Seems like it might be time for Version 3.0 of

THE DR JENNER'S HOUSE MYTH BUSTING THREAD

There's a lot of misinformation out there at the moment and, amongst it all, we are seeing a lot of old myths about Edward Jenner and smallpox being shared. Here's a THREAD 1/17

MYTH: "People have been vaccinating for 1000s of years"
FACT: Inoculation (or variolation) involved deliberate infection with smallpox virus to provide immunity against further smallpox. This has a long history, pre-dating vaccination. But inoculation is NOT vaccination... 2/17

...Inoculation was introduced to America after an enslaved African, Onesimus, shared the technique with his owner. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu introduced it to Britain after seeing it in Turkey. Yet vaccination was different to inoculation in that it used cowpox, not smallpox. 3/17

MYTH: "Benjamin Jesty needs more credit"
FACT: It seems that people had long believed that cowpox would protect against smallpox. Jesty deliberately infected his family in 1774, but even he wasn't the first to do this. What Jenner did was to apply science to the folklore... 4/17

... Jenner carried out controlled repeated experiments. Jesty did not. When we're describing Jenner as the pioneer of vaccination what's so important is that he had the determination to share his work + prove its effectiveness on multiple cases. And that's what he did first. 5/17

MYTH: "Jenner wasn't a proper doctor anyway, he bought his degree"
FACT: Jenner's medical training consisted of a 6 year apprenticeship with an experienced surgeon followed by 2 years in London training under the renowned John Hunter. There were no degrees for surgeons... 6/17

... Jenner was qualified to practice, nonetheless. Later he set about obtaining a medical degree so that he could expand his practice. Prior to 1862, St Andrews awarded these on recommendation to experienced medics and in 1792 Jenner was successful in his application. 7/17

MYTH: "Jenner killed/harmed his son by vaccinating him"
FACT: This is utterly false. Jenner's eldest son, Edward, was born with learning difficulties and died in 1810 having contracted tuberculosis from a tutor employed for his education... 8/17

... He had not been vaccinated as he + his sister Catharine were already immune to smallpox from variolation as young children (as described above). Jenner's other son Robert was vaccinated as a child, the details of which are recorded in the Inquiry, and lived a full life. 9/17

MYTH: "Jenner vaccinated his gardener's son, rather than his own children, because he believed him to be expendable"
FACT: Jenner's 1796 trial relied on finding a test subject who had been exposed to neither cowpox nor smallpox. This was not the case for his own children... 10/17

... Edward, born 1789, and Catharine, born 1794, had both been variolated and so were immune to smallpox. Jenner knew James Phipps's medical history and that he met all the requirements. Robert Jenner was vaccinated as soon as possible by his father after his birth in 1797. 11/17

MYTH: “Jenner was considered a charlatan and was ridiculed by his contemporaries through cartoons”
FACT: The cartoon that some understand as an attack on Jenner was actually intended to lampoon those who believed vaccination might make them more bovine in character... 12/17

... Jenner achieved significant recognition in his lifetime. Thomas Jefferson said of Jenner “mankind can never forget that you have lived”, whilst here in Berkeley the parish remembered Jenner with a huge memorial window in the church depicting scenes of Biblical healing. 13/17

MYTH: "Hygiene eradicated smallpox, not vaccination"
FACT: Smallpox was not a disease of poor sanitation and affected both rich and poor alike. Of course, socioeconomic conditions can affect disease outcomes and chances of being infected, but this is not the whole story... 14/17

... Smallpox was eradicated when the world came together in a targeted vaccination campaign. We consistently see dramatic reductions in cases of diseases after the introduction of vaccines and, conversely, increases when vaccination rates are low https://who.int/vaccine_safety/initiative/detection/immunization_misconceptions/en/index1.html 15/17

Most of these myths go right back to the start of vaccination. They were, and still are, used by those who believe that if you can discredit Jenner then you discredit the whole science of vaccination and over 200 years of subsequent work by many, many people... 16/17

Unfortunately they are also sometimes shared unwittingly by people who know #VaccinesWork. (Mis)information spreads quickly so, as we conclude, a plea from us: please do check before you share. And if you're in any doubt about an Edward Jenner 'fact', just give us a shout! 17/17

For ease of crediting, all of the pictures in tweets 2-9 are from @ExploreWellcomeand are used under a Creative Commons licence (CC BY 4.0). The image in tweet 14 is public domain and the graphic in tweet 15 is from @britsocimm. The other images are from our collection.