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Internationally acclaimed epidemiologist Raina MacIntyre will be in conversation with Sanjaya Senanayake on her new book Vaccine Nation  Science, reason and the threat to 200 years of progress, a gripping journey through the past, present and future of vaccines.

Vaccination is arguably the greatest public health achievement in history, yet the disappearance of many diseases has also seen an increased focus on the side effects of vaccines and the rise of the anti-vax movement. The COVID-19 pandemic propelled anti-vaccination sentiment into the mainstream – including from some leaders in the medical profession – in an explosion of pseudoscience and disinformation that’s made it increasingly difficult to separate fact from fiction.

In Vaccine Nation, Raina MacIntyre examines the history of vaccines and how they work, vaccine safety, public policy, cutting-edge new technologies, and the miraculous new developments in vaccines to fight cancer and other chronic diseases. At a critical time when vaccination rates are falling globally, MacIntyre argues that science must reclaim the stage or we will lose centuries of gains that vaccines have brought to the world.

‘For the first time in human history, we have the scientific know-how to vaccinate against most of the infectious diseases that killed our ancestors. Vaccine Nation takes us through exciting developments in using vaccines to protect against non-infectious threats such as cancer and heart disease. MacIntyre shows how these advances are being counterbalanced by a spreading mistrust of science in general and vaccines in particular. This book, by one of the world’s leading biosecurity experts, tells the story of how vaccines transformed the public health landscape and suggests what we might do to restore public trust in their efficacy and safety.’ – Professor Trish Greenhalgh OBE, University of Oxford

Raina MacIntyre is Professor of Global Biosecurity at UNSW and an NHMRC �Ӱɴ�ý Fellow. She heads the Biosecurity Program at the Kirby Institute, UNSW. Her vaccine expertise is in older adults and immunosuppressed people, and she has conducted several clinical trials of vaccines in adults and transplant patients. She was on the Vaccine Council of 100 for the journal Vaccine from 2012–2020, and associate editor from 2020–2024. She has been on the WHO COVID-19 Vaccine Composition Technical Advisory Group (2021–2024) and the WHO SAGE smallpox and mpox Advisory Group (2022– current).

Dr Sanjaya Senanayake, Associate Professor and infectious diseases specialist at the ANU College of Science and Medicine, has been a medical media expert for over 15 years, culminating in about 700 local and international TV interviews during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. He has a strong interest in emerging infectious diseases, with the publication in 2023 of the first human case in the world of Ophidascaris robertsi — where a live worm was pulled from his patient’s brain. This became the most-read story in the history of the Guardian Australia.

The vote of thanks will be given by Emeritus Professor Jane Dahlstrom, OAM. ANU College of Science and Medicine.

Books are available for signing from 5.30pm and again after the event.

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A podcast will be made available after the event.

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