Well put, @Chris_Falter. @jessica, good to see you again. As you may recall, we’ve had a good discussion over these subjects in rather good detail earlier. Let me know what specifically more you would like to discuss.
Health and mortality have improved tremendously in the last 2 centuries. Whereas in the “natural” age of the 1800s, half of all children under 5 died, and a writer from the 1600s noted that was indeed rare to die of old age, as Atul Gawande in “Being Mortal” wrote, we now have to contend with knowing how to grow old peacefully and comfortably. In the Roman Empire, the average lifespan was 28; it is now in the upper 70s and 80s in the West. I was born and grew up in West Africa. I vividly recall watching a 10 year old school girl die of meningitis there, who was well in the morning (she had not been vaccinated). One-third of all adults in Niger have Hepatitis B, an easily preventable disease that causes cirrhosis and death in a huge percentage of people by the age of 50 (my last patient was a 34 year old father who hemorrhaged into his abdomen from liver failure from Hep B. The family could only take him home to die). The vast majority of Americans (except those who refuse the shot) are protected against Hep B. In the link we attached, we talked about the dramatic decrease in mortality from various vaccines, as well as the unfortunate outcomes from the well meant opioid liberalization.
Medicine is a complex discipline. It’s said that the difference between primary doctors and specialists is that primary care doctors know less and less about more and more till they know nothing about everything; and specialists know more and more about less and less, till they know everything about nothing.
That about sums up how difficult it can be to discuss a huge field. However, like any complex science, people learn from mistakes. The scientific method is supposed to prevent suffering. . Opioids were part of a well meant effort by non-scientific method to provide relief to people who were really suffering. The studies did not support the method to help relief. In retrospect, there was tremendous suffering as a result.
You can still see people in their 70s and 80s who have permanent disability from polio (the ones who survived without lung paralysis, or used the Iron Lung to do so). Many in the Third World still suffer from worse outcomes.
Vaccines, on the other hand, follow rigorous regimens on the path to approval. They have saved literally millions of lives.
I agree that the Covid vaccines need close monitoring, especially as they are new and followed a rapid process. As a primary care physician, I will take a vaccine so as to prevent spreading it to others (I am a primary care physician who has contact with lots of vulnerable people). I admire @Boscopup and @DeborahHaarsma for participating in the trials.
Blessings.
Randy