Excerpt:
It is often assumed that the
‘anti-vax’ movement began with Andrew Wakefield, and ‘that autism study’, or
... Jenny McCarthy’s claims that her son’s autism was caused
by vaccination.
But did these two events really cause tens of thousands of parents to begin questioning vaccines and getting embroiled in bitter skirmishes on social media? Personally, I had never heard of Andrew Wakefield, or Jenny McCarthy, when I first began to delve into the vaccine subject, in early 2010.
Opposition to vaccination is not a new phenomenon – for as long as there have been vaccines, there has been fierce opposition. Originally focused in England, that opposition really gained momentum when the Compulsory Vaccination Act was passed in Victorian England, in 1853.
The main pockets of opposition to compulsory vaccination were among the working class, and the clergy, who believed it was ‘un-Christian’ to inject people with animal products [1].
The original Vaccination Act in 1840 had provided free vaccination
for the poor, to be administered by the Poor Law guardians. This law, however,
was a failure, as the “lower and uneducated classes” did not take up the offer
of free vaccination [1].
The Compulsory Vaccination Act of 1853 went a lot further – it ordered all babies up to 3 months old be vaccinated ( to be administered by Poor Law Guardians), and in 1867, this was extended up to 14 years of age, and penalties for non-compliance were introduced.
read A Brief History of the ‘Antivax’ Movement
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