The Advent of Public Health During the first half of the 1800s, something extraordinary happened. Carried along trade routes and with the movement of troops, the world truly unified, but not in a good way. Bacteria, viruses, and parasites traveled easily and frequently, bringing successive epidemics of plague, yellow fever, and cholera across...
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Image by rawpixel.com It’s hard to see people in lab coats and say, “there goes a superhero.” But that is what I call the people who created the first vaccines for some extremely scary diseases. They took a perilous journey into unknown territory. In early days, before there was a clear understanding of germs and how they...
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When Heidi Larson worked for UNICEF as an anthropologist, much of her time was spent ferreting out the rumors that influence public opinion. In 2003, she went to Northern Nigeria where political and religious leaders had decided to stop supporting the vaccination of children against polio. They told parents that the vaccines were contaminated with...
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