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Start | How scientists learn | 1.2.6 – One step at a time

1.2.5 - What is peer review? ⇠ 1.2.6 ⇢ 1.3 - Using this web site

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Vaccine controversies The above is from a Wikipedia article on vaccine controversies.

As long as there have been vaccines, there have been anti-vaccination movements among the uninformed or fearful. Even the first publicly-mandated vaccine against smallpox was opposed by some.

This was the cowpox vaccine, which was successfully used after it was learned that milkmaids (girls who milked cows) were immune to the much-feared smallpox if they had first got cowpox (a mild disease) from a cow they milked. So material from a cowpox 'pustule' (a raised skin blister) began to be used as a vaccine, and those vaccinated were able to avoid getting smallpox, because the cowpox & smallpox viruses are related.

... back to the controversy ...

In time it became the law that people had to be vaccinated, because it was in the public interest. Some members of the public opposed this, in spite of the vaccine's benefit. One common claim at the time (not quite 200 years ago) was that people's bodies started having 'cow-like' features on their bodies after they were innoculated with cowpox.

By the way, the word 'vaccine' is derived from the Latin word for cow, which is 'vacca'.

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