He explained that at the time there were only 2-3 cases worldwide and they were contained; therefore, smallpox was essentially eradicated from the world.
..... He also said that the vaccine is a high-risk one, with potentially serious, even fatal, side effects. He said the odds of having a serious side effect, even death, from the vaccine were far greater than the chances of getting the disease.
..... He did not outright refuse to vaccinate my daughter but he did say that the vaccine was quite hard to obtain and quite expensive (several hundred dollars, which was exhorbitant in 1973).
Given that choice, we did not have our daughter vaccinated. I believe it was children born in '72 that were the first not given the smallpox vaccine. At least it was a very new practice at that time.
All vaccines are dangerous, this one apparently more so than most.
Do a web search on "vaccinations" and other words like "damage", etc. The personal horror stories will scare you to death. I did searches like that after my wife was hurt by a simple Tetanus/Diphtheria vaccine. She spent several months with terrible headaches and dizziness. She's FINALLY seeming to be over it - one year after the vaccination.