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Vaccines are not even the sine qua non of modern medicine- no doubt they’re much cheaper than things like modern sewage systems and mass availability of antibiotics, but life expectancy started skyrocketing with improvements in sanitation and treatments for infection with vaccines more an acceleration of trend than a cause of it.
Smallpox vaccine was great because it put a stop to outbreaks of mass death. Measles and diphtheria vaccines were great because it ended a whole lot of infant and child mortality. Mumps vaccine is pretty good because it nearly wiped out a less deadly but still nasty childhood illness, similar with pertussis. Rubella also, and rubella is really bad for fetal development. Tetanus immunization is probably less important in the first world, but it is a bulwark against less-than-perfect sanitation.
Chicken pox vaccine is a step down from mumps vaccine; chicken pox is rarely fatal, though it is common and nasty. But when you're immunizing children against hepatitis B in the first world, then unless that vaccine is perfectly safe, you're probably past the point of diminishing returns.
Why is Tetanus less relevant in the first world? Are we less likely to get dirty cuts?
Most people in the first world don't roll infants around in the dirt, certainly. Also, there's something called neonatal tetanus which is probably caused by contamination of the blade used to cut the umbilical cord -- but not only is that something that should be very rare in the first world, the vaccine has to be given to the mother, not the infant.
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I refused hep b for my kids. It’s clearly a scam and exhibit 1 in terms of the fda hhs and pharma collusion. It was an expensive to develop vaccine for gay men and it drug users. They couldn’t get enough customers to cover the cost of the drug so they got it on the newborn schedule. They give it to a baby in the first 24 hours.
Even if it were a miracle vaccine, it is absurd to give it to a baby in the first 24 hours of life. It’s obvious that the reason they do this is because it’s a garunteed touch point for doctors to administer it. Prioritizing vaccine sales over all other considerations.
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And this is what is frustrating about modern vaccine discussions. Take for example the covid vaxx. It basically was useless unless you were old. But modern vaccines use the goodwill earned from the old vaccines to short circuit discussions on whether the new vaccines are worthwhile.
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