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One of the things I dislike about this "dilemma" is playing it off like it's unexpected. This was true for Smallpox. This will be true for any disease as it ap
by Fomite 7y ago
One of the things I dislike about this "dilemma" is playing it off like it's unexpected.
This was true for Smallpox. This will be true for any disease as it approaches eradication if the vaccine isn't 100% side-effect free.
- makomk 7y agoNo, this wasn't true for smallpox. The smallpox vaccine didn't use the smallpox virus - it used a related virus which isn't very effective at infecting humans and doesn't seem to have been able to easily mutate into something that was. While smallpox vaccination isn't risk-free and there is the occasional incident of the vaccine virus spreading to family members of US soldiers and causing serious health problems, it can't turn back into smallpox. The fact that the symptoms are so obvious and reliable probably helps here too.
- Fomite 7y agoSmallpox has an exceptionally high side effect rate. And that was what I was talking about. "Adverse Outcome From Vaccine" > "Adverse Outcome from Disease" as a general phenomenon.