Why do some people swear by vaccines and others are so leery of them? What about viruses? Are they always bad?

We decided to go straight to one of the world’s foremost experts to help us understand it all.

Griffith Parks has a Ph.D. in biochemistry, was an American Cancer Society Fellow at Northwestern University, the founding director of the Vaccine Center at Wake Forest University and is now the Director of the Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences and a Professor of Medicine at the University of Central Florida College of Medicine.

Parks describes the tremendous impact vaccines have made on the world’s population over the last couple hundred years. He breaks down how vaccines work when they’re injected in our bodies and whether we should be afraid of the other impacts these vaccines have on our bodies.

Plus, he weighs in on the growing popularity of vaccines for adults, such as flu shots and shingles vaccines.

Dr. Parks also describes the exciting changes he’s seen in his field during his 30 years of studying viruses and why this is one of the most exciting times in the history of biomedical research.