In Whose Best Interest? Breaching the Academic–Industrial Wall

In 1799, Benjamin Waterhouse, one of the three full-time professors at Harvard Medical School, received a copy of Edward Jenner's Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae. Armed with new knowledge of the efficacy of cowpox vaccination for the prevention of smallpox, Waterhouse proposed to test the vaccine in Boston and, if successful, to develop a monopoly under which he would inoculate New England children for a fee.1 After receiving the cowpox preparation from England, Waterhouse inoculated first his son Daniel, then six other members of his household. He next carried out a clinical study in which . . .