Disclaimer: This is for the purpose of education only. Don’t try to self supplement or self medicate.
There are two major holes underneath every major city that makes it a part of a First World nation. Do you know what those are? One is a sewage system, the other one is a subway.
There are two major things that you can provide for a first world nation that make it First World. Do you know what they are? Clean water. And vaccinations.
Bottom line on any controversy, if the problems can be fixed, then let’s just fix them. If certain chromosomal abnormalities predispose a newborn infant to too leaky a blood brain barrier to tolerate the preservatives and chemicals in an otherwise herd benefiting vaccination, either make the ingredients more tolerable. Or simply delay the vaccination in those chromosomal kids to after eight or, 18 even when their blood brain barrier or brain isn’t quite as susceptible. I don’t think the herd will suffer with a delayed immunizing of a very few. The herd only suffers if many are not immunized at all. But still, I’m straying off the topic which will focus only on the value of vaccinations which are many and strong.
We vaccinate for many reasons associated with reducing and preventing if not eliminating disease.
Measles, mumps, rubella, and HPV. And flu! For those diseases, we vaccinate for more reasons than just to prevent disease. We vaccinate to prevent severity of disease.
Tetanus and diphtheria. For these two, we are preventing the effects of the toxins of disease.
Strep pneumococcal disease. With this vaccine, we are preventing the overuse of antibiotics. So that’s a good thing. Always.
Taking us back to influenza again. If we immunized against influenza, and reduced the severity of that disease, we also reduce the use of antibiotics. Bear in mind the built in advantages of avoiding antibiotic use. The less we use them, the less resistant strains we create against them. All of this propagates our good health and existence beyond just reducing a specific disease.
Rubella. Here is an example of a disease that we vaccinate against in the general population to only help some. The only reason we immunize against rubella is to reduce and eliminate the disease known as congenital rubella. Rubella in and of it’s self is an unimpressive little sniffle. But embryologically, it can destroy a fetus. So, why do we immunize everybody, if boys never get pregnant? Correct. To immunize the herd. Now you’re getting it.
And most vaccinations are not perfect. That is NOT an argument against them. That is no way a crime.
Vaccinations prevent disease, all in all. Can’t argue that.
Having said all of the above, it’s important to reflect on what we as physicians used to call an effective vaccination based on the herd immunity data.
As positions, we were generally taught to accept only of vaccination that is better than 99% effective.
And that leads to the next discussion what are we saying when we say a vaccination is so many percentage points effective.
Well it’s this. If it vaccine is 90% effective, that means that 10% of all the people to get the vaccine will get absolutely no immunity for that pathogen.
From this, much number crunching has yielded that we should only accept a 99% effective vaccination.
There you have it. So many wonder why we even accepted a chickenpox vaccination that was only 90% effective. That means that 10% of all the people that get that chickenpox vaccination go around complacent enough to walk into a room filled with children that have chickenpox. Sadly, one out of 10 of them will be in for a big surprise when they develop chickenpox several days later.
So that takes you into the world of Covid vaccinations that are 80 or 70 or even only 60% effective. That means 40% of all those people that get that vaccination accurately develop no immunity towards Covid at all. Bad in and of itself, but also tends to lead to a complacent attitude on acquiring the illness because they are genuinely not protected.
There are eradicated diseases that could come back. There are nearly eradicated diseases that flareup. There are brand new diseases that we can vaccinate against, and most certainly should. Vaccinations are safe and very well tested, listen to your physician’s advice on getting vaccinated.
