Parents look back in horror on the days when many babies and young children died barely before they had started life.
Today death and serious illness among the young are mercifully rare and that is due above anything to vaccination.
The series of jabs given to small children have virtually eradicated the killer diseases of childhood from this country. Yet, in the past few years, there has been a startling decline in the take-up rate of vaccination.
This is almost entirely due to the scare about the MMR triple jab, which protects youngsters from measles, mumps and rubella.
Firstly, Dr Andrew Wakefield claimed the MMR vaccine could lead to autism. And then Tony Blair refused to say if his son had had the jab.
Although every serious medical study since then has failed to find a shred of evidence to support that belief, many parents have refused to let their babies have the jab.
The result has been a 13 per cent fall in the take-up rate for the vaccine and a corresponding 13-fold increase in the incidence of measles.
Now Gordon Brown is considering banning children who have not been vaccinated from starting school.
The plan is to imitate the successful model introduced by Bill Clinton - to ensure that no low income child was left unvaccinated..
Some may object to the element of compulsion - of the state interfering with personal parental decisions.
But if compulsory vaccination helps eradicate killer diseases and ensures the poorest do not miss out, it will be worth it.
Cherie Blair's autobiography was a chance to give an insight into the astonishing life she led as the Prime Minister's wife.
Instead, true to form, it comes over as an opportunity for score-settling and making money.
Rising from a tough working-class background to become a leading lawyer as well as Britain's first lady, Cherie might have been a great popular figure.
Sadly she became known for leading a selfserving existence dominated by blagging freebies and using her position to rake in the sort of money most people hardly dream of.
She uses her book to undermine Gordon Brown while pretending she is not critical.
It is a lost opportunity. We could all have benefited from finding out more about the Blairs. Instead, the only benefits will accrue to her bank balance and ego.
Since he became London mayor, Boris Johnson has won over some former sceptics.
People like his cheekiness, interesting ideas and insistence on riding his bike rather than using the mayoral limo.
Unfortunately, in his eagerness to get on with the job, Boris has been caught cycling through a red light.
He is going to have to learn that, even when you are the mayor, you aren't above the law.
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