Debates about vaccines are a recurring feature of contemporary politics. It turns out they actually date back more than 200 years, since the development of the first smallpox vaccine. MIT Professor Thomas Levenson, one of the country's leading science writers, explores this important history in a new book about the contours of anti-vaccination thought. Levenson identifies different types of arguments vaccination opponents have developed through history, to help shed light on our current debates. He spoke with MIT News about his new book, 'A Pox on Fools: The True Believers, Grifters, and Cynics Who Convinced Us to Reject Vaccines,' published this week by Penguin Random House. A: Hesitation, skepticism, and outright opposition to vaccines is not a new thing. It didn't just happen starting in the late 1990s. Opposition to vaccines dates back to the beginning of the vaccine era, around the early 19th century. The first kind of opposition to vaccines is this sense that it violates the...
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