such anxieties. In The Panic Virus, Seth Mnookin takes us inside the anti-vaccination community and the medical establishment. He examines how the anti-vaccination movement spread, and looks at a controversial Australian case that exposed the claims and tactics of the movement to new scrutiny. Sorting fact from rumour, Mnookin confronts difficult questions: with more information at our fingertips than ever, why is our trust in science so fragile? Why did the anti-vaccination movement take hold so quickly? How to balance fact and intuition when it comes to decisions about health? The Panic Virus is an extraordinary and gripping feat of research and reporting.

In 1998 Andrew Wakefield published a paper containing a shocking allegation: the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine might cause autism. Wakefield based his findings on a study of just a dozen children, and his methods and conclusions immediately came under fire. The media, however, seized on the story - and so helped launch one of the most devastating health scares of modern times. Within months, vaccination rates across the West had started to fall, resulting in deaths from diseases previously thought to be disappearing. Wakefield eventually lost his medical licence, yet the myth that vaccines cause developmental disorders lives on. In The Panic Virus Seth Mnookin examines how the anti-immunisation panic spread and looks at a controversial Australian case that exposed the claims and tactics of the movement to new scrutiny. Sorting fact from rumour, he confronts fundamental questions: with more facts at our fingertips than ever, why is our trust in science so fragile? Has the internet made us better informed, or simply enabled panic to spread more quickly? And how might we balance fact and intuition when it comes to decisions about children's health? The Panic Virus is a riveting and sometimes heartbreaking medical detective story, a gripping work of investigative journalism and a cautionary tale for our times.

A searing account of how vaccine opponents have used the media to spread their message of panic, despite no scientific evidence to support them.

As the world pins its hope for the end of the coronavirus pandemic to the successful rollout of vaccines, this book offers a vital long view of such efforts—and our resistance to them. At a time when vaccines are a vital tool in the fight against COVID-19 in all its various mutations, this hard-hitting book takes a longer historical perspective. It argues that globalization and cuts to healthcare have been eroding faith in the institutions producing and providing vaccines for more than thirty years. It tells the history of immunization from the work of early pioneers such as Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch through the eradication of smallpox in 1980, to the recent introduction of new kinds of genetically engineered vaccines. Immunization exposes the limits of public health authorities while suggesting how they can restore our confidence. Public health experts and all those considering vaccinations should read this timely history.

Vaccine reluctance and refusal are no longer limited to the margins of society. Debates around vaccines' necessity -- along with questions around their side effects -- have gone mainstream, blending with geopolitical conflicts, political campaigns, celebrity causes, and "natural" lifestyles to win a growing number of hearts and minds. Today's anti-vaccine positions find audiences where they've never existed previously. Stuck examines how the issues surrounding vaccine hesitancy are, more than anything, about people feeling left out of the conversation. A new dialogue is long overdue, one that addresses the many types of vaccine hesitancy and the social factors that perpetuate them. To do this, Stuck provides a clear-eyed examination of the social vectors that transmit vaccine rumors, their manifestations around the globe, and how these individual threads are all connected.

This volume illustrates ongoing discussions in and about the medical humanities with studies on different approaches to the relationship between medical science and practice and the humanities, including reflections based on fiction, art, history, socio-economic and political concerns, architecture and natural landscapes. The book explores the ways in which healthcare and medical practice can be positively influenced by removing the focus from the technical knowledge of the medical practitioner. It offers innovative perspectives on spaces for healing, traces attitudes and beliefs in relation to illnesses and their treatment throughout history (including intimations of the future), and interrogates cultural attitudes to illness, doctoring and patients through the lens of fiction. Based on the premise that more interdisciplinary work between medical and non-medical professionals is needed, the chapters contained in this volume contribute to an ongoing dialogue between medicine and the humanities that continues to enrich both disciplines.