When my mother was a child she caught diphtheria. She was able to survive. However, two of her siblings died from the same round of diphtheria. In 1938, measles, diphtheria and whooping cough were all in the top ten causes of childhood mortality.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of people with poor memories of history. They have called themselves “Anti-vaxxers.” Robert F Kennedy Jr is an example of one of those individuals with a poor memory.
The CDC has looked at the statistics and compared them. They reviewed the 20 year period between 1994 and 2023. They compared it to the pre-immunization period.
If the numbers had not been lowered by immunizations, the results would have been staggering. Children born during that period had 508 million less illnesses. They had 32 million less hospitalizations. There were 1,129,000 fewer deaths.
Many third world countries struggle to get enough vaccines. Children still die there of easily preventable diseases.
Schools require immunizations for admission. However, most of them will allow a doctors’ note to sidestep that requirement. Parents can often find a physician who will write them such a note. It has become more common. Between 2020 and 2022 the number of those exemptions rose almost five fold.
Immunizations are based on what is known as herd immunity. If the number of immunized individuals is high enough (usually about 95%), the virus cannot find enough individuals to infect so there are no epidemics.
School requirements have joined with the immunizations themselves to make childhood epidemics unusual.
One of the common causes of meningitis that I used to treat was something called H. flu. During my later years of practice, I rarely saw it. That was due to the immunization that came along during my time of practice.
Individuals such as Robert F Kennedy Jr still claim that immunizations cause autism. That relationship was originally suggested by Dr. Wakefield. He had developed a new vaccine. He made up statistics to show that the vaccine being used caused autism. The goal was to sell his vaccine instead.
When they found out that he was a fraud, the British Medical Society stripped him of his medical license. He left the country in disgrace. He came to the United States to peddle the same nonsense. Unfortunately, people believed his lies. Many of them still do. He still does not have a license to practice medicine because he is charlatan.
Sometimes people come up with conspiracy theories that only affect their individual mental health. Other times their theories can affect other people’s health. Those who are against vaccines want to take us back to the 1930s. I lost two uncles to diphtheria. That is more than enough for me.