> The populations of the industrialized nations have forgotten (or never known at all) what all these diseases used to do, and imagine things like measles, pert

> The populations of the industrialized nations have forgotten (or never known at all) what all these diseases used to do, and imagine things like measles, pertussis, and rubella to be breezy little fevers that used to make kids miss a day or two of school before they were all good as new. By being old enough and being born in a developing country I was able to witness some of those diseases. Pertussis and measles were still around when I was a kid. Polio was the worst. There were plenty of survivors so, if we use the modern discourse that focus on deaths, Polio was fine. Except it was not fine. People with limbs so atrophied that they were skin and bone. Not even quadriplegics look so emaciated; I don't know what the mechanism is. Those were the lucky ones. I was vaccinated, thankfully. I was also vaccinated for smallpox and I have the scar. Can you imagine a modern vaccine that leaves a scar? People would go apeshit. Except that everyone had it, it would be odd if you didn't, so no one gave it a second thought. The polio vaccine could even, in rare cases, cause polio. And yet people were lining up to get it early in the morning as soon as the government-run clinics opened. Why? Because they witnessed first hand how bad it was. I can't even think of any medications that are more scrutinized than vaccines. If we applied the same rules everywhere else, we would have no medications available for headaches. NSAIDs are awfully dangerous compared to vaccines, and yet they are available over the counter. People seem to think their risk is worth it to get rid of pain. I don't know why vaccines are viewed differently. > The HPV vaccination campaign was the subject of a dramatic recent report from Scotland, showing that not one single case of cervical cancer has been diagnosed so far in women who got the shots at a young enough age Holy crap. Side note: it's been approved for people up to 45 years of age. I'm going to look into that while I still can. The article also did not touch on the new research on mRNA vaccines for other conditions, including some forms of cancer. We now have a very precise instrument we can use to create all sorts of therapies. The idea of using chicken eggs looks kinda barbaric in comparison.