The Thinking ‘Kat: Vaccines

In the wake of Donald Trump appointing known vaccine sceptic Robert F Kennedy Jr as the health secretary of the USA, I believe now may be a good time to bring up how vaccines are proven and effective means of controlling disease. Despite a widespread narrative linking vaccines to conditions such as autism, no such link has ever been proven, and vaccines have rendered debilitating and deadly illnesses as largely a thing of the past. Despite their performance, there are pockets of people who doubt whether vaccination is a genuinely successful medical practice. With that in mind, let’s look at some situations.

Smallpox

There was a time when smallpox could be considered a death sentence. One in three people to catch it died, and those who survived were often with life-changing ailments. In 1796, Edward Jenner developed the first successful vaccine to this terrible disease, and in 1967 the World Health Organisation began a concerted campaign to eradicate it. In 1980, the last known natural case occurred in Somalia. Since then, there have been no known natural cases of smallpox, demonstrating that a robust vaccination campaign can be extremely effective in stopping dangerous and fatal illnesses.

Measles

Another dangerous disease, measles has been largely eradicated in the developed world, with occasional outbreaks fuelled by travellers returning to their home nations. Following a campaign of vaccination in the USA in the 1960s, cases of measles dropped by 97%.

Polio

Polio can cripple children, and even kill them. There are harrowing accounts of people needing iron lungs in order to survive, a horrible situation to be in. The polio vaccine has once again rendered a dangerous illness more or less a thing of the past.

Covid-19

It would be fair to say this is the most controversial illness on this list. The covid pandemic that swept across the world a few years ago was arguably the result of abandoning tried and tested means of restricting the spread of disease, and in some parts of the world, cuts to budgets. Donald Trump wanted to cut healthcare budgets during his first term, and his decisions left the USA unprepared for covid. As a result of this, and a slow response to the unfolding crisis, Trump’s government oversaw a disproportionately high death toll, and serious economic damage. The vaccines proved effective at curtailing the virus, and continue to do so.

Why object?

Most of the objections to vaccines come from a place of scientific ignorance. There are plenty of armchair activists who proclaim themselves smart and knowledgeable about vaccines, purely because they spent five minutes searching on Google. They genuinely believe their brief foray into vaccines and medical science means they are more qualified than people with years or even decades of study and experience behind them. Sensationalist ideas grab attention and sound punchy, but without substance behind them it’s all a lot of meaningless puff. Unfortunately, that meaningless puff is effective at manipulating others who aren’t scientifically knowledgeable, and so a conspiracy grows. Suddenly, the history of success vaccination programmes gets shoved to one side.

It would be fair to say that the US healthcare system is about to get a lot worse, now it is run by someone who favours sensationalist puff.

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