One of my biggest heroes is Maurice Hilleman (1919–2005), an “intense, irascible but modest” man who arguably saved more lives than any other person in history. Hilleman developed vaccines against measles, mumps, hepatitis A and B, chickenpox, meningitis and other diseases, and his vaccines are routinely recommended in current schedules. His work has saved many millions of lives worldwide — I’ve seen estimates of as many as eight million lives saved per year — and it has also prevented deafness, blindness and other disabilities among millions more.
It’s not enough to develop the vaccines, though; we also have to use them. And today’s Guardian has a piece “The California senator fighting for the strictest vaccination laws in the US” by Vivian Ho that describes some of the challenges in encouraging people to do just that. Ho interviews Richard Pan, the son of immigrants from Taiwan. Pan went to medical school, became a pediatrician in California, and eventually ran for State Assembly in 2010 and won; he now serves in the California Senate. Pan says, “I wanted to run for office and solve some problems. I don’t think I was ever thinking about passing a vaccine bill while I was campaigning.” However, after the Disneyland measles outbreak in 2015, Pan sponsored a bill to remove personal belief exemptions from vaccinations for children entering public schools, exemptions that were being abused so much that many public schools no longer had herd immunity.
The response from antivaxxers was “swift and terrifying”, Ho writes. Pan’s private practice was harassed by phone calls, as was his wife’s. He received death threats. He says he is harassed on social media nearly every day. And a week ago, Pan was assaulted on a Sacramento street by an antivax conspiracy theorist who livestreamed the attack. (The attacker was later cited by police for misdemeanor battery.)
And here’s the thing: Pan continues to work to improve his constituents’ lives, calmly and patiently, without backing down or catering to conspiracist threats like too many politicians do. He is sponsoring SB 276, a followup bill to plug some of the previous bill’s loopholes that are being exploited by antivaxxers. SB 276 is facing strenuous opposition by antivaxxers, who rallied at Sacramento yesterday despite another measles exposure at Disneyland and Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) earlier this month.
Pan knows that he can’t convince diehard antivaxxers. However, he says:
The more important thing is communicating to people who genuinely want to understand the issue the reasons why we’re doing the policies that we’re doing and debunking the misinformation that is being put out there. And, most importantly, we need to reach out the parents who have been misled and share with them accurate information.
Although there are awards named after Maurice Hilleman for research in infectious diseases, microbiology and vaccine discovery, to my mind there should also be a Maurice Hilleman Prize for politicians who are steadfast and courageous and patient in improving public health. And Richard Pan should be at the head of the list.