Foreword
1: Who we are and why we wrote this book
2: The Edward Jenner Story: A brief history of the first
vaccine.
3: How Vaccines Work
4: Of Bananas and Formaldehyde or What the Heck IS in Them?
5: A Real Mother: The World Before Vaccines
6: The Worst Case Scenario: True Adverse Reactions
7: Vaccines And Autism: The Creation Of A Modern Myth
8: Autism: A Brief Discussion Of The Facts
9: The Geiers and Other Autism Myth-Makers
10: Asthma, ADHD, and Allergies: More Medical Myths
11: The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly: The Online World
12: Other Vaccine Myths and Facts
13: Modern Developments in Vaccine Technology: The Story of
the HPV Vaccine
14: Parenting’s Easiest Decision
Notes
Bibliography
Stacy Mintzer Herlihy is a freelance writer. Her work has appeared
in many publications including Big Apple Parent Magazine and USA
Today.
E. Allison Hagood is a psychology professor at a community college
in Colorado. Before becoming a professor, she was a clinician and
researcher specializing in adults with severe mental illnesses. She
is a member of the American Psychological Association, the
Association for Psychological Science, and the Society for the
Teaching of Psychology.
Foreword author Paul A. Offit, MD, FAAP, is the chief of Infectious
Diseases and the director of the Vaccine Education Center at The
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, as well as the Maurice R.
Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology and professor of pediatrics at
the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He has published
several books including Vaccinated: One Man's Quest to Defeat the
World's Deadliest Diseases and Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine
Movement Threatens Us All.
Whichever side you fall on in the great vaccine debate, it’s always
in your best interest to arm yourself with accurate information.
This book discusses the real science behind vaccinations.
*Foreword Reviews*
Written for parents who are pro-vaccine or who just want
information about what’s in all of those kids’ shots, this book is
a great resource. The authors break down everything from
ingredients to adverse reactions to the autism myth. This book is
not for parents who agree with Jenny McCarthy. She still claims
that there is a link between vaccinations and autism. This
book whole-heartedly disagrees, and breaks down the medical
research to back up their points.
*Parents Magazine*
This thoroughly researched book should convince even ardent vaccine
skeptics that the benefits of giving kids shots to prevent
illnesses far outweigh any negatives. The authors are not big names
in the vaccine world (one is a freelance writer, and the other is a
psychology professor). Yet they show a commanding knowledge of
their topic. In a coup that lends credibility to their
scientifically sound book, they nabbed a foreword by Paul Offit,
the famous University of Pennsylvania pediatrician who coinvented
the rotavirus vaccine and who forcefully (and correctly) maintained
that autism is not linked to inoculations. Herlihy and Hagood
present many interesting facts: today there are vaccines against 22
diseases; George Washington and Abraham Lincoln survived smallpox;
in 1979, smallpox officially became “the first disease conquered by
human efforts”; the flavor enhancer MSG is added to vaccines to
preserve their efficacy. An index would have been helpful, but this
book, with its extensive notes and bibliography, should go a long
way toward convincing even the most leery that vaccines save
lives.
*Booklist*
Herlihy and Hagood acknowledge that parents having to make the
decision of whether or not to vaccinate their children may well
have misgivings. They explore the origins of those doubts and
rather than commend or condemn parents for fostering them, attack
the doubts themselves, tearing them out by their very roots. More,
this is a manual on critical thinking and the insights into
psychology and behaviour that Hagood, a community college
psychology professor, brings to the work are applicable to
countless other issues and situations parents face and decisions
they have to make everyday.
This is a writing duo to be reckoned with. Hagood announces early
on that she is not a parent. Her analysis of the vaccine
manufacturversy is a wholly objective one. Herlihy, a writer
of wit, charm and experience and a mother, recounts her tale
of paranoia following her daughter being vaccinated, effectively
demonstrating the power of anecdote and the human propensity to
empathy. Combine these two women and you have a book that sticks
like glue to the evidence that “vaccines are safe and save lives”
but has huge amounts of heart and a conversational but never
flippant tone that conveys a deep understanding of the
toll fear and information overload can take on frazzled,
possibly sleep deprived parent’s critical faculties....
Your Baby’s Best Shot covers a lot of ground and a fair bit of
history with forty pages of notes and references at the end.Never,
though, does reading this book feel like a slog. There are no
inches of footnotes at the end of each page as the research
discussed and the sources referenced are cited seamlessly in the
main text. Even the science heavy chapters relating to how
vaccines and the immune system work are somehow imbued with the
same warmth of tone of the chapters preceding and
following them. Tricky concepts are related in concrete terms
of everyday experience. One can almost imagine going for a coffee
with the authors and them moving salt shakers and sugar bowls
around the table to demonstrate what happens when a vaccine is
received. In these passages their love of science and its
discoveries are clear to the reader. These authors are passionate
about this subject.
*Autismum Blog*
Herlihy and Hagood team up with their respective expertise in
research/writing (Herlihy) and psychology (Hagood) to dispel the
fear some parents have about vaccines and their ingredients and
their possible negative effects on children....An outstanding
section on historical epidemiology helps readers gain perspective
on the dangers children faced from childhood diseases like polio
before the widespread use of vaccination....The authors do present
some very interesting counterpoints to arguments offered by the
movement against mandatory vaccination.
*Publishers Weekly*
Written in a clear, concise, no-nonsense fashion, Stacy Mintzer
Herlihy and E. Allison Hagood discuss how vaccines work, why they
are safe, and why the misinformation spread by the antivaccine
movement and alternative medical practitioners is without a basis
in science, while describing some of the dangerous quackery that is
being promoted to treat "vaccine injury" that is not really vaccine
injury. It is essential reading for all new parents with any doubts
at all about vaccines.
*David Gorski, MD, PhD, associate professor of surgery at the Wayne
State University School of Medicine, and medical director of the
Alexander J. Walt Comprehensive Breast Center at the Barbara Ann
Karmanos Cancer Institute*
Herlihy and Hagood came to this book with many doubts and
questions and a determination to provide something useful to
parents who for one reason or another are worried
about vaccinating their children. Anxious parents should take
their honest, thorough examination of the subject as helpful advice
from two good surrogates for a trusted neighbor or friend.
*Arthur Allen, author, Vaccine: the Controversial Story of
Medicine's Greatest Lifesaver and Ripe: The Search for the
Perfect Tomato*
Stacy Mintzer Herlihy and E. Allison Hagood have provided an
exceptional and thorough explanation of vaccines,
including what they are, their history, and how they have
single-handedly changed the landscape for raising healthy children.
This book is a must read for any new or expecting parent as it is a
wonderful resource, giving parents and caregivers the opportunity
to truly understand the real science behind vaccinations, as well
as the positive impact they have had (and continue to have) on
society. Thanks to these authors, I now have a new standard gift
that I will be giving to all of my expecting friends, because the
first step to making an informed parenting decision, especially
when it comes to vaccination, is educating yourself.
*Jeanne Garbarino, PhD, Biology Editor, Double X Science*
“…cuts through unscientific misinformation to help parents
understand that vaccinating their children is good for their
child’s health”
*Publishers Weekly*
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