Really enjoyed it. More of a carreer overview than a biography, but it gives a real sense of the man behund the scientist. ( )

A combination biography, history of vaccinations, this book covers the development of the vaccinations that control many common diseases that were once mass killers and now are controlled, at least in the western world. It is not as far ranging as some other histories of vaccinations, since it touches mostly on the 20th century as it covers the contributions of one man, Maurice Hillemann, with side trips to other major contributors. It is less biography than history, as it spends little time on his personal life, and most of its time on the subject of the vaccines. This is a feature, not a bug, as the story of his vaccine crusade appears to be the bulk of his story for a man who worked so many hours that he had little personal life, apparently. The author also discusses the former tendency to test techniques on children in hospitals for the mentally retarded, and while recognizing the ethical difficulties with this, also discusses the whys and wherefores of doing the testing where they did, and it was not for hatred of the mentally less gifted; it was because this was the population most at risk. The final chapters discuss the various political and social movements that are troubling vaccinations at this time. A lucid, readable book. ( )

Triumph, Controversy, and an uncertain future

Dr. Maurice Hilleman: singlehandedly pushed through a vaccine that mitigated the influenza epidemic of 1957; developed vaccines against mumps, rubella, measles, Japanese encephalitis virus, hepatitis A and B, pneumonia, and Haemophilus influenzae type b. Most of his vaccines are still in use to this day. He never won the Nobel Prize for his work, and to this day few people know his name, let alone his accomplishments.
Dr. Offit uses Hilleman's work to organize the book and take readers through the history of biological research and humanity's relationship with disease. He also examines myths that have dogged Hillman's work: that fetuses were killed to provide material, that the hep B vaccine contained HIV, that the MMR vaccine causes autism, that ethyl mercury (formerly contained in vaccines) causes autism. And he reminds his readers just how necessary vaccines are. I recommend this book to everyone, regardless of scientific background. A lay person could read this just as easily as a microbiologist--and should. Knowledge is power! ( )

Good stuff. I'm quite partial to medical history, but it'd been a while since I read any. This is a good one, easily accessible, interesting and super relevant. Although it's organized around the work of Maurice Hilleman it really isn't a biography (thank goodness). Offit simply uses him as a pivot by which he accesses the history and development of vaccines preceding and concurrent with Hilleman's career. It was completely fascinating reading how vaccines grew from the cringe-worthy practice of arm-to-arm vaccination (when the inoculated fluids of one person were introduced directly in the next person to be vaccinated) to the crazy space-age sort of vaccines we've got today where scientists can cleave apart viruses isolating the particles that cause immunity from the dangerous bits with little threat of outside contamination. That's pretty new, they stumbled onto the mechanism to do that in the 80's.

Most of it is about some pretty down and dirty, nose to grindstone type of techniques. Reading about them made vaccines understandable in a way that they never were before. Simply put before I read this book I had only the vaguest idea of how vaccines worked and where they came from. Scientists did it! With magic! Ha. No really, after years and years of hearing about vaccines being made from weakened or dead diseases I get it now. Now I know how they weakened diseases. They forced them to evolve. Stick it in a chicken egg. Force generation upon generation to acclimate to life in a chicken egg until it's not so good at life in a person, but still enough like the original disease that the body can learn to make antibodies from it.

Offit presents how various vaccines were developed and it's fascinating how much the ingredients list sounds like witchcraft. Really. The rabies vaccine was first made in rabbit spines. Offit also does a good job of looking at the political and corporate involvement in vaccine production, both positive and negative. It's all very human. Hilleman was kinda a hardass, but you had to respect how completely committed he was to developing the best vaccine for the people. It's a shame that egos, fear-mongering and bottomlines can do so much damage to such important work. ( )