death rates fell sharply (among both sexes, all ethnic groups except American Indians, and in every census region of the United States). It would be difficult to argue that any generation of children in the history of the world has ever been as healthy as the “thimerosal generation.”
Yet, that sunny day in June, more than a thousand activists, most from groups like Talk About Curing Autism (TACA), Generation Rescue, Healing Every Autistic Life, Moms Against Mercury, and Safe Minds, a nonprofit organization that falsely characterizes autism as “a novel form of mercury poisoning,” listened as Kennedy described the vaccination polices of the United States government as the “worst crime since the cover-up of the Iraq war,” and added that the “the treatment of these children and the cost to our society” would far exceed the cost of the war itself.
DOES KNOWLEDGE SIMPLY disappear over time? After centuries of scientific progress have we not constructed pyramids of information solid enough to withstand periodic waves of doubt and anxiety? Human history has repeatedly suggested that the answer is no, but it isn’t ignorance that makes people run from the past or shun the future. It’s fear.
In 1421, China was far ahead of the rest of the world in sophistication, in learning, and particularly in scientific knowledge. It was the least ignorant society on earth. Then the newly completed Forbidden City was struck by a lightning bolt just as it opened, and the emperor reacted with horror. He interpreted the lightning as a sign from the gods that the people of the Middle Kingdom had become too dependent on technology—and were not paying enough attention to tradition or to the deities. So, as Gavin Menzies describes in his book 1421: The Year China Discovered America , the Chinese burned every library, dismantled their fleets, stopped exploring the globe, and essentially shut themselves off from the outside world. The result? A downward spiral that lasted for five centuries. Japan, too, recoiled at progress by giving up the gun in the seventeenth century. Until they did, they were better at making steel than any Western country, and their weapons were more accurate, too. The samurai despised firearms. To them, they were nothing more than killing machines with the potential to destroy an enduring way of life. When somebody pulls a gun, it no longer matters how honorable you are or how many years you have trained with a sword. Guns put the social order in jeopardy, so Japan banned and eventually melted them all. The gears of social mobility were jammed into reverse. Again, it took centuries for Japan to regain its technological supremacy.
The history of vaccines, and particularly of smallpox, is filled with similar stories of fear at war with progress. According to Voltaire, the ancient Chinese inhaled dried powder of smallpox crusts through the nose in a manner similar to taking snuff. Thomas Jefferson’s children were vaccinated by a slave who learned how to do it as a traditional aspect of African medicine. “We keep forgetting this stuff over and again,” Juan Enriquez told me. Enriquez, who founded the Life Sciences Project at the Harvard Business School, is one of America’s most insightful genomic entrepreneurs, and has spent many years studying the unusual ebb and flow of knowledge. “People become scared of change,” he said. “They get scared of technology. Something bad happens and they don’t know how to react: it happened with the emperor in China, and with smallpox, and it has happened with autism, too. People want to blame something they can’t understand. So they blame technology. And we never stop forgetting how often this happens. We think of technology and the future as linear. It so clearly is not.”
The controversy surrounding the MMR vaccine and autism is far from the first time the world has recoiled from vaccination, with at least some people convinced it does more harm than good.
Yet, that sunny day in June, more than a thousand activists, most from groups like Talk About Curing Autism (TACA), Generation Rescue, Healing Every Autistic Life, Moms Against Mercury, and Safe Minds, a nonprofit organization that falsely characterizes autism as “a novel form of mercury poisoning,” listened as Kennedy described the vaccination polices of the United States government as the “worst crime since the cover-up of the Iraq war,” and added that the “the treatment of these children and the cost to our society” would far exceed the cost of the war itself.
DOES KNOWLEDGE SIMPLY disappear over time? After centuries of scientific progress have we not constructed pyramids of information solid enough to withstand periodic waves of doubt and anxiety? Human history has repeatedly suggested that the answer is no, but it isn’t ignorance that makes people run from the past or shun the future. It’s fear.
In 1421, China was far ahead of the rest of the world in sophistication, in learning, and particularly in scientific knowledge. It was the least ignorant society on earth. Then the newly completed Forbidden City was struck by a lightning bolt just as it opened, and the emperor reacted with horror. He interpreted the lightning as a sign from the gods that the people of the Middle Kingdom had become too dependent on technology—and were not paying enough attention to tradition or to the deities. So, as Gavin Menzies describes in his book 1421: The Year China Discovered America , the Chinese burned every library, dismantled their fleets, stopped exploring the globe, and essentially shut themselves off from the outside world. The result? A downward spiral that lasted for five centuries. Japan, too, recoiled at progress by giving up the gun in the seventeenth century. Until they did, they were better at making steel than any Western country, and their weapons were more accurate, too. The samurai despised firearms. To them, they were nothing more than killing machines with the potential to destroy an enduring way of life. When somebody pulls a gun, it no longer matters how honorable you are or how many years you have trained with a sword. Guns put the social order in jeopardy, so Japan banned and eventually melted them all. The gears of social mobility were jammed into reverse. Again, it took centuries for Japan to regain its technological supremacy.
The history of vaccines, and particularly of smallpox, is filled with similar stories of fear at war with progress. According to Voltaire, the ancient Chinese inhaled dried powder of smallpox crusts through the nose in a manner similar to taking snuff. Thomas Jefferson’s children were vaccinated by a slave who learned how to do it as a traditional aspect of African medicine. “We keep forgetting this stuff over and again,” Juan Enriquez told me. Enriquez, who founded the Life Sciences Project at the Harvard Business School, is one of America’s most insightful genomic entrepreneurs, and has spent many years studying the unusual ebb and flow of knowledge. “People become scared of change,” he said. “They get scared of technology. Something bad happens and they don’t know how to react: it happened with the emperor in China, and with smallpox, and it has happened with autism, too. People want to blame something they can’t understand. So they blame technology. And we never stop forgetting how often this happens. We think of technology and the future as linear. It so clearly is not.”
The controversy surrounding the MMR vaccine and autism is far from the first time the world has recoiled from vaccination, with at least some people convinced it does more harm than good.
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