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A doctor vaccinating a patient.
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The Origins of the Anti-Vaccination Movement

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s nomination to lead HHS reflects the rising power of an anti-vaccination movement more than 100 years in the making.
by Helen L. Murphy via Made By History on January 29, 2025
A milk maid shows her cowpoxed hand to a physician, while a farmer or surgeon offers to a young man inoculation with cowpox that he has taken from a cow.

Whack-a-Mole

Vaccine skepticism and misinformation have persisted since the smallpox epidemics. With the internet, it's only gotten worse.
by Rivka Galchen via London Review of Books on January 27, 2022
A painting by Alfred Touchemolin showing French army recruits being inoculated with cowpox to protect them from smallpox, circa 1895

The Deep Roots of Vaccine Hesitancy

Understanding the battle over immunization—from the pre-Victorian era onward—between public health and the people may help in treating anti-vax sentiment.
by Mark Honigsbaum via New York Review of Books on December 14, 2021
A protest from an anti-vaccination protest

The COVID Anti-Vax Movement Has History on Its Side

Today’s “medical freedom” warriors are drawing on a centuries-old American tradition.
by Rebecca Onion, Lewis Grossman via Slate on November 18, 2021
Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers celebrates after an NFL game.
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Aaron Rodgers Isn’t the First Big-Name Wisconsin Anti-Vaccine Voice

But the media is treating him differently than it treated Matthew Joseph Rodermund more than a century ago.
by Janet Golden via Made By History on November 12, 2021
A protestor wearing syringes, protesting the vaccine mandate
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Doubters’ Push for Religious Exemptions from Coronavirus Vaccination May Not Work

With all organized religions supporting vaccination, states may question the sincerity of those claiming exemptions from getting vaccinated.
by Kira Ganga Kieffer via Made By History on September 20, 2021
Anti-vaccination pamphlets from the early 1900s

Vaccine Hesitancy in the 1920s

As Progressive Era reforms increased the power of government, organized opposition to vaccination campaigns took on a new life.
by James Colgrove, Matthew Wills via JSTOR Daily on July 28, 2021
A screencap from a news show reading "Outrage after video taken inside Florida supermarket goes viral" from MSNBC.

Misinformation, Vaccination, and “Medical Liberty” in the Age of COVID-19

Vaccination is of critical importance right now. History shows us that our problems are nothing new.
by Evan P. Sullivan via Nursing Clio on March 30, 2021
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How Fear of the Measles Vaccine Took Hold

We’re still dealing with the repercussions of a discredited 1998 study that sowed fear and skepticism about vaccines.
via Retro Report on October 15, 2019

Herd Immunity

Can the social contract be protected from a measles outbreak?
by Ann Neumann via The Baffler on October 7, 2019

What the Measles Epidemic Really Says About America

The return of the disease reflects historical amnesia, declining faith in institutions, and a lack of concern for the public good.
by Peter Beinart via The Atlantic on July 8, 2019

Resistance to Immunity

A review of three recent books that delve into the history and science of vaccines and immunity, and the anxieties that accompany them.
by Gavin Francis via New York Review of Books on May 23, 2019

How Mandatory Vaccination Fueled the Anti-Vaxxer Movement

To better understand the controversy over New York’s measles outbreak, you have to go back to the late 19th century.
by Linda Poon via CityLab on April 24, 2019
Children in New York City waiting in line for immunization shots, 1944

Vaccination Resistance in Historical Perspective

The vaccination skepticism of today is rooted in postwar social movements, prompting a new generation of parents and children to question drugs and doctors.
by Elena Conis via Teaching American History on August 1, 2015
Dave Edmonston

The Measles Vaccine Came From His Body. He Went Anti-vax. Not Anymore.

As a boy, David Edmonston was the source of today’s measles vaccine. Now he regrets vaccine doubts.
by Marc Fischer via Washington Post on March 12, 2025
Campaign poster for Tom Watson

The Original Angry Populist

They say there’s never been a man like Donald Trump in American politics. But there was—and we should learn from him. Look back to early-20th-century Georgia.
by Zachary D. Carter via Slate on October 16, 2024
Boy receiving measles vaccination
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The Public Health Community Must Tell the Whole Measles Story

The anti-vaccine movement has gained ground because the public health community has denied the truth about measles.
by Elena Conis via Made By History on May 29, 2024
Elijah Muhammad, who was then the leader of the Nation of Islam, speaks to a crowd in Chicago in 1966.

What Do the Nation of Islam and Marjorie Taylor Greene Have in Common?

Stuart compares the shared values of Christian nationalists and the Nation of Islam in the 1960's and today.
by Joseph Stuart via Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera on March 8, 2022
Surgeon General Vivek Murphy, Texas Children's Hospital chief pathologist Jim Versalovic and first lady Jill Biden visit with kids before they receive their coronavirus vaccine shots on Nov. 14 in Houston.
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History Shows That Passing School Coronavirus Vaccine Mandates Could Require Exemptions

Enacting vaccination mandates demands political give and take.
by Elena Conis via Made By History on November 19, 2021
The illustration “Vaccinating the Poor,” by Solomon Eytinge Jr

The Surprisingly Strong Supreme Court Precedent Supporting Vaccine Mandates

In 1905, the high court made a fateful ruling with eerie parallels to today: One person’s liberty can’t trump everyone else’s.
by Joel Lau, Peter S. Canellos via Politico Magazine on September 8, 2021
Person getting vaccinated

Vaccine Mandates Are as American as Apple Pie

Those who claim that vaccine resistance is an expression of liberty are historically illiterate.
by Matt Ford via The New Republic on July 30, 2021
A teenage boy is vaccinated against smallpox by a school doctor and a county health nurse, 1938.

The U.S. Has Had 'Vaccine Passports' Before—And They Worked

History shows that the benefits of such a system can extend far beyond the venues into which such a passport would grant admission .
by Jordan E. Taylor via TIME on April 5, 2021
Cotton Mather.

The Hellfire Preacher Who Promoted Inoculation

Three hundred years ago, Cotton Mather starred in a debate about treating smallpox that tore Boston apart.
by Livia Gershon via JSTOR Daily on March 7, 2021
Posters reading "Is your child vaccinated? Vaccination prevents smallpox"

The Smallpox-Fighting “Virus Squads” That Stormed Tenements in the Middle of the Night

In the 1800s, they helped lay the groundwork for the anti-vaccine movement.
by Rebecca Onion, Michael Willrich via Slate on February 9, 2021
Rahima Banu
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Coronavirus: Lessons From Past Epidemics

Dr. Larry Brilliant, who helped eradicate smallpox, says past epidemics can teach us to fight coronavirus.
via Retro Report on March 19, 2020

Inside San Francisco’s Plague-Ravaged Chinatown

A city on the edge.
by Julia Flynn Siler via Literary Hub on May 15, 2019
An eraser erasing a drawing of man.

R.F.K., Jr., Anthony Fauci, and the Revolt Against Expertise

It used to be progressives who distrusted the experts. What happened?
by Daniel Immerwahr via The New Yorker on May 19, 2025
Donald Trump and RFK Jr. shaking hands.

The Magic Thinking of Kennedy-ism

The hero worship of the family of American royalty has a dark side: a tendency toward conspiracism that fits with the MAGA movement.
by Rick Perlstein via The American Prospect on December 5, 2024
An illustration of the book "Silent Spring" on top of the earth.

This Book Helped Save the Planet—but Created a Very Harmful Myth

It radically shifted the way the world looked at the environment, but created a wave of misinformation we’re still dealing with today.
by Katie MacBride via Slate on September 29, 2024
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).
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Two Opposing Approaches To Public Health May Be on the Ballot in 2024

Governors Ron DeSantis and Gretchen Whitmer took opposite approaches to covid in swing states — but each sailed to reelection.
by Andrew Wehrman via Made By History on December 5, 2022
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