Superb article. If you ever encounter an anti-vaxer, send it to them. My guess is that they formed their opinions without knowing much or anything about the history of vaccines and their great successes.
I'm an anti-vaxer, (I should clarify that - I'm not against all vaccines) and it's true I learned more here about the history. But vaccine and drug makers have shown their greed takes precedence over doing enough testing to keep us safe and to compare the long range outcomes of those who are vaccinated vs those who aren't.
One especially irritating trend in vaccines is the 70-some number of vaccines recommended for children. Back in my day, we only had smallpox vax. But the kids I grew up with, and myself, were healthier and more vigorous than most kids today, in my opinion.
Why is irritating that more vaccines are recommended today? With advances in tech, as discussed in the article, we have many more tools available to help prevent illness
The Danish vaccination schedule has far fewer vaccines than the US schedule. I am at least as concerned about the total body adjuvant load used in vaccines, which have not been studied in randomized controlled trials, as the vaccines themselves. That is why I recommend the Danish schedule for my grandchildren.
I should note that I have received eight COVID-19 shots, as well as all the other required vaccines to continue practice at UC Davis and was a “true believer “ in vaccines until I started reading more widely.
.....W.B.Handley on Substack writes eloquently about his experience with a profoundly autistic son who was laboriously taught to type as he could not speak. When asked his first question "what do you want from people to know about you" the son typed " that I am not stupid". This brought tears to my eyes. Handley does a deep dive into the many possible causes of autism and just wants answers.
......Arron Siri's book "Vaccines, Amen" is a readable review of vaccine development with many hundreds of references. Just the first chapter, a 9 hour deposition of the father of vaccinology, Stanley Plotkin, author of Plotkin's Vaccine textbook in many editions, reveals the limited testing and gaping holes in the long term effects of vaccines.
I sincerely hope your grandchildren are not exposed to Hepatitis A or Chickenpox, neither of which are included in the Danish vaccine schedule.
If you are concerned about adjuvant load, why recommend the Danish schedule? What reason do you have for believing that adjuvant load begins to be harmful at some point after the number of vaccines the Danes gives? Per my above link, we have very strong evidence that the adjuvants are not harmful at that level, so it seems odd, sans some compelling evidence, to think that when you add a few more vaccines, it becomes deleterious.
Fair question Blake, and I don't really have a good answer, except that I've done quite a bit of research that turned up evidence of the vaccines have been doing more harm than good. (not sure which, or how many)
I guess there's evidence on both sides.
It's just my gut reaction that makes me doubt the need for all those kids vaccines, since I never had any. If you were my age you might agree. LOL
Unless you are really old Al, you got more than the smallpox vaccine, and it’s good that you did. You almost certainly got(unless your parents were derelicts) diphtheria , tetanus, pertussis and polio vaccine. There are tons of reasons kids are less vigorous today, and there’s scant proof vaccination has any significant impact on that. The anti-vax movement’s irresponsible messaging now is causing a re-emergence of once conquered diseases - recent measles outbreak is a case in point. Thanks a lot dickheads. From your profile, I can tell you are an irrecoverable MAGA hard case, so further engagement with you is not something I will waste any time on.
Thank you, Clarke. I love substack because I learn a lot and can have civil discourse, which is so lacking just about anywhere else. We need to respect each others opinions.
The combo diphtheria , tetanus, and pertussis vaccine was started in 1948, when I was 6. I don't remember getting it; just the smallpox. Polio vax was not started until 1955.
My parents were not derelicts. My dad was a production manager in a paper mill, and I was blessed to have very good and loving parents.
I'd be with you if we could only get rid of the brain-dead anti-vaxxers. Most notably they prevent eradication of measles. A century ago, the problem (regarding the smallpox virus, at the time) got solved by way of forcing enough of them to get vaccinated no matter what. Too bad this has no chance of working today.
I don't "trust big pharma" either, but that's not equivalent to "vaccines are bad and you're better off without them", which is patently and demonstrably false.
Measles has a lethality of 1:1500 or so. The MMR vaccine is at least four orders of magnitude safer.
Well, at least you didn't call me brain dead this time.
The lethality of 1:1500 explains why I never saw any problem - I was brought up in a small town with a population of only 300! So I won't dispute your statement that the measles vaccine was a good thing.
It was a 'real' vaccine, right? What do you think about the newer, MRNA "vaccines" like the ones used for covid 19? I've seen reputable articles that say they didn't really help statistically, and in fact have caused deaths and ongoing, life-changing side effects. They were clearly rushed out without adequate testing.
I suspect the articles you've read are dubious, and likely torturing the numbers and omitting key info to sell you a story, a narrative. Seen that plenty, lately. It's tragic. Every single one I've seen like that, after a bit of digging, collapses.
Oh, they did help, just not as much as initially expected. You can always futz around with statistics, it's all a question of which question to ask. There are/were two problems with Covid vaccinations, (a) if you focus on older people (which makes sense because the virus is more lethal to them) there'll be more who happen to die anyway shortly after the vaccination. Maybe even due to the stress associated with it. Doesn't mean the vaccine killed them. (b) the damn virus is mainly in your throat and respiratory system but the vaccine is in your arm. Your body may or may not manage to send the antibodies where they're actually needed. So they protected the vaccinee somewhat, but what we hoped for and didn't get (unlike with measles) is herd immunity. You can be vaccinated up to your gills with covid and still infect other people anyway, that's not possible with most other diseases.
Adequate testing is in the eye of the beholder, there's been a couple billion injections by now. We'd have noticed if there really were any side effects worse than, say, the yearly influenza vaccine.
I also would never want a vaccine forced on me personally. But I am convinced of the efficacy of modern vaccines. Is there are any data point that could convince you they are sometimes at least useful?
Oh, I don’t doubt that vaccines are “sometimes at least useful”. But I’m skeptical of the MRNA process, because of the spike proteins. And as I mentioned earlier, I’m very skeptical of Pfizer and Merck, etc - they want to make billions of dollars and it looks to me like that’s all they care about. They’ve been caught not only with inadequate testing, but even hiding negative results in trials - and the FDA has been compromised in their approval of vaccines and drugs from the very companies that give them money.
As I understand it, the ‘old’ vaccines were simply an infusing of a small amount of the disease, to trigger the immune system’s system’s defense against it - and I think it usually worked.
But MRNA vaccines are different. I don’t have the time or expertise to go into detail, but my daughter teaches college level biology, micro-biology, physiology, and anatomy, and I trust her explanation.
She also has an online presence if you’d like to check it:
I mean... this article you are commenting on explains the history of things pretty well: percentage of the incidents of side effects has only gone down as the vaccines have gotten more exact in their manufacture and targeting. Where is your concern coming from?
Actually, my sources say the side effects are much worse. There's a big difference between a legitimate, historical vaccine, and the new mRNA genetically manipulated attempts to simulate a real virus. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvEuMMAafF8
This video is long but really lays out many of the problems. If you're unfamiliar, it will blow your mind.
Phenomenal walkthrough of how vaccine development shifted from empirical trial and erorr to atomic-level precision engineering. The transition from Pasteur's serial passage experiments to cryo-EM structures locking proteins in pre-fusion states is wild. Been following RSV vaccine development for years and that pre-fusion protein stabilizaton was the breakthrough that unlocked it. The mRNA platform advantage isn't just speed but bypassing the whole protein optimization process that used to eat years per candidate.
Phenomenal end-to-end history. The “serendipity -> design platform” arc comes through so clearly, and the structural biology + genomics sections really land why vaccine timelines have collapsed in the last decade.
It made the whole field feel like the biotech equivalent of modular manufacturing and rapid iteration (except this stuff really does matter.)
Thanks so much for putting this together and making such a complex story feel accessible without dumbing it down.
Whoever wrote this article clearly did not read "Bechamp or Pasteur," by Hume. Brutal accounting of the real Pasteur. There's other books too, like the one by Pearson.
Outstanding historical synthesis here. The way you trace the progression from Jenner's serendipitous discovery to atomic-level pathogen visualization really underscores how much the field has evolved from empirical trial-and-error to rational design. What hits different for me is the Pasteur-to-RSV vaccine arc—how we went from passaging microbes thru animals to locking proteins in specific conformational states using cryo-EM data. I've worked on vaccine projects before and the cross protection insight (cowpox-smallpox) was basically impossible to replicate systematicaly until we understood antibody specifcity, tho reading this makes me realize we're still findng new principles even now.
"Technological innovations like these made it possible to eradicate smallpox worldwide."
According to Kate Sugak the way 'smallpox' was eradicated was not technological innovation but 'the disease' mutating in the minds of the 'germ theorists'. They came up with new labels to shift 'smallpox' into such as 'chickenpox', 'measles' and ' monkeypox'. This allowed them to market new 'vaccines' for the same 'disease' they were claiming to have eradicated with 'vaccination'.
Interesting history. I had measles in the 50s and missed a week of school; otherwise no problem.
The problem with vaccines is that Big Pharma has prioritized profit over safety, and they've lost our trust - to the point that I'd never take a vaccine today, unless it was thoroughly and honestly tested through blind trial for a sufficient time to really know all the pros and cons.
Superb article. If you ever encounter an anti-vaxer, send it to them. My guess is that they formed their opinions without knowing much or anything about the history of vaccines and their great successes.
I'm an anti-vaxer, (I should clarify that - I'm not against all vaccines) and it's true I learned more here about the history. But vaccine and drug makers have shown their greed takes precedence over doing enough testing to keep us safe and to compare the long range outcomes of those who are vaccinated vs those who aren't.
One especially irritating trend in vaccines is the 70-some number of vaccines recommended for children. Back in my day, we only had smallpox vax. But the kids I grew up with, and myself, were healthier and more vigorous than most kids today, in my opinion.
There's plenty of evidence showing that vaccines are not harmful in the long-run, eg: https://en.ssi.dk/news/news/2025/large-danish-study-no-link-between-vaccines-and-autism-or-49-other-health-conditions
Why is irritating that more vaccines are recommended today? With advances in tech, as discussed in the article, we have many more tools available to help prevent illness
The Danish vaccination schedule has far fewer vaccines than the US schedule. I am at least as concerned about the total body adjuvant load used in vaccines, which have not been studied in randomized controlled trials, as the vaccines themselves. That is why I recommend the Danish schedule for my grandchildren.
I should note that I have received eight COVID-19 shots, as well as all the other required vaccines to continue practice at UC Davis and was a “true believer “ in vaccines until I started reading more widely.
.....W.B.Handley on Substack writes eloquently about his experience with a profoundly autistic son who was laboriously taught to type as he could not speak. When asked his first question "what do you want from people to know about you" the son typed " that I am not stupid". This brought tears to my eyes. Handley does a deep dive into the many possible causes of autism and just wants answers.
......Arron Siri's book "Vaccines, Amen" is a readable review of vaccine development with many hundreds of references. Just the first chapter, a 9 hour deposition of the father of vaccinology, Stanley Plotkin, author of Plotkin's Vaccine textbook in many editions, reveals the limited testing and gaping holes in the long term effects of vaccines.
I have great respect for "true believers", in any field, when they start to revise their opinions in the face of new evidence.
I sincerely hope your grandchildren are not exposed to Hepatitis A or Chickenpox, neither of which are included in the Danish vaccine schedule.
If you are concerned about adjuvant load, why recommend the Danish schedule? What reason do you have for believing that adjuvant load begins to be harmful at some point after the number of vaccines the Danes gives? Per my above link, we have very strong evidence that the adjuvants are not harmful at that level, so it seems odd, sans some compelling evidence, to think that when you add a few more vaccines, it becomes deleterious.
Fair question Blake, and I don't really have a good answer, except that I've done quite a bit of research that turned up evidence of the vaccines have been doing more harm than good. (not sure which, or how many)
I guess there's evidence on both sides.
It's just my gut reaction that makes me doubt the need for all those kids vaccines, since I never had any. If you were my age you might agree. LOL
What evidence?
No offense, but your 'gut reaction' is not a compelling argument.
Not offended, because you're right, Blake - we need evidence. There's evidence on both sides. The real question, which evidence is the best evidence?
"Real world effectiveness of antipneumococcal vaccination against pneumonia in adults":
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12879-025-11596-w
For a wider study, covering most all vaccines:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvEuMMAafF8 - better grab a cup of coffee - this is very thorough - 1 hr 20min
Unless you are really old Al, you got more than the smallpox vaccine, and it’s good that you did. You almost certainly got(unless your parents were derelicts) diphtheria , tetanus, pertussis and polio vaccine. There are tons of reasons kids are less vigorous today, and there’s scant proof vaccination has any significant impact on that. The anti-vax movement’s irresponsible messaging now is causing a re-emergence of once conquered diseases - recent measles outbreak is a case in point. Thanks a lot dickheads. From your profile, I can tell you are an irrecoverable MAGA hard case, so further engagement with you is not something I will waste any time on.
I agree with the substance of what you say but not the tone.
Substack is not Twitter nor Facebook, let's keep it civil.
Thank you, Clarke. I love substack because I learn a lot and can have civil discourse, which is so lacking just about anywhere else. We need to respect each others opinions.
The combo diphtheria , tetanus, and pertussis vaccine was started in 1948, when I was 6. I don't remember getting it; just the smallpox. Polio vax was not started until 1955.
My parents were not derelicts. My dad was a production manager in a paper mill, and I was blessed to have very good and loving parents.
Between vaccines and biologics, it definitely feels we are in a golden age of medicine innovation right now.
I'd be with you if we could only get rid of the brain-dead anti-vaxxers. Most notably they prevent eradication of measles. A century ago, the problem (regarding the smallpox virus, at the time) got solved by way of forcing enough of them to get vaccinated no matter what. Too bad this has no chance of working today.
Matthias, I resent being called brain dead! See my earlier comment.
You're right about no chance of forcing vaccines on us today, because so many of us no longer trust Big Pharma.
I don't "trust big pharma" either, but that's not equivalent to "vaccines are bad and you're better off without them", which is patently and demonstrably false.
Measles has a lethality of 1:1500 or so. The MMR vaccine is at least four orders of magnitude safer.
Well, at least you didn't call me brain dead this time.
The lethality of 1:1500 explains why I never saw any problem - I was brought up in a small town with a population of only 300! So I won't dispute your statement that the measles vaccine was a good thing.
It was a 'real' vaccine, right? What do you think about the newer, MRNA "vaccines" like the ones used for covid 19? I've seen reputable articles that say they didn't really help statistically, and in fact have caused deaths and ongoing, life-changing side effects. They were clearly rushed out without adequate testing.
I suspect the articles you've read are dubious, and likely torturing the numbers and omitting key info to sell you a story, a narrative. Seen that plenty, lately. It's tragic. Every single one I've seen like that, after a bit of digging, collapses.
Oh, they did help, just not as much as initially expected. You can always futz around with statistics, it's all a question of which question to ask. There are/were two problems with Covid vaccinations, (a) if you focus on older people (which makes sense because the virus is more lethal to them) there'll be more who happen to die anyway shortly after the vaccination. Maybe even due to the stress associated with it. Doesn't mean the vaccine killed them. (b) the damn virus is mainly in your throat and respiratory system but the vaccine is in your arm. Your body may or may not manage to send the antibodies where they're actually needed. So they protected the vaccinee somewhat, but what we hoped for and didn't get (unlike with measles) is herd immunity. You can be vaccinated up to your gills with covid and still infect other people anyway, that's not possible with most other diseases.
Adequate testing is in the eye of the beholder, there's been a couple billion injections by now. We'd have noticed if there really were any side effects worse than, say, the yearly influenza vaccine.
I also would never want a vaccine forced on me personally. But I am convinced of the efficacy of modern vaccines. Is there are any data point that could convince you they are sometimes at least useful?
Oh, I don’t doubt that vaccines are “sometimes at least useful”. But I’m skeptical of the MRNA process, because of the spike proteins. And as I mentioned earlier, I’m very skeptical of Pfizer and Merck, etc - they want to make billions of dollars and it looks to me like that’s all they care about. They’ve been caught not only with inadequate testing, but even hiding negative results in trials - and the FDA has been compromised in their approval of vaccines and drugs from the very companies that give them money.
As I understand it, the ‘old’ vaccines were simply an infusing of a small amount of the disease, to trigger the immune system’s system’s defense against it - and I think it usually worked.
But MRNA vaccines are different. I don’t have the time or expertise to go into detail, but my daughter teaches college level biology, micro-biology, physiology, and anatomy, and I trust her explanation.
She also has an online presence if you’d like to check it:
https://www.sciencewithsusanna.com/
I mean... this article you are commenting on explains the history of things pretty well: percentage of the incidents of side effects has only gone down as the vaccines have gotten more exact in their manufacture and targeting. Where is your concern coming from?
Actually, my sources say the side effects are much worse. There's a big difference between a legitimate, historical vaccine, and the new mRNA genetically manipulated attempts to simulate a real virus. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvEuMMAafF8
This video is long but really lays out many of the problems. If you're unfamiliar, it will blow your mind.
ai will be a big help.
Phenomenal walkthrough of how vaccine development shifted from empirical trial and erorr to atomic-level precision engineering. The transition from Pasteur's serial passage experiments to cryo-EM structures locking proteins in pre-fusion states is wild. Been following RSV vaccine development for years and that pre-fusion protein stabilizaton was the breakthrough that unlocked it. The mRNA platform advantage isn't just speed but bypassing the whole protein optimization process that used to eat years per candidate.
Phenomenal end-to-end history. The “serendipity -> design platform” arc comes through so clearly, and the structural biology + genomics sections really land why vaccine timelines have collapsed in the last decade.
It made the whole field feel like the biotech equivalent of modular manufacturing and rapid iteration (except this stuff really does matter.)
Thanks so much for putting this together and making such a complex story feel accessible without dumbing it down.
Great article and a great science communication contribution. Well done you.
Great read through the development history-thank you
Whoever wrote this article clearly did not read "Bechamp or Pasteur," by Hume. Brutal accounting of the real Pasteur. There's other books too, like the one by Pearson.
Outstanding historical synthesis here. The way you trace the progression from Jenner's serendipitous discovery to atomic-level pathogen visualization really underscores how much the field has evolved from empirical trial-and-error to rational design. What hits different for me is the Pasteur-to-RSV vaccine arc—how we went from passaging microbes thru animals to locking proteins in specific conformational states using cryo-EM data. I've worked on vaccine projects before and the cross protection insight (cowpox-smallpox) was basically impossible to replicate systematicaly until we understood antibody specifcity, tho reading this makes me realize we're still findng new principles even now.
"Technological innovations like these made it possible to eradicate smallpox worldwide."
According to Kate Sugak the way 'smallpox' was eradicated was not technological innovation but 'the disease' mutating in the minds of the 'germ theorists'. They came up with new labels to shift 'smallpox' into such as 'chickenpox', 'measles' and ' monkeypox'. This allowed them to market new 'vaccines' for the same 'disease' they were claiming to have eradicated with 'vaccination'.
https://odysee.com/@I-Rabbi-T:3/The-Truth-About-Smallpox---Kate-Sugak-Eng-2MW21.5:0
Interesting history. I had measles in the 50s and missed a week of school; otherwise no problem.
The problem with vaccines is that Big Pharma has prioritized profit over safety, and they've lost our trust - to the point that I'd never take a vaccine today, unless it was thoroughly and honestly tested through blind trial for a sufficient time to really know all the pros and cons.