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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Science
Guardian staff

Junk science, vaccine refusers and the return of smallpox: what worries one of Australia’s top epidemiologists

Syringe in puddle of vaccine
‘A matter of when, not if’: Raina MacIntyre believes the probability of an influenza pandemic is much higher today simply because there’s so much more bird flu. Photograph: Anna Efetova/Getty Images

During the first years of the Covid-19 crisis, the University of New South Wales professor of global biosecurity Raina MacIntyre was a fixture on Australian TVs and news feeds, a voice of authority and warning about the dangers faced by societies grappling with the “Black Swan event” that was the global pandemic. In a new book, she turns her mind to the threats that are coming around the bend.

In your new book, Vaccine Nation, you write that vaccination is arguably the greatest public health achievement in history, yet 200 years of progress is now in peril. Where might we be without vaccines?

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