dr. willrich will be talking about his book, "pox" published by penguin press. dr. willrich's first book city of courts won the distinguished john h. dunning prize by the american historical association for the best book on any aspect of history and the william nelson cromwell price ordered by the american society for legal history to read dr. willrich received his ph.d. from the university of chicago. before that he worked several years as a journalist in washington, d.c. writing for monthly, city paper, the new republic and other magazines so please give dr. willrich a really warm welcome. [applause] >> thank you for that lovely introduction and thank you all for coming out this evening. it's terrific to be in this place. it's a beautiful building and it's got so many wonderful public programs going on right now bringing the history of medicine and disease important to the national history to people not only in functions like this and to the publications so it's an honor to be here and i want to thank carey for inviting me and being such a gracious host. everyone i

dr. willrich here to talk about his very important book. in 1736 i lost one of my sons, a fine boy of 4 years old, by the smallpox taken in a common way. i long regretted bitterly and still regret that i had not given it to him by inoculation. this i mention for the sake of participants who mitt that operation on the supposition that they could never forgive themselves if child died from it. so wrote benjamin franklin in his autobiography about his struggles, sadness and regrets regarding the decision not to inoculate his young son against smallpox. the intentionally-induced infection for inoculation -- far more dangerous than the vaccine that would supplant it in the 18th century -- offered lifelong immunity from the dreaded approximate. yet franklin and other americans were beginning to struggle with the very issues about vaccination that we still face today and the issues brought to life so lucidly in our distinguished speaker's book. concerns about the debunk reliefs that vaccines were the overall burden of vaccines are responsible for

dr. willrich a very warm welcome. [applause] >> the thank you so much for that lovely introduction and thank you all for coming out this evening. it's terrific to be in this place. a beautiful building. and it's got so many wonderful public programs going on right now, bringing the history of medicine and disease which is so important to our national history, to people not only in functions like this but over the internet and through publication. so it's a real honor to be here, and want to thank you for inviting me. as everyone in this room knows, vaccine longtailed as modern medicine's greatest invention have lately become the subject of a bitter public controversy. according to a 2010 report from the centers of disease, 40% of american parents of young children have refused or delayed one or more shots for their child. that's up from 23% in 2003. so something is going on right now. this bike oval and evidence to the contrary, one in five american parents believe that vaccines cause autism. this disturbing statistic