John Berry wrote:
> I didn't read the second post from you when I wrote that, however you did > say: "Every vaccine kills or disables some number of people, but the number > is far lower than the number who would die without the vaccine." > > Since you have now said that that is not always the case I guess we can > just forget that. You seem to be implying that in some cases vaccines do more harm than good. That's not what I meant. There are spectacular failures in the sense that some vaccines kill or disable more people than expected, and are withdrawn. That's what happened with the 1976 swine flu vaccine. However, as far as I know, there is no case in recorded history in which the vaccine actually killed more people than it saved. Other widely-used medical interventions in recent history have actually killed more people than they helped. A good example is hormone replaced for post-menopausal women. This was thought to be marginally beneficial but it turned out be actually harmful. There is a huge debate about measuring the effectiveness of medical treatments as part of the health care reforms. Many treatments are marginal or questionable (possibly bad). However, public health measures such as vaccination have much more clear-cut positive effects. - Jed
