Are Immunization Programs Victims of Their Own Successes?

This article is 10 years old but has some history of vaccines.
And yes, certain vaccines have been so successful that we have not experienced
the deadly outcomes of so many communicable diseases like smallpox whooping cough etc.


https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/news/vaccine-conundrum
The Vaccine Conundrum
Conference Asks: Are Immunization Programs Victims of Their Own Successes?

October 26, 2015

When vaccines work, nothing happens. To some extent vaccines have become victims of their own successes, explained Paul Offit, a pediatrician and infectious disease expert, at a recent symposium on vaccines hosted by the Mailman School Department of Epidemiology.

Unlike 60 years ago when diseases like measles and polio were commonplace and the discovery of vaccines celebrated, Offit said, vaccines today are essentially a “matter of faith.”

This situation has led some parents to skip inoculations for their children, leading to outbreaks. Earlier this year, a case of measles at Disneyland spread across six states and infected 147 people. In the aftermath, Offit said, even some doctors who had been vocal about purported risks of vaccines were now giving more measles vaccines than ever before “because parents were scared of measles.”

Vaccines date back to the 1790s when English physician Edward Jenner successfully immunized people against smallpox by injecting them with pus from a cow infected with a similar disease. As Stephen Morse, professor of Epidemiology, noted, the word “vaccine” derives from the Latin vaccinus, meaning “from cows.”

Smallpox was responsible for an estimated 300-500 million deaths in the 20th Century alone. But, after a vigorous inoculation campaign, the disease was finally eliminated in 1980. As Morse noted, smallpox remains the only infectious disease to be completely eliminated through human intervention. Inoculation programs have also brought rates of rubella, polio, and diphtheria infection down to negligible levels in most countries.............................

‪Mike Busniak‬
‪@mikebusniak.bsky.social‬
· 23h
The Vaccine Conundrum www.publichealth.columbia.edu/news/vaccine...

The Vaccine Conundrum www.publichealth.columbia.edu/news/vaccine...

— Mike Busniak (@mikebusniak.bsky.social) 2025-09-04T19:48:19.045Z

occupystephanie‬
‪@occupystephanie.bsky.social‬
· 21h
I'm 75 and remember going with my mom door-to-door for March of Dimes to fund polio vaccine. To see us now blocking vaccines is chilling to me.