As a child, I noticed a distinct scar on my mother’s shoulder—a ring of small indents around a larger one—but I forgot about it over the years.
Later, seeing the same scar on an elderly woman, I called my mother, who reminded me: it was from the smallpox vaccine.
Smallpox, a deadly disease killing 30% of those infected, was eradicated in the U.S. by 1952, and routine vaccination ended in 1972. Every child before then received the vaccine, leaving a scar from the two-pronged needle and resulting blisters—a “first vaccine passport” that many, like my mother, still bear.