I’m posting this old Tribune column of mine because of a recent discussion among Facebook friends.

Smallpox arrived in Utah with an emigrant company in 1856. Epidemics of that disease would strike our citizens at least six times during the 19th century, killing thousands; even with enforcement of vaccination laws, 15,000 Utahns died of smallpox between 1900 and 1925. Its deadly nature, the ease with which it spread, the unpleasantness of its symptoms and its disfiguring aftermath made smallpox the most feared disease of its day.

Yet there was little excuse for such epidemics in Utah at the end of the 19th century. The principles of inoculation and vaccination were well understood and widely practiced in Europe and much of the United States. One Salt Lake newspaper editorialized in 1882 that “Experience has long since proved the value of vaccination … Vaccination has driven smallpox from the great cities of the world, and has saved the lives of thousands … In this age of enlightenment it seems hardly worth while to argue in favor of vaccination, for all the eminent, skilled physicians of the world are its consistent and intelligent advocates.” Yet, the writer said, everyone associated daily with those who had not been properly vaccinated. Less than one year later, smallpox raged through the city.

Despite a vigorous campaign in favor of vaccination, the State Health Commissioner estimated in 1899, when the disease appeared yet again, that only 5% of Utahns had been vaccinated against this almost entirely preventable scourge.

In that year, an infected traveler from Butte, Montana, passed through Utah. He stopped overnight in the small Sanpete County town of Sterling. Twenty cases were soon reported there. Sterling was isolated, with guards posted to prevent travel in or out of town, but the disease had already spread to Manti and Ephraim. Local health officers decided that everyone in the region must be vaccinated, willingly or not.

“Not willing,” was the public decision, despite 200 cases statewide traceable to the Sterling outbreak by early December, and despite the spread of the disease through Sevier, Richfield, and Emery Counties by April 1900. Smallpox reached Salt Lake City, where State Health Commissioner Theodore B. Beatty ordered all 12,000 school children to be vaccinated, on penalty of being barred from school.

Public opposition to mandatory vaccination centered on claims that “forced” vaccination was a violation of the rights of a free people. Public discussion of the disease would harm business, one newspaper feared, causing travelers to believe “some exaggerated and sensational report” of Salt Lake as “a plague stricken city.”

Some asserted that vaccination did not provide immunity, or that it actually caused smallpox, or that botched vaccinations sometimes required amputation of the arm; Dr. Beatty offered a $1,000 reward for proof of such a case, which no one ever claimed. Still others worried that because the vaccination involved blood products, diseases like syphilis would be transmitted to innocent children. Others insisted that parents “would stand with a shotgun as ready to use it upon a person attempting to put vile matter from a diseased bovine into the bodies of their healthy children, as if he were trying to make them swallow a dose of poison.”

In 1901 these questions reached the Utah Supreme Court who, reviewing the evidence, agreed that “vaccination was the only safe preventive recognized and approved by medical science and by governments throughout the world” – but even the justices were not unanimous, one justice dissenting both from the scientific evidence and from the legality of compulsory vaccination.

The epidemic passed, only to return again and again, until science, law, and public opinion finally cooperated to reach one of history’s greatest medical achievements: through vaccination, the smallpox virus has been eradicated from the entire planet, except for secured laboratory research samples.

When – and how – will we claim the same victory over whooping cough, measles, chicken pox, and other diseases that continue to kill our children despite the availability of vaccines today?

Please be considerate in the event of any discussion. I’m aware of at least one regular reader whose children have had negative reactions to vaccinations. There are occasional valid reasons not to vaccinate — but, frankly, I reject the idea that “I just don’t think it’s a good idea” or “I read this weird thing on the internet” as being among those valid claims. Still, please be rational and kind in discussion.