Grifters, cynics, and true believers: The family tree of vaccine opponents

The anti-vaccine arguments circulating online have existed since vaccines emerged. A new book, A Pox on Fools, groups opponents into “The True Believers, Grifters, and Cynics Who Convinced Us to Reject Vaccines.” In the early 18th century, Westerners learned smallpox inoculation from Ottoman women and an enslaved African. In the 19th century, about 40% of babies died of infection before age five. In 1721, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Cotton Mather launched inoculation campaigns in London and Boston, using pus from mild smallpox cases to inoculate others. Backlash included claims that inoculation was morally wrong because it interfered with divine ordination.

"Stanley Plotkin, 93, was instrumental in developing a number of vaccines over the course of his career. He recently said that he's "beginning to regret having lived so long-because we're going downhill." How could we possibly have gotten here?"

Read at Ars Technica