Vaccination is a major successful public health measure. Smallpox is gone; polio is on its way out; and the incidence of the childhood diseases that the older of us had is way down. We’ll look at the history of many infectious diseases, their causes and their vaccines, how the immune system works, and how vaccines work (in cooperation with the immune system). We may digress into other public health issues, and we’ll spend a day or so on the connection between vaccines and autism (spoiler: there is none).Let's agree to avoid politics!

(Audio/Visual, Discussion, Lecture)