Event

Panel discussion: Vaccination and Its Discontents: Historical and Contemporary Reflections on Vaccination and Vaccine Hesitancy

Monday, February 20, 2017 17:30to19:30
McIntyre Medical Building Osler Library of the History of Medicine - 3rd floor, 3655 promenade Sir William Osler, Montreal, QC, H3G 1Y6, CA

This panel discussion to be held in conjunction with the exhibition, “Vaccination: Fame, Fear and Controversy, 1798-1998,” hosted by the Osler Library for the History of Medicine.

General admission. Reception to follow.

RSVPs are encouraged: osler.library [at] mcgill.ca.

For as long as there has been vaccination there has been resistance to vaccination. Since Edward Jenner first published a way to prevent smallpox in 1798, advocates of vaccination have met with strident criticism. This multidisciplinary panel explores some of the historical and contemporary cases of resistance to the vaccine, analysing the character of the fears and doubts of anti-vaccinists, and the successes and failures of vaccination’s proponents in addressing the concerns of their opponents. The contemporary rhetoric surrounding vaccination is implicitly connected to, and draws upon, two centuries of rehearsal. Recognising the essential structure of anti-vaccinist arguments in particular may provide new ways to address them. The panel works towards novel approaches to vaccination controversies, opening up new possibilities for contending with vaccine hesitancy in our own times.

The panelists are Rob Boddice, PhD FRHistS (Freie Universität Berlin) historian of medicine, science and the emotions, biographer of Edward Jenner, and co-curator of the exhibition; Cynthia Tang, MSc (McGill University), PhD student in the history of medicine at the Departments of Social Studies of Medicine & History and Classical Studies, and co-curator of the exhibition; Andrea Kitta, PhD (East Carolina University), folklorist specializing in medicine, belief and the supernatural, with a particular focus on vaccination; Mark Wainberg, OC OQ FRSC (McGill University), director of the McGill University AIDS Centre at the Montreal Jewish General Hospital, and outspoken critic of anti-vaccination rhetoric.

Relevant reading:

Andrea Kitta and Daniel Goldberg, “The Significance of Folklore for Vaccine Policy: Discarding the Deficit Model,” Critical Public Health (2016).

Rob Boddice, “Vaccination, Fear and Historical Relevance,” History Compass (2016).

Mark Wainberg, “Opinion: There Should Be a Limit to Free Speech When it Endangers Public Health,” Montreal Gazette, March 12, 2015.

(Image credit: The recent smallpox epidemic in Montreal - vaccinating American-bound passengers on a train of the Grand Trunk Railway by James Marvin, 1885 from the Osler Library Prints Collection.)

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