3 ms·
You are talking a different time scale. Take a look at this figure from the article: https://rootsofprogress.org/img/mckeown-1975-fig-6.png https://rootsofprog
by dahfizz 7y ago
You are talking a different time scale. Take a look at this figure from the article:
https://rootsofprogress.org/img/mckeown-1975-fig-6.png https://rootsofprogress.org/img/mckeown-1975-fig-6.png
Modern medicine and vaccines have undeniably reduced the occurrence and severity of diseases, but the occurrences of these diseases were already down over 90% by the time we came up with vaccines. It's not wrong to recognize that tremendous achievement.
- wavepruner 7y agoFurthermore, it indicates that we do not need to paint vaccine hesitant people as harbingers of societal collapse. That belief has been used to justify hateful rhetoric that is divisive, unproductive, and cruel to those who believe they were injured by vaccines.
- AstralStorm 7y agoOn the other hand, we will have many more cases otherwise. Meaning more fatalities, though not at the "doom" level. Public policy should still be to force vaccination, injuries notwithstanding, as the cost benefit is on the side of benefit. Allowing choice here is bad policy, as people will be hesitant even if outcome is always statistically better. (We do have a bias to focus on rare events, fear mongers exploit it.) There is no actual reason to be hesitant, the few exceptions being rather clear cut. The only thing that would be fine here is identifying allergies, vulnerable subgroups better and quantifying adverse effects more reliably.