ADusk and Dawn Obsolete?

Speaking openly, I think that this talk of "Vaccines are Hazardous to Health"
are neo-Luddite crap in its purest form.

My mother was born in the 30's, and she says that polio incidence was rampant,
and one could see a sizeable fraction of the population using wheelchairs and
braces in the legs. Mortality in childhood was extremely high - it was
considered common and acceptable for a family to have, say, five children and
lose two or three of them. My own mother almost died of measles - and she
lost two of her younger siblings who were not-so-lucky.

On the other hand, I have never heard of someone of my age who got measles and
my only memories of people crippled by polio are from my deep childhood, when
vaccination was not so intense in Brazil as it became in the 80's. Also,
mortality in childhood dropped to levels so low that I have never heard of
children dying in any family that I know.

Just a few more anecdotal evidences to add to the vast amount of statistical
ones...

Lucio Coelho

On Tuesday 03 December 2002 15:24, Al Globus wrote:
(...)
> Do you have references on this? I'm not sure about other diseases, but
> I have several friends who suffered from polio when young and limp
> today. I don't know anyone who has been vaccinated who suffers from
> polio, and I believe cases are essentially unheard of. Smallpox used to
> kill huge numbers of people in massive epidemics. Vaccination
> eliminated it from the natural world.
>
> It is true that if most of the population is vaccinated, then the
> unvaccinated are partially protected since epidemics can't get started,
> and vaccines do kill a small fraction of those who take them. However,
> two unvaccinated kids at my child's day care did get whooping cough a
> few years ago. Fortunately, neither died.
>
>------------------ The dinosaurs were destroyed by an asteroid because they
> weren't
> space-faring. It's almost as if Gaia then thought "Well, dinosaurs
> worked pretty well, but space-faring is necessary. Maybe I'll should
> try mammals this time." Humanity is now developing systems to detect and
> deflect asteroids, and could build orbital space colonies to spread
> beyond Earth to insure life would survive a planetary catastrophe.
>
> Al Globus
> CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
> http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html
(...)