The best and worst developments in public health have always come from moments of crisis. But many of the elixir victims were very young children, and agency officials wasted no time spinning the incident up into a national crisis. The public grew skeptical of the effort when the vaccines were linked to an extremely rare but serious side effect. “It was supposed to be this great triumph,” says Joshua Sharfstein, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and author of “The Public Health Crisis Survival Guide.” “But it ended up seeding a generation of vaccine hesitancy instead.” The takeaway from these and similar parables is clear, Dr. Sharfstein says: Crisis can be a powerful catalyst for shaping policy and improving society. The United States is in what can only be described as an epoch of crisis.

---

Persons: Sulfanilamide, ”, Joshua Sharfstein, Sharfstein, —, it’s Organizations: and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control, Fort, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Locations: Fort Dix, United States, Republic