Thanks for posting that video, Lew. The video will bring back memories for many people of my parents’ generation who knew people who had measles and may have had it themselves. In fact, it’s not hard to find people, even in one’s own non-internet circles who remember how the measles was generally regarded by the public. Needless to say, it was not regarded with the horror that people under 40 apparently feel obligated to display.
The World Health Organization is fond of putting out figures for global cases of measles and the complications that result from them. So, yes, if you live in a shack with a dirt floor and little access to clean water or doctors, measles is something to worry about. However, if you have access to modern medicine and modern methods of hygiene — your chances of suffering any serious complications from measles at all are extremely low. Actually, I was being far too stringent with that last sentence. Given that the measles vaccine was introduced only in 1963, and that Americans of that period suffered few complications, then I should actually say “if you have access to 1960s medical technology and 1960s living standards, then you have little to fear from the measles.”
And yet, view the hysteria over measles to which are now on full display in the press and in social media.
I should not that I’m not against vaccines, but accept that one should engage in cost-benefit analysis before getting them. There are complications that can result from vaccines. This is not in dispute. Dogmatic pro-vaccine people will point to the corporate-sponsored clinical data and say “but the odds of adverse reaction are so low, you should just get vaccinated like a good compliant citizen, immediately.” Ah, but if only life were as easy as looking at a few statistics. Each person evaluates risks differently, and accepts risks in different ways. This, incidentally, is one reason why governments are in no position to mandate the use of such vaccines. Also, since I have gone to graduate school, I know that just because something is printed in a scholarly journal doesn’t make it indisputable fact (just kidding, you don’t have to go to grad school to know this). The research should certainly be considered, but most people in a first world environment massively over-estimate their risks from a variety of diseases like measles.
Moreover, many vaccines now pushed on people are for diseases that are either very rare, or very unlikely to lead to serious complications. Or both. The polio vaccine is one thing. The chicken pox vaccine is quite another. And new vaccines are constantly being developed for diseases you never even heard of. And why have you never heard of them? Because virtually no one ever gets them. Ever heard of anyone who died from HiB? And we all know of how whole populations have been decimated by pneumococcal disease. But be sure to rush to you doctor and get those vaccines! At least, that’s what Merck Corporation wants you to think.
In just fifty years, Americans have gone from regarding measles as not very serious to cowering in abject fear at the thought that someone they know might contract it. In fifty years, should a vaccine be developed for the common cold, we’ll be lectured endlessly about how you can die from complications, such as pneumonia, related to upper respiratory infections. “Be responsible! Get vaccinated!” And my grandchildren will say to me, “grandpa, tell us about the horrors of living in a world without a vaccine for colds.”
6:52 pm on February 4, 2015
