Trust in Science: Vaccines

Join us  for "Trust in Science: Vaccines," the first event in a series inspired by Perceptions of Science in America, a report from the Public Face of Science Initiative at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Two more events later in the year will cover trust in science through evolution and climate change. This series is presented by the Consortium for History of Science, Technology and Medicine. 

This event will examine vaccine skepticism, in contemporary America, historically, and in the clinic. What are the historical roots of resistance to vaccination? What is the data about contemporary attitudes? How do these attitudes relate to changing social, economic and political contexts? How do these issues play out in the relationship between a doctor and a patient? Experts in medicine, the history of public health, and more will discuss these questions. 

Jeffrey Baker is Professor of Pediatrics and History, and directs the Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities, and History of Medicine at Duke University School of Medicine. He is a general pediatrician with a focus on children with autism spectrum disorders, and a medical historian whose work has addressed vaccine controversies, autism, and the history of pediatrics. 

Elena Conis is Associate Professor at the University of California Berkeley, in the Graduate School of Journalism, the Center for Science, Technology, Medicine and Society, and the Program in Media Studies—as well as the Department of Anthropology, History and Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Her book, Vaccine Nation: America’s Changing Relationship with Immunization, won the Arthur J. Viseltear Award for contributions to the history of public health from the American Public Health Association in 2015.

Robert M. Hauser will moderate the discussion. He is Executive Officer of the American Philosophical Society and is part of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Public Face of Science steering committee. 

Erica Kimmerling is the Hellman Fellow in Science and Technology Policy at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. As a Hellman fellow she helps staff the Public Face of Science and the lead drafter of the 2018 American Academy report Perceptions of Science in America.

Cover image: "The South African Institute for Medical Research, Laboratory No. 15, Vaccine department," Simon Flexner Papers, American Philosophical Society.