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VACCINATED
Offit, Paul A., MD
332 words
1 May 2007
Kirkus Reviews
Comprehensive biography of the self-effacing, amazingly productive scientist who
developed vaccines for measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox, hepatitis A and B,
pneumococcus, meningococcus and Haemophilus influenzae type b (HiB-a child killer).
Himself a co-developer of rotavirus vaccine that prevents a diarrheal disease in children,
Offit (Pediatrics/Univ. of Pennsylvania) feels that recognition is long overdue for
Maurice Hilleman. The author interviewed Hilleman not long before his death in 2005,
following 48 years with pharmaceutical giant Merck. His biography focuses on the
scientific career, which says it all: Hilleman had no hobbies, he worked himself and his
staff hard (exercising a particularly hot and profane temper), sparing only times to be
with wife and daughters. Indeed, the throat swabbings of one daughter provided the
mumps virus used to develop one of Hilleman's early successes. Offit does well in
capturing the evolution of vaccine technology, from attenuating the virulence of live
viruses by passage through other species' tissues or cell cultures to genetic engineering
tricks that induce bacteria to make the proteins needed to evoke an immune response. The
author also revisits the reprehensible but once-accepted practice of testing vaccines
(including Salk's polio vaccine) on institutionalized mentally retarded children. Poor
living conditions made these kids vulnerable to infections and hence likely to benefit
from vaccines, argued researchers, who also tested themselves and their children. Bad
press has plagued other vaccines. Fear of contamination with monkey viruses led to the
use of pure fetal cells for growing virus, inciting the wrath of religious groups. More
recently, a hullabaloo was raised by claims that inoculation with the one-shot measles,
mumps, rubella vaccine (another Hilleman triumph) causes autism. Offit dismisses such
claims, pointing to the bad science-and bad scientists-responsible while lamenting the
harm done.
Makes a strong case that people get more excited by miraculous cures than by vaccines
that save unseen multitudes by preventing disease in the first place.