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www.nlm.nih.gov/.../smallpox/sp_vaccination.html

Why is there so much resistance to the new molecular methods of crops modification?  The best answer I can give is that such resistance isn’t unique.  So, for example, today we consider the elimination of the scourge of small pox through vaccination as a significant public health achievement.  This is a terrible disease that kills a third of those it infects and disfigures many of the rest. But back when governments began to compel their citizens to be vaccinated, resistance was considerable. Anti-vaccination societies became especially vocal during the late nineteenth century. Many anti-vaccinators believed that vaccination was, as George Bernard Shaw put it, a “filthy piece of witchcraft” which did more harm than good. Opponents of compulsory vaccination were varied. Some saw the issue in terms of civil liberties, arguing that governments should not force citizens to undergo any medical treatment against their will. Others believed vaccination was dangerous, insisting that “thousands...are killed annually by vaccination.” And still others, especially in India, regarded the use of a vaccine derived from cows to be unacceptable. The story of how the disease was finally eradicated through persuasion and even sometimes by force is a fascinating one with many parallels to the present controversies about GMOs today. Shown in this slide is a cartoon from the early 1800s that depicts people turning into cows because of vaccination.  Cowpox vaccination came into use after it was observed that milkmaids, who were exposed to the diseases of cows, didn’t get smallpox.   People eventually figured out that cowpox virus protected people from smallpox virus without making them sick, so they started innoculating people with cowpox virus.  So people imagined that the cowpox virus could turn them into cows -- hence the cartoon.