Mumps vaccine and the making of a “deadly health sin”

When Merck's mumps vaccine was licensed in 1967, it was tepidly received by a nation little concerned about the disease. In sharp contrast to polio, whose vaccine was anxiously anticipated a decade before, consensus on the threat posed by mumps was lacking. The press offered lighthearted portrayals of the infection's gravity, doctors presented conflicting reports on who needed protection and when, and frustrated parents expressed confusion. Ten years later, however, the notion that all children should be vaccinated against mumps prevailed among doctors and health professionals. This new consensus depended upon a reconfiguration of mumps: from the late sixties through the seventies, mumps was rhetorically transformed from a comical nuisance to an infection with potential to harm the organs, cause deafness, and jeopardize men's sterility. This paper argues that mumps vaccine was key in prompting this transformation and shaping mumps prevention policy. Mumps vaccine brought attention to mumps at a time when humankind's relationship to infectious disease was being transformed by the conquest of smallpox and polio. As doctors turned their attention to “the milder diseases,” mumps, its vaccine, and Merck's marketing of the shot offered one model for the management of such diseases. As this model was tested, epidemiologists accumulated evidence in favor of vaccination. Health departments dubbed mumps one of the “seven deadly health sins.” And in the broader culture, mumps was configured as a threat to middle-class comfort, economic security, reproductive capacity, and the strength and intelligence of future generations. This paper shows how a vaccine can reframe the way Americans think about a disease and the significance of its prevention. It recounts the story of an effective vaccine in search of a consistently serious disease, and provides an example of how one vaccine served as remedy to a set of concerns not solely medical in nature.