274388 Children and "The Case Against Rubella"

Tuesday, October 30, 2012 : 4:30 PM - 4:50 PM

Leslie Reagan, PhD , History Department, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL
The federal government had put money into research for a vaccine against German measles/rubella and in 1969 provided the newly developed vaccine to private companies without a patent, but planned on funding only a tiny fraction of the vaccinations believed necessary. As a result, the 1970 public health campaign to protect expectant mothers and their future children from German measles and the birth defects it caused when pregnant women caught the virus had to rely upon private businesses and voluntary health organizations to produce health education materials. Drawing upon my book, Dangerous Pregnancies, about German measles and the 1960s epidemic, this paper analyzes rubella vaccine materials, focusing particularly upon The Case Against Rubella, a film produced by pharmaceutical company, Smith, Kline, and French Laboratories. This film and much of the vaccine education/advertising put children with disabilities on display in order to represent the terrible effects of rubella and the threat if one failed to immunize. The film relied upon social fears of disabilities, and desires for a normal child, a normal school, and a normal family to promote the vaccine. Disabled children made the case against rubella, just as they made the case for polio and other vaccines. Children with disabilities appeared in material for both mothers and for the children targeted for immunization. This paper will also compare rubella educational materials to other vaccine media messages past and present.

Learning Areas:
Administer health education strategies, interventions and programs
Administration, management, leadership
Advocacy for health and health education
Ethics, professional and legal requirements
Public health or related education
Public health or related laws, regulations, standards, or guidelines

Learning Objectives:
Analyze the implicit messages about disability and normality that were conveyed in marketing of the rubella vaccine in the 1970s.

Keywords: Rubella, Child Health

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have more than fifteen years of experience researching the topics covered in this presentation, including the history and politics of pregnancy, prenatal care, women’s health, and abortion. She is the author of two books on these subjects, When Abortion Was a Crime (University of California Press, 1998) and Dangerous Pregnancies: Mothers, Disabilities, and Abortion in Modern America (University of California Press, 2010).
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.