Powerful Doctors and Underfunded Public Health

Abstract Physicians and their professional societies have played an important but often troubling role in the governance of immunization in America. Throughout the 20th century, physician professional organizations often derailed attempts to build a functional American public health system. If such a system had been created, it could have delivered free vaccines and effective health promotion to the public. More recently, the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics have called for more coercive mandatory vaccination policies. America’s immunization governance has an unfortunate history of seeking to punish rather than provide, and the political activities of physicians have been a significant driver of that dynamic.