From Cotton Mather to Dr Fauci: Historical Markers of Vaccine Hesitancy

Abstract

Vaccine hesitancy became an important topic in the public discourse and academic research during the COVID-19 pandemic, but its history is as long as the history of immunization. One can find the same determinants of vaccine hesitancy, though in variable proportions, since the 1721 Boston smallpox epidemic. We aim to describe several historical immunization moments and analyze them using the vaccine hesitancy framework of the “5Cs” (ie, confidence, complacency, constraints, risk calculation, and collective responsibility).