Challenges Issued to Anti-Vaccinationists
And how one accepted challenge led an unvaccinated activist to nearly die with smallpox!
Have you heard about those times vaccine advocates issued challenges to anti-vaccinationists?
Since these anti-vaccinationists, like anti-vaccine influencers today, didn’t think vaccines were necessary and didn’t think that vaccine preventable diseases were that bad, the challenges were for these unvaccinated folks to expose themselves to a disease and see what happens!
The kind of dare or challenge you are unlikely to see today, as it is not ethical to allow someone to get sick, no matter their beliefs.
Still, these kinds of challenges were once issued…
Samuel Durgin’s Challenge to Anti-Vaccinationists
The first such challenge was from Samuel Durgin, in 1901.
Durgin, as chairman of the Boston Board of Health, grew frustrated with the city’s anti-vaccine community.
And surprisingly, someone accepted his challenge!
A few months later, in January 1902, Dr. Immanuel Pfeiffer, an anti-vaccinationalist who was pushing for passage of an anti-vaccine law, took up Durgin’s challenge.
Pfeiffer, who was unvaccinated, was allowed to visit Gallop's Island smallpox hospital and interact with patients who were sick with smallpox.
And then?
He got sick with smallpox…
Although he became critically ill, and it took over a month for him to recover, fortunately Pfeiffer didn’t die.
Neither did he change his mind about vaccines…
He died in 1918.
What happened to Dr. Durgin? A member of the Harvard Medical School faculty, he directed the Boston Board of Health for nearly 40 years. He died in 1931.
William Osler’s Challenge to the Unvaccinated
Next, in 1910, in his sermon, Man’s Redemption of Man, Sir William Osler famously issued another challenge, or perhaps just a grisly joke, to the unvaccinated in his community.
Did he have any takers?
Nope.
Vaccine Challenges
And although such challenges are quite unethical, that doesn’t stop them from coming up these days.
Of course, they are now coming from anti-vaccine folks…
in 2001, anti-vaccine influencer Jock Doubleday issued a $150,000 vaccine challenge - offering the money to anyone who would drink the body weight calibrated dose of additives to common childhood vaccines. Many took him up on the offer, but he never agreed to pay them…
in 2017, anti-vaccine influencers RFK Jr and Robert De Niro issued a $100,000 challenge to anyone “who can point to a peer-reviewed scientific study demonstrating that thimerosal is safe in the amounts contained in vaccines currently being administered to American children and pregnant women.” The problem with the challenge? His judges could reject any study you submit!
What about Paul Offit’s 10,000 vaccine challenge?
“…each infant would have the theoretical capacity to respond to about 10,000 vaccines at any one time.”
Paul Offit
That’s an anti-vaccine myth.
He was just explaining that when infants get their vaccines, only a very tiny amount of their immune system is being used.
It’s another way of saying that vaccines do not in any way overwhelm an infant’s immune system, and they are not getting too many vaccines.
But, not surprisingly, it was turned into propaganda, with anti-vaccine influencers claiming he said that infants should get 10,000 vaccines. RFK Jr even used this one!
More on Challenge to the Unvaccinated
How Misinformed and Irresponsible Parents Led to Outbreaks of Smallpox
The Project Gutenberg EBook of Man’s Redemption of Man, by William Osler
A 1901 smallpox epidemic, a charismatic quack, and the rise of anti-vax propaganda in Boston
The Last Smallpox Epidemic in Boston and the Vaccination Controversy, 1901–1903
So incredibly troubling that an antivaxx doctor challenged individuals to receive vaccines way beyond the current recommendations. That is malpractice in my view. As for the thimerosol issue, that was removed from pediatric vaccines (along with single dose influenza) in 2001, not because it was deemed unsafe, but out of the concerns parents would chose not to vaccinate.