Vanderbilt University Press The Vaccine Narrative

Product Description 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. Review The Vaccine Narrative tells the specific story of vaccines, but does more. This well researched book focuses on vaccines but tells us much about the stories of medicine in America: the stories that medicine -- as a discipline, as an institution and as an industry -- tells us, and the stories we tell each other about medicine. --Barbara Katz Rothman, Professor of Sociology City University of New York. From the Back Cover As new vaccines proliferate, this book asks where our faith in vaccines comes from. About the Author Jacob Heller teaches sociology at SUNY Old Westbury.