Vaccines

"Oh, one thing more," the elderly lady sitting across from me said.

Now, I must confess that I have learned to dread the "one more thing" questions that seem to come at the end of office visits.  The questions may be short, but so often they are anything but easy to answer.

"What's that?"  I asked.

"Could I get a tetanus shot today?"  Mildred asked.

I relaxed a little.  "Sure," I said, wondering a little.  There aren't many 89 year old women who are particularly concerned about keeping their tetanus shot up to date.

Mildred, it seemed, could read my mind.  "You are wondering why I am concerned about getting my tetanus shot.  Well, young man, I will tell you.  My aunt died of tetanus.  It was long before they had the vaccine and there was nothing to do but watch her die.  It was terrible way to die."

I have never seen a case of tetanus, never had a patient die from lock jaw.  I have only read about it in pathology textbooks and so, for me, it isn't real.  For Mildred, it was.

These days, there is a lot of fear of vaccines.  Anecdotes abound of the terrible things that vaccines have caused.  Some of these things are real, some just happenstance, but I am afraid that the biggest issue is that vaccines are too successful.  People are no longer afraid of the diseases that the vaccines are designed to prevent.

When the polio vaccines were first created by Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin, people did not question their safety.  Everyone knew a child who walked with a limp or, a teenager who had died in an iron lung from it.  Polio was far scarier than the vaccine that prevented it.

Even now, if you set up a clinic in West Africa and offered to vaccinate people with a completely untested vaccine against Ebola Virus, you would have a line a mile long at your door.  It isn't because people want a shot, it is because they are desperately afraid of a deadly illness without a cure.

The internet is an awfully effective magnifier of fear and anxiety.  Yet, I am afraid that all too often it creates fear in the wrong things.

The diseases of yesterday can and will return, without the effective vaccines of today.