Vaccine Hesitancy Isn’t New

A long look at our war on viruses

Brandy L Schillace
Elemental
Published in
5 min readAug 20, 2021

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Photo: Stefan Pasch/Unsplash

The very first “vaccine” was given to an eight-year-old boy, James Phipps, who had somehow managed to avoid getting smallpox as it ran rampant through English cities and the countryside. Edward Jenner, the doctor, lived in a large estate next door and had convinced the Phippses to let him try a new method of keeping the disease at bay for their son. Exactly…

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Brandy L Schillace
Elemental

(skil-AH-chay) Author in #history, #science, & #medicine. Bylines: SciAm, Globe&Mail, WIRED, WSJ. EIC Medical Humanities. Host of Peculiar Book Club. she/her