RIP DR. J. Donald Millar, slayer of smallpox

[vschanoes]

Haven't posted in a while, but this is the kind of thing I can't resist.

I didn't know smallpox persisted as long as the late 1970s, but thanks in part to this man, we have actually eradicated it. That's the goal for polio now.

So anti-vaxxers can shut it. Vaccines work. Smallpox is dead.

Comments

[shewhomust]

I did know that the last cases of smallpox were in the 1970s, because I knew about the Birmingham outbreak; but I hadn't realised (or had forgotten) how short a time this was after the eradication of the disease in the wild.

That is quite a life!