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- A Pox on Fools
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Description
An urgent and timely history of anti-vaccine arguments and the dangers of their proliferation.
The promise of Robert F. Kennedy, the incoming Health Secretary in Donald Trump's administration, to revoke the validation of the polio vaccine is a spectacular example of self-inflicted harm. The effective eradication of a terrible disease is under threat from a man who believes that vaccines – almost all vaccines – cause autism and other conditions, and that seed oils are a deadly threat to human health.
Tom Levenson's brilliant, short historical book exposes the refusal of the anti-vax movement to accept the reality of communicable diseases and how to prevent them. Vaccines in earlier times provoked fear of the new and seemed to limit the liberty of individuals, but we are now dealing with historical amnesia on a grand scale: the anti-vaxxers have forgotten, or never knew, how terrifying life was with diseases like polio and mumps.
Product details
| Published | 28 May 2026 |
|---|---|
| Format | Ebook (Epub & Mobi) |
| Edition | 1st |
| Extent | 208 |
| ISBN | 9781035920969 |
| Imprint | Apollo |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
About the contributors
Reviews
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This is a passionate book, on a subject that deservedly raises passions. Lethal epidemics of smallpox, polio, measles, pertussis and COVID-19 have been parallelled by memetic epidemics of anti-vaccine scare-mongering. Thomas Levenson documents the history, from honestly mistaken sceptics of previous centuries (Alfred Russell Wallace, Herbert Spencer) to today's villains (Andrew Wakefield, Donald Trump) and charlatans (Robert Kennedy Jr). At a time when vaccine science should be celebrating its greatest triumphs, this book could hardly be more important.
Richard Dawkins FRS, author of The Selfish Gene and The Blind Watchmaker
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Brimming with righteous anger, this book should infuriate you for all the right reasons, and arm you to take on the grifters and their war against science.
Adam Rutherford, author of How to Argue with a Racist

























