Practitioners have given vaccines to children and adults since Dr. Edward Jenner developed the smallpox vaccine in 1796. Since the enactment of the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, which provides a liability shield for vaccine manufacturers, children following the CDC-recommended vaccination schedule receive a maximum of seventy-three shots for seventeen different diseases. Kennedy and Hooker believe that researchers have done very little to study the health of these children, either long- or short-term. This book is based on over one hundred studies in the peer-reviewed literature that consider vaccinated versus unvaccinated populations. Each study is analyzed, and health differences among infants, children, and adults who have been vaccinated and those who have not are presented and put in context. -- adapted from Chapter 1 and publisher info