Historian at CMU. Author of The Contagion of Liberty: The Politics of Smallpox in the American Revolution (JHU Press, 2022), “Expert in old-timey vaccines”
Joined December 2012
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THRILLED and honored that my little ol’ book The Contagion of Liberty has been named one of the five finalists for the Los Angeles Times book prize for history! latimes.com/entertainment-ar…
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Not only did the Revolutionary Americans support inoculation (and later vaccination), they claimed inoculation to have been a proud American invention up there with Franklin's lightning rod. Putting an anti-vaxxer in charge of health and defunding scientific research is an insult
ALT A list of American inventions published in a dozen or more American newspapers before the American Revolution in the 1770s. It lists "mercurial inoculation; by Dr. Murison of Long-Island,"; "Electrical pointed Rods for securing Houses and Vessels from the fatal Effects of Lightning; by Dr. Benjamin Franklin, of Philadelphia"; "Making Iron of Black-Sand; by Jared Eliot"; and "Theory for investigating the Quantity of Matter in Comets by Professor Winthrop," as being America's greatest scientific inventions and achievements up to that point.
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I will be talking about the United State's 225 year streak of support for vaccination. When Thomas Jefferson first heard of it months before being inaugurated the 3rd President in December 1800 and wrote "every friend of humanity must look with pleasure on this discovery."
10 Feb 2025
Wishing you a fantastic evening OAH speaker Andrew Wehrman on your lecture, America's First Vaccinators, @CMUniversity. We're proud to have historians like you. Looking to bring a dynamic speaker to your campus? The OAH DLP connects you with scholars: ow.ly/85Ky50UWX5a
ALT Andrew Wehrman
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Tennessee Families for Vaccines gave away copies of my book to legislators yesterday as they declared that "protecting public health is patriotic!" How awesome is that?! I hope it makes a difference!
The US has been pro-vaccination since its founding. Let's not change it.
4 Feb 2025
Met with TN Families for Vaccines today, they brought me this cool book. Vaccines save lives and I believe in science! Let’s not bring back the iron lung, please.
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Retweeting this 🧵about the damage that can be done simply by legitimizing an anti-vaccination huckster and allowing him to gain a bigger audience.
What harm can be done by a scientist or public health official agreeing to debate an anti-vaccination huckster? It's not just a thought execise. The damage has been done before. Let's look at Minnesota's "Vaccination Debate" of 1902. 1/
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Andrew Wehrman: @profwehrman.bsky.social retweeted
29 Jan 2025
Kennedy claims he's a science person after:
A. Ignoring much of the data about thimerosal and including junk science in his thimerosal book.
B. Denying HIV in his Fauci book.
C. Repeatedly making false claims about vaccines.
He's not a science person. Just anti-vaccine.
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I'm looking forward to giving the Coy James Lecture in American History at Albion College on Monday Jan. 27! Come hear me speak on the centrality of inoculation and public health to the founding of the United States. albion.edu/event/coy-james-l…
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Andrew Wehrman: @profwehrman.bsky.social retweeted
5 Nov 2024
In 1945, Grand Rapids, Michigan became the first city in the world to fluoridate its drinking water.
#Fluoridation #GrandRapids #Michigan #PublicHealth
@ProfWehrman
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Not to be forgotten, the women 65 who seem to be turning hard toward Kamala are the ones who have most witnessed the harms caused by Covid and are by percentage the most vaccinated in the country. Trump’s anti-public health platform is anathema for this group.
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An element of this election that has been understated nationally is that in 2020 Trump was running a pro-vaccination campaign. There was hope the Covid vaccine was coming soon. In 2024 with RFK Jr., he’s running an anti-vaccination campaign, the first of its kind in U.S. history.
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Andrew Wehrman: @profwehrman.bsky.social retweeted
31 Oct 2024
"Among children born during 1994–2023, routine childhood vaccinations will have prevented approximately 508 million cases of illness, 32 million hospitalizations, and 1,129,000 deaths, resulting in direct savings of $540 billion and societal savings of $2.7 trillion."
31 Oct 2024
Trump transition co-chair Howard Lutnick — in charge of helping staff the gov if he wins — says he had a 2.5 hour meeting with RFK Jr. who talked about pulling (safe and proven) vaccines from the market. Lutnick says RFK will not be in charge of HHS, despite what RFK said.
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Andrew Wehrman: @profwehrman.bsky.social retweeted
15 Oct 2024
@USNatArchives please don't adopt ai llm tools! Doing so is literally the death of history and the death of the archives. Your own account says 90% accuracy, that is unacceptable. Ai severs the past from primary sources and jumbles together word associations lacking context.
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Andrew Wehrman: @profwehrman.bsky.social retweeted
9 Oct 2024
This is extraordinary.
8 Oct 2024
The Biden administration sets a 10-year deadline for U.S. cities to replace lead pipes and make drinking water safer. apnews.com/article/lead-pipe…
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Andrew Wehrman: @profwehrman.bsky.social retweeted
6 Oct 2024
The Missing Information in Anti-Vaccine Propaganda: Anti-vaccine activists do not only overstate and even invent vaccine risks, they never tell you about the risks of not vaccinating. open.substack.com/pub/stopan… via @AboutPediatrics
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Andrew Wehrman: @profwehrman.bsky.social retweeted
3 Oct 2024
Let's go back to the pre-ACA healthcare landscape. This is what it looked like in 2012...*before* the ACA's major provisions went into effect.
Half the US had employer coverage. Another third had Medicare or Medicaid. ~11M had "individual" insurance; ~48M had nothing at all. 2/
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Andrew Wehrman: @profwehrman.bsky.social retweeted
3 Oct 2024
🧵📣 THE DEAD POOL: Since @JDVance wants to Concentrate folks w/pre-existing conditions into separate Camps, let's talk about it. 1/
acasignups.net/24/10/02/dead…
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Andrew Wehrman: @profwehrman.bsky.social retweeted
2 Oct 2024
.@ZachCMU is in the @tigers lineup today!
Mckinstry’s the first @CMUBaseball player to compete in the @MLB playoffs since Josh Collmenter (Arizona) in 2011.
#FireUpChips🔥⬆️⚾️
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Andrew Wehrman: @profwehrman.bsky.social retweeted
23 Sep 2024
Constitution Day Speaker - Laura Edwards
"The Constitution and the Reconstruction of Rights after the Civil War" on Friday, September 27, 2024, 3:30 PM in the Sarah and Daniel Opperman Auditorium, CMU Park Library.
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RT @PeterHotez: 1/n Tomorrow or soon, I will do a Tweet X thread on how the antivaccine, health & wellness, nutrition supplements industrie…
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Andrew Wehrman: @profwehrman.bsky.social retweeted
21 Sep 2024
University of Michigan is putting voting info and early voting details on coffee sleeves
They are just killing on this front
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