The Vaccine Narrative

As new vaccines proliferate, this book asks where our faith in vaccines comes from. With the Salk vaccine's protection from polio also came a story line: there were heroic researchers who would use science to protect us from epidemics and perhaps even eradicate disease. In this book, which delves deeply into our faith in vaccines, Jacob Heller examines four cases that span the twentieth century - diphtheria, rubella, pertussis, and HIV/AIDS. Each case challenges the reader to examine how the values we attribute to vaccines influence their use. With more recent vaccines, including a hoped-for HIV/AIDS vaccine, the persistent cultural narrative continues to encourage vaccine development and use.