Maggie's Farm

Vaccines may well be the biggest most important medical discovery in history. In the last 60 years or so vaccines probably saved in excess of 2 billion lives. Before vaccines it was common for about half of children to die before age 18 most from diseases we no prevent with vaccines. It is thanks to vaccines and a generation or two of not having those diseases that we can easily disregard and ignore the benefit vaccines have been. Isn't ignorance great!


Probably the second greatest medical breakthrough is anti-biotics. Ironically anti-biotics save the lives of people that vaccines don't cover. Again perhaps a couple billion lives saved over the last 70 years or so by antibiotics. just another reason for tin foil hat wearing crazies to hate big pharma.


I might add that I am old enough to remember when Dr Salk created the polio vaccine. I got the oral dose in grade school the first year it came out. Polio terrified my mother, she had polio as a child. If you did not live before the vaccine you have no idea of the terror that was polio. It came from nowhere and devastated lives. I remember in the 50's as a small child visiting my uncle in the local hospital while he was in an iron lung machine. Scary to a small child but terrible for the adults who understood it.

I had all the childhood diseases that we now prevent with vaccines. I can even remember measle parties where you brought your own children to interact with a child that had measles. The idea was to manage it and get it done with early so it didn't interfere with school or other functions. I remember the scare/concern when my pregnant wife was inadvertently exposed to measles. It is easy if you don't remember these things to now focus on the one in a million cases where someone reacts to a vaccination. We are blessed AND ignorant today.

Actually the concept of vaccines is far more than 200 years old but it was mostly pie in the sky including the smallpox vaccine. It was merely speculation and what we now try to pass off as proof of vaccine 200 years ago is quite bloated with the desire to prove something or other and very little fact. No there was no vaccine for small pox and 99.999% of the people 200 years ago had no clue of a virus or how infections really took place. It is basically a mid 20th century discovery.

People died from measles parties, babies were born with deformities and health problems. THAT is why MDs "drifted" away from the witch doctor approach to medicine.

Drugs are not perfect just a 1000 times better than the next best thing.

You may be right. I did get my information from the fake news MSM. I grew up listening to the really old country music and if that's it's roots I agree with it. I do like a lot of the new country music but there is a lot that leaves me unimpressed. So maybe Reba is on my side after all.