Vaccination does help. (1) But to what extent?

It seems that after vaccines started spreading, diseases started declining too. (2) But what a minute! See how the decline in diseases started even before the vaccines started? (the graph is small if you do not pay for the article, but again it shows) At the same time vaccines started spreading, public hygiene programs (including the introduction of sewage systems) were also initiated! (3) Better living conditions also started to be important. Fresh water too. What did really happen? Could it be that something is overestimated here? (4)

Vaccines are good, but we also know that being ill is not a “bad” thing on its own. People in Mediterranean are protected against malaria because of a gene “problem” which causes anemia. (5)

And why do we see statistics about the effectiveness of common vaccines all the time? There are new vaccines coming out every year. Wouldn’t be important to hear the effectiveness rates of these vaccines too?

Over-simplification is killing science. Over-simplification is killing medicine. We are complicated beings. It would really be nice to have ONE method protect against everything. But this is not true and will never be.

When we stop advertising the same and the same again, when Marketing is separated from Medicine, a new day will dawn…

Relative scientific papers:

• “The questionable contribution of medical measures to the decline of mortality in the United States in the twentieth century“. McKinlay JB, McKinlay SM, Milbank Mem Fund Q Health Soc. 1977 Summer; 55(3): 405-28. (6)
• “Symposium: Accomplishments in Child Nutrition during the 20th Century. Infant Mortality in the 20th Century, Dramatic but Uneven Progress” Myron E. Wegman School of Public Health, University of Michigan: J. Nutr. 131: 401S–408S, 2001. (7)