Thackray Insights: Adverse Reaction

Thackray Insights invites you to delve deep into eye­ opening topics and explore the unheard stories of medicine.

For as long as there have been vaccines, there have been anti-vaxxers. From the first backlash following Edward Jenner’s innovative discovery to the recent COVID pandemic, historians Gareth Williams and Paula Larsson chart the development – and similarities – of anti-vaccination movements across the last two centuries.

About the Speakers:

Professor Gareth Williams is a former Chair of the Jenner Trust and Emeritus Professor of Medicine at Bristol. A Cambridge-trained physician, he has led internationally recognised research in diabetes and obesity. He has published 200 scientific papers and authored or edited over 20 books, including Angel of Death: the story of smallpox, Unravelling the Double Helix and The Impossible Bomb. He has received an honorary doctorate from the University of Angers.

Paula Larsson is a DPhil historian at the University of Oxford’s Centre for the History of Science, Medicine and Technology. Her research examines vaccine policy, medical research and eugenics in twentieth-century Canada, particularly their impact on Indigenous peoples and immigrants. She also founded Uncomfortable Oxford, exploring Oxford’s histories of empire, colonialism and inequality.

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