The benefits of vaccination
An excerpt from the Anti-Anti Vax Discussion Panel at The Amaz!ng meeting 7 in Las Vegas.
It’s worth quoting a line from Joe Albietz about why vaccination matters:
Medical progress has been phenomenal over the past century. We can save the life of children born at three hundred grammes, we’ve turned childhood leukaemia from a disease that was almost uniformly fatal into one that has a survival rate of over eighty per cent, we transplant entire human organs and in critical care we have machines that can keep you alive for weeks even after your lungs have stopped and your heart has stopped beating. But they all pale in comparison to the impact of vaccination. In fact, if you wanted to do the greatest amount of good with the least risk and cost, you would be really hard pressed to find anything better than vaccination.
More information about the meeting: www.amazingmeeting.com
Joe Albietz Bio:
Joseph A. Albietz III, MD is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Colorado, Denver, specializing in Pediatric Critical Care. He is fascinated by reality in general (especially when it has a strong geek factor), and offended by any attempt to distort, obfuscate, deny, or exploit our attempts to understand it. His primary skeptical interest is protecting children from medical quackery, and preventing it from infiltrating our academic centers and medical schools.
xD.
September 29th, 2009 at 9:43 am
An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.
September 29th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
Y-e-e-e-s. The problem is when the vaccination is untried and can produce worse results than the disease, e.g. the UK flu jabs.
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September 29th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
James,
That’s a load of dangerous rot and I reject it.
Influenza is a serious disease. It kills people. The worst you can expect are some mild flu-like symptoms for a couple of days. No matter which way you look at it, that is vastly preferable to influenza.
Vaccinations are not ‘untried’. Even with the rush to get the swine flu vaccine out, it went through extensive safety testing.
xD.
October 2nd, 2009 at 11:38 pm
Dave quite right- vaccinations save lives at little cost. I’ve just been asked to have a flu vaccine (I’m an asthmatic) and I’m definitely going to get one- and would reccomend anyone else doing so.
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