3 things that explain America's vaccine hysteria

In this excerpt from "The Informed Parent: A Science-Based Resource for Your Child's First Four Years," authors Tara Haelle and Emily Willingham, PhD explain why some people still don't trust vaccines.

• In the infamous "Cutter incident" of 1955, California-based Cutter Laboratories improperly stored their polio vaccine and administered doses containing not-completely-killed poliovirus. After 11 children died and hundreds were paralyzed, health officials passed a series of requirements to improve vaccine safety.
• During the 1976-1977 national swine flu vaccination campaign, several hundred cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome, an autoimmune disease in which the body mistakenly attacks part of the nervous system, were attributed to the flu vaccine-and the swine flu itself never arrived.
• In 1999, the first rotavirus vaccine, RotaShield, manufactured by Wyeth, was withdrawn when it was shown to cause in approximately 1 out of every 10,000 children a rare intestinal problem called intussusception, which caused severe diarrhea and could be fatal. No children died, and the vaccine was pulled from use, but authorities conceded that future vaccines needed to be tested in larger groups of children to identify the risk of similar events sooner.
• Even as recently as the 2009-2010 flu season, the H1N1 flu vaccine manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline and used in Europe (but not in the United States) was linked to an increase in narcolepsy cases among children, which researchers are still investigating. (The vaccine's use was suspended when the problem came to light.)

NOW WATCH: Watch Jeff Sachs destroy the anti-vaccine movement in under two minutes