Vaccine Safety

“Are vaccines safe?” has become one of the most hotly contested and politically charged questions in contemporary culture, fueled in no small part by voracious online debates, peer-to-peer influence, and source information of varying degrees of quality and accuracy. Along with questions related to possible...

Vaccine Hesitancy

Questions regarding the benefits of vaccines and their safety have persisted since vaccines were first introduced during the 18th century. As widespread vaccination has caused the prevalence of vaccine-preventable diseases to decrease, public concern for the threat of these diseases has decreased, too. This has...

Introduction

Vaccines represent one of the greatest public health advances of the past 100 years. Their development has brought about the global eradication of smallpox as well as large reductions in poliomyelitis, measles, tetanus, Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib—a leading cause of childhood infections),...

The Vaccine Schedule

The centerpiece of any immunization program is its immunization schedule, a national standard of practice for which vaccines are administered and when. The governmental groups that create immunization schedules consider a range of factors in doing so, including the vaccine’s potential to improve the country’s...

Laws and Standard Practices for Vaccine Administration

Despite the fact that vaccines have been shown to drastically improve health outcomes at both individual and public health levels, their implementation as a civic requirement has been a longtime source of conflict. At the heart of this issue is the dual nature of vaccines...

What is a Vaccine and How do Vaccines Work?

A vaccine is a substance that is given to a person or animal to protect it from a particular pathogen—a bacterium, virus, or other microorganism that can cause disease. The vaccine prompts an immune response in the body that produces antibodies, which are proteins that...

Vaccine Financing and Distribution

Making and manufacturing vaccines is only the first part of the story in getting vaccines into public health programs and health care facilities: Someone has to pay for them and facilitate their distribution. These practices and decisions can vary significantly by region and country.

A Brief History of Vaccines

The conceptual foundations of vaccination were first documented in ancient Greece, where physicians observed that getting infected with a virus could prevent reinfection with that same virus. In 900–1000 a.d., early forms of the modern vaccine were developed in China when physicians first noted that...

On the Horizon

Despite the challenges of increasing vaccine hesitancy among the public, vaccines remain one of society’s most important and influential tools for promoting public health. Accordingly, the immunization schedule will continue to evolve and expand in response to ongoing shifts in the diseases that threaten us,...

Vaccine Development

Vaccine development is a long process that requires numerous highly regulated steps, many years, and significant scientific and financial resources. Given the breadth of infections that affect children and adults, how are decisions made about which ones to prevent with vaccination? Once vaccine development begins,...