> Electron infinito.it> writes: Changed topic to [OT] Vaccines. =20 This discussion has nothing to do with Steve Jobs. Personally, I do not li= ke Apple products, but respect the guy who built that company. >=20 >=20 > PS: sorry my English is not good. Anyway: >=20 > >Smallpox was already disappearing when they introduced the vaccine. > >They only show you the graph of the "after the vaccine was introduced", > >but they don't show you that the trend was already (and even more > >sharply so!) falling before they introduced that vaccine. >=20 > oh, and the reason why this happened is because the sanitation improved > a lot in the last century. Sure sanitation has improved. But the graph has a decreasing trend mostly = due to vaccination. Upon careful examination of the graph I see that 1966-1968= is the start of WHO intensified vaccination program. It is not a star= t of the vaccination, just intensification! In fact, the vaccination program fo= r smallpox started in 1840. As more countries improved vaccination coverage, there was a trend to decrease. The declining trend was one of the reason f= or WHO to intensify the smallpox vaccination in the first place (if I remember correctly). =20 Sanitation helps to prevent some diseases, but not all. For example, curre= ntly there are few places in the world where new cases of polio appear. One of = these places in in the Netheerlands. One can hardly argue that it is due to bad sanitary conditions. But it is due to existence of a group of people who r= efuse vaccinations. And, coincidentally, this group and people in direct contact= , are the only one who have polio!=20 >=20 > Look at this, so much for smallpox vaccine wonders: > http://www.whale.to/v/obosawin1_files/table8.gif >=20 > And we're talking about one of the most effective vaccines!! Things are > much worse for others, as I said. Sure, the smallpox vaccine was one of the most effective. But significant reason for it's effectiveness is the lack on natural reservoir of the virus= ..=20 Influenza, for example, has a natural reservoir in birds, and reappears eve= ry year with a new strain. This and the fact that flu mutates so much is the reason it is hard to eliminate. The smallpox vaccine was so effective that= it would not be approved today,- it had too many side effects. IIRC, the rate= was 1 serious side effect (not death, but disease) per 1,000,000 vaccinations. = As somebody said on this thread, it will take another epidemic, or pandemic, t= o make people reassess the risks and start vaccinations again. We are fortun= ate that few people remember smallpox or polio. But many people still remember measles and it's effect on pregnant women. Or flu, for example, there a ov= er 36,000 death due to flu in US alone! Majority of these are preventable, bu= t most people think "it's just a flu", I do not need to get vaccination. =20 BTW, the "harm" of vaccines and a link of thimerosal to autism (this is mos= t commonly mentioned problem with vaccines) is based on a single paper publis= hed in late 1990 by a physician who was proven to have fabricated the data, and= was prohibited from practicing medicine! Overall, yes, there are side effects, and sometimes these show only after millions of people were vaccinated (like in the case of rotavirus vaccine).= But overall benefit to the population is humongous compared to side effects.=20 Unfortunately I do not know how to tell this to parents whose child has bee= n harmed by a vaccine. In reality, their child might have died if majority o= f population was not vaccinated.=20 >=20 > But if this is the premise, I think it's enough. >=20 Unfortunately, this kind of arguments rarely result in both sides accepting= a single point of view. Nevertheless, I felt that I can contribute to the argument, having spent about 20 years developing vaccines. Hopefully I wil= l see the day one of my vaccines is actually available and is helping protect som= ebody from unnecessary harm.=20 Best regards,=20 Sergey Dryga http://beaglerobotics.com <- this is my hobby, not profession. =20 --=20 http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .