Donald Henderson, an American doctor and public health official, has passed away at the age of 87. He was responsible for wiping out smallpox in the 1960s and 1970s.
Michael Klag, Dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said:
“[Henderson] led the World Health Organization’s successful 10-year effort to eradicate smallpox, one of the greatest public health achievements in history. Smallpox is the only human disease ever to have been eradicated.”
This was one of the deadliest diseases in history. It killed between 300 and 500 million people just in the 20th Century. Henderson headed a group of field workers to set up vaccination programs all over the world.
Klag further said:
“He was an incredible raconteur who had, it seemed, a million stories about his life in public health ranging from the influenza epidemic of 1957 to running the WHO smallpox program to initiating and leading our nation’s preparedness and response efforts for bioterrorism.”
Hopefully, the anti-vaxxers (people who are against vaccinations) don’t let this disease come back. There are people out there who believe that a vaccine can cause autism and other ridiculousness.
Here is a video from Jimmy Kimmel about vaccinations:
They have even spent $250,000 on a study for this. The study proved that vaccines do not cause autism.
Because of this, we have had multiple measles outbreaks over the last few years. There was one in California in April; a large number of the children there have not been vaccinated.
Vaccines can also help protect the people who can’t be vaccinated (infants and the elderly). It is called “herd immunity.” There are many people who can’t have the vaccine, so if the people around them are vaccinated, they are less likely to get sick. Not getting vaccinated doesn’t just endanger you or your children, it also hurts people who are vulnerable to infections.
The anti-vaxxers rallying against these vaccines could lead to an outbreak of deadly diseases. We don’t want these diseases to come back.
Here is a Ted Talk about the smallpox virus:
Featured image via YouTube screenshot.