The past does contain its share of treasures, and it can be hard to accept that a world so rife with pain and despair is in certain ways the best it has ever been. But the idea that the past held a secret to health and happiness that we’ve lost somehow—especially with respect to infectious disease—is a fantasy with potentially lethal ramifications.
At the center of the “Make America Healthy Again” crusade is a high degree of trust in the wisdom of nature. But … it’s hard to romanticize a relatively recent vaccine-free past while considering photographs of children’s bodies ravaged by smallpox, a disease that persisted well into the 20th century. Likewise, long before COVID-19, America experienced cholera and flu pandemics with hundreds of thousands of associated deaths, as well as lesser outbreaks of illnesses such as diphtheria, polio, and pertussis, all three of which were notorious child-killers. Today, the rarity of those conditions has fostered a false sense of security, and a naive assessment of the natural world.
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