The Quiet Hero Who Saved the World Dies as We Forget His Victory

If William Foege had been a general who won the greatest war in human history, we'd know his name. If he'd been a CEO who saved 300 million lives, he'd be on magazine covers. Instead, the man who helped eliminate humanity's most ancient enemy died on January 24 to barely a whisper of recognition.

That quiet passing is perhaps the perfect metaphor for his life's work. Foege's greatest achievement was developing the strategy that let us forget about his greatest achievement: the complete eradication of smallpox from Earth.

And therein lies a cruel irony. As we mourn the passing of one of public health's giants, we're simultaneously witnessing the unraveling of the very system he helped build—with measles cases surging and vaccination rates plummeting across America.

The Ancient Terror We've Forgotten

To understand what we've lost, we need to remember what we escaped. For over 3,000 years, smallpox was humanity's constant companion. The mummified remains of Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses V, who died in 1157 BCE, still show the telltale scars of the disease that would go on to kill 300 million people in the 20th century alone.

The numbers tell only part of the story. Three in 10 infected people died, while survivors often bore permanent scars or lost their sight entirely. The disease was so terrifying that 17th-century English families didn't consider children full family members until they'd survived their smallpox infection. Many cultures developed "smallpox demons" in their religious traditions—that's how deeply this disease was woven into human experience.

By 1967, nearly 200 years after Edward Jenner developed the first smallpox vaccine, the disease was still claiming 10 to 15 million victims annually, with up to 2 million deaths per year. Even as humans prepared to walk on the moon, others were dying from the same plague that had killed pharaohs.

The Strategy That Changed Everything

When the World Health Organization revived its smallpox eradication campaign in 1967, success seemed impossible. Scientists believed they needed to vaccinate at least 80 percent of every population to achieve herd immunity—an overwhelming task in dense urban areas or war-torn regions like India and Nigeria.

Foege, working as a Lutheran missionary doctor in eastern Nigeria, faced this challenge with limited vaccine supplies and isolated rural outbreaks. But constraints often breed innovation. Instead of attempting mass vaccination, he pioneered what became known as "ring vaccination"—finding infected individuals, isolating them, and vaccinating their contacts and nearby communities.

The results were revolutionary. Foege's team could stop an outbreak by vaccinating as little as 7 percent of the population, simply by ensuring they were vaccinating the right 7 percent. Suddenly, an impossible goal became achievable.

This wasn't just about smart tactics. The campaign succeeded because it represented something rare in human history: genuine global cooperation. Despite Cold War tensions, the Soviet Union supplied freeze-dried vaccines that became foundational to eradication efforts in China and India, while the CDC's Donald Henderson directed the international program.

Victory and Its Discontents

On May 8, 1980, just 13 years after the intensified campaign began, the World Health Assembly declared that "the world and all its peoples had won freedom from smallpox." Ali Maow Maalin, a hospital cook in Somalia, had been the last person to naturally contract the disease in 1977.

It was, by any measure, humanity's greatest collaborative achievement. We had taken a virus that had terrorized our species for millennia and eliminated it forever.

Foege continued his mission long after smallpox, serving as CDC director and championing global childhood immunization. His philosophy was simple: "Humanity does not have to live in a world of plagues, disastrous governments, conflict, and uncontrolled health risks."

But today, that optimism feels almost quaint.

The Unraveling

As of January 29, 2026, the CDC had counted 588 measles cases—a disease that was declared eliminated in the US in 2000. Kindergarten measles vaccination coverage has dropped to 92.5 percent, well below the 95 percent threshold needed to prevent outbreaks.

The Trump administration's overhaul of childhood immunization schedules, framed as "aligning with peer countries," has moved some vaccines from routine recommendations into murkier territory. This kind of policy ambiguity reliably leads to fewer children getting vaccinated.

We're witnessing the slow-motion collapse of one of civilization's greatest achievements, and it's happening because we've mistaken the quiet of victory for proof that there never was a war.