"In this account of vaccination's miraculous, inflammatory past and its uncertain future, journalist Arthur Allen reveals a history both illuminated with hope and shrouded by controversy--from Edward Jenner's discovery of smallpox vaccine in 1796 to Pasteur's vaccines for rabies and cholera, to those that safeguarded the children of the twentieth century, and finally to the tumult currently surrounding vaccination. Faced with threats from anthrax to AIDS, we are a vulnerable population and can no longer depend on vaccines; numerous studies have linked childhood vaccination with various neurological disorders, and our pharmaceutical companies are more attracted to the profits of treatment than to the prevention of disease.--From publisher description."--From source other than the Library of Congress

Experimenting on the neighbors with Cotton Mather -- The peculiar history of vaccinia -- Vaccine wars : smallpox at the turn of the twentieth century -- War is good for babies -- The great American fight against polio -- Battling measles, remodeling society -- DTP and the vaccine safety movement -- No good deed goes unpunished -- People who prefer whooping cough -- Vaccines and autism?