The Vaccine Book, edited by Dean Bloom and Professor Lambert, captures the scientific knowledge behind vaccines and their known and potential impact. The book includes topics such as economic and ethical challenges, economics of producing vaccines, clinical vaccine trial design, and vaccine introduction into widespread use. Meant to be readable by non-experts as well as vaccine scientists, The Vaccine Book is selective in presenting innovative approaches and problems, such as describing special barriers and initiatives to create vaccines against some major infectious disease killers: HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis.

The use of vaccines since the first smallpox vaccine was created in 1796 has produced some stunning global health effects. Smallpox has been eradicated, polio transmission has been dramatically curbed, and countless people have been protected from death and disability due to childhood infectious diseases. Vaccines have contributed to an increase in life expectancy in most countries.

In 1974, only 5 percent of children worldwide received six childhood vaccines recommended by the World Health Organization, write Bloom and Lambert in the book’s Preface. Since then, the number of the world’s children receiving these vaccines has surpassed 80 percent, saving millions of children’s lives.

Yet, challenges remain. The mechanisms by which many existing vaccines provide protection are not fully understood, write Bloom and Lambert. Major barriers exist to providing vaccines to people in parts of the developing world. Many modern infectious disease threats are not primarily diseases of early childhood–when vaccines are traditionally given–but problems associated with adolescents, teens, and adults. As a result, they call for the development of new immunization models. The anticipated emergence of an epidemic of chronic diseases represents a new frontier for vaccine development.

Fifty-one scientists contributed to The Vaccine Book, published by Academic Press, an imprint of Elsevier Science. The book is designed for students, researchers, public health officials, and a broader audience interested in vaccines and immunizations.