Universal vaccination could save 60million + lives per year!

[RockinSAHD]

Ok, that is an extraordinarily simplistic statement and I think you missed the point that the earlier posters were trying to make.As I said, extraordinarily simplistic.

Sorry Inertia, I do understand but it's not simple maths. If people aren't sick then more people can work the fields, more can go to school. If less babies die then mothers give birth to less. This is what people have seen work in real life, its never so simple.

Kelly: I don't know about nanotech vaccines, your massively OT BTW but I can think of incredibly cheap and simple ways to deceive people into being vaccinated that don't involve billions in high tech research. There are lots of things that could happen in this world but I don't wear a tin foil hat to prevent the government reading my mind or avoid drinking fouridated water in-case the government is using it to control my thoughts and I doubt you do either. Also you know my thoughts on unconsented vaccination BTW.

LS, we have seen this conversation before; I still maintain that healthy educated people have less children, thats the better way to sustainable population, not your survival of the fittest, disease culls the numbers. It's an awful, gross, negative idea.

[Bumperstump Cummerbund]

I hafta agree with everyone else, of everything that is needed in these countries, vaccination is pretty low on the list. Can you imagine what would happen for people in 3rd world countries who are affected by these 'controversial and unproven' side effects of vaccination?

In other news RSAHD, if you click on the BB logo in the top left hand corner, it'll take you to a page with all of the available forums we have here on BB. So many awesome topics for discussion, most of them having nothing to do with vaccination (surprisingly)

[Little Chicken]

I'm going to have to agree with rocking on this. We sit in our comfortable homes saying we know what the third world needs and so they die of disease, aw well, good for population control. Yes water is a priority and so is food, but everyone has the right to the knowledge, that we have, that their children will survive childhood free from the fear that a vaccine preventable disease will cause them to die or maim and cripple them to the point that they will have no way to make a living other then begging. Polio is still endemic in parts of the world, as is measles.

I have seen RSAHD contribute in other parts of the forum. I have also seen members that don't really contribute out of their belly buddy groups, doesn't make their opinion worth anything less.

[lozzy_mac]

I wonder what a teenager from a developing country would say if we asked them this question:

"In Australia, children are given medicine that can stop them getting some of the diseases that are killing your brothers and sisters and causing tremendous pain. Although a small number of people worry that there might be harmful side effects, most of the country gets this medicine. Do you think you have the right to get this medicine?"

Looking at it from a statistical level, maybe you can say it is a bad idea to save 60million people. But questions of human rights must be looked at from the perspective of the individual.

[Yeddi]

Ouch, Yeddi! I haven't seen anyone eating dirtcakes in third world countries personally

Haiti: Mud cakes become staple diet as cost of food soars beyond a family's reach | World news | The Guardian

What would you do?

Based on the idea that there wouldn't be any warlords or other similar factions coming in to destroy it all...

We do live in the 21st century. We have access to new and improving technology, it's time to invest in those instead of falling back into options that are archaic and don't serve the current circumstances (i.e. the manual digging of wells). Wells serve as a good stop gap measure to provide water while other infrastructure is built, but they shouldn't be the goal.

These are goals that would actually make a difference:
Third World water solutions sought
Desert Agriculture and Agroforestry | Mission 2014: Feeding the World
Growfish News Article - Israelis helping to perfect fish farming in the desert - Israel - Aug 27, 2002

That's just to start with. Even if vaccines were 100% effective on 100% of people given them (which we know they're not, even you can't say they work all of the time) that still only protects the immediate population. Infrastructure provides for the immediate as well as future populations - a much better way of spending.

[RockinSAHD]

We do live in the 21st century. We have access to new and improving technology, it's time to invest in those instead of falling back into options that are archaic and don't serve the current circumstances (i.e. the manual digging of wells). Wells serve as a good stop gap measure to provide water while other infrastructure is built, but they shouldn't be the goal.

That's just to start with. Even if vaccines were 100% effective on 100% of people given them (which we know they're not, even you can't say they work all of the time) that still only protects the immediate population. Infrastructure provides for the immediate as well as future populations - a much better way of spending.

Thanks for the links Yeddi, there are many ways to sterilise water and many have been tried (some have even worked) but most fall down. I hear Nepal has had a lot of luck using large scale UV sterilsation too, I used a handheld UV steriliser when I lived in Uganda and I didn't get sick but the unit was expensive, sensitive and power hungry. Filtration as mentioned in the article is slow, energy intensive and somewhat ineffective. There is no easy solution and not much money available unfortunately. Even agriculture projects are tricky as people are biased and stuck in their ideas.

Vaccines are comparatively cheap and effective but if you want to talk about a legacy for future generations; how about wiping out preventable disease? Thats the goal of universal vaccination. Despite vaccines not being 100% effective as your quick to point out, the goal of vaccination is to eradicate disease not make short term gains.

Just out of interest though, if I did have a few billion dollars hanging about then I'd probably invest in mosquito nets and mosquito eradication...


Thanks for the hot tip Keike! It may amaze you to find that I do actually post on other parts of the forum regularly!
It will amaze you even more to know that I'm not a vaccination nut IRL and actually rarely think about vaccination!

[Phteven]

I wonder what a teenager from a developing country would say if we asked them this question:
"In Australia, children are given medicine that can stop them getting some of the diseases that are killing your brothers and sisters and causing tremendous pain. Although a small number of people worry that there might be harmful side effects, most of the country gets this medicine. Do you think you have the right to get this medicine?"

I think that you've raised a really good point - why do we assume the right to say what is good for the developing world? Surely they should be able to make the same choices as us. Some of us choose to vaccinate other choose not to. It would be nice if that choice was global rather than restricted to us.

Just out of interest though, if I did have a few billion dollars hanging about then I'd probably invest in mosquito nets and mosquito eradication...

Mozzie nets yes. Eradication, no. Messing with the ecosystem always seems to have unintended consequences.

[brogeybear]

Hmmm....simple fact is that there are no profits to be made by providing clean water.

[Phteven]

^ Tell that to Cadbury Schweppes, CocaCola and Evian.

[Little Chicken]

And yarra water etc

[brogeybear]

In comparrison to the money to be made in vaccines.

[Yeddi]

"In Australia, children are given medicine that can stop them getting some of the diseases that are killing your brothers and sisters and causing tremendous pain. Although a small number of people worry that there might be harmful side effects, most of the country gets this medicine. Do you think you have the right to get this medicine?"

I would say that that saying this was unethical - you might believe that, but that doesn't it make it the truth. You are providing promises you can't keep (vaccine isn't 100% effective and some will still die of the diseases they're vaccinated against - and sometimes even catch it from the vaccine because they still use live virus vaccines in the third world, i.e polio), providing one side of a very complicated and emotive issue. The fact there is so much debate in the Western world is enough to show you it is not a forgone conclusion that vaccination does more good than harm - both sides of the debate are theories in the process of proving themselves, both have evidence and scientific support - just because one theory is more socially acceptable and considered the status quo of thought and practice doesn't make one truth and the other fiction - for years common practice and thought was that the sun revolved around the Earth and the Earth was flat.

And the thing is they aren't really given a choice. People in third world countries who have access to vaccination are given the emotional blackmail and not given the opportunity to make an informed choice because they get told that same line, or just outright blackmailed along the lines of "we wont give you medical treatment while pregnant unless you promise to vaccinate your baby". There was a case recently where people in the Philippines stopped taking the DTaP vaccination because there was a lot of unexplained deaths that co-incedently happened within 48 hours of taking the vaccine. So naturally, people stopped taking their kids and themselves to be vaccinated. The vaccination safety group investigated it - not by actually going there and doing tests, interviewing people or looking at doctors reports but by looking at an old clinical study on the vaccine done in a Western country and then declared that it couldn't be the vaccine (that's proper WHO vaccine safety investigation for you - makes me feel real confident in their processes - NOT). So consequently they went around door knocking with the local police no less, accosting people in their homes, made them feel like they couldn't say no and injected them. That to me is very, very wrong.

I know some of you (you particularly RSAHD) foofooed my statement that I wouldn't be sure that huge push to vaccinate, especially in third world countries, wasn't about population control - perhaps you should look at this: http://zombietime.com/john_holdren/

This man makes US policy (which would include vaccine safety trials), and where they lead we usually follow. Call me cynical!

[RockinSAHD]

Mozzie nets yes. Eradication, no. Messing with the ecosystem always seems to have unintended consequences.

Good point, but I heard about a great program that combined nets with education about cleaning up standing water puddles in villages that was having great success!

[Inertia]

Sorry Inertia, I do understand but it's not simple maths. If people aren't sick then more people can work the fields, more can go to school. If less babies die then mothers give birth to less. This is what people have seen work in real life, its never so simple.

You are still being incredibly simplistic about it. Just because they have been vaccinated, it will not ensure they are healthy enough to work fields. It is not even going to ensure they all have arable land to plant any fields. If vaccination was the key to solving world hunger, World Vision would have been concentrating on it years ago.

And food and water are not the only considerations.

Just because 60 million people die a year from vaccine-prventable diseases, it does not mean you can save them all with a vaccine.

I am not going to get into the emotive side of the debate. But I will say that I agree with Yeddi. Promising to save their lives with a jab in the arm is offering them false hope. The majority of these deaths from vaccine preventable diseases would be in third world countries, and they need more than vaccines to survive.