Also, since no other vaccines are custom to each patient, using the term “vaccine” could cause confusion. Do we really want to give people the idea that they can be “vaccinated against melanoma” when the reality is that they can receive a treatment to prevent their specific melanoma, which they have to have already had, from recurring? It seems laden with confusion. Personally, I’ll just call it immunotherapy.
This is a common misconception, and that's whythe U.S. CDC is now emphasizing that vaccines can do more to help people.
The most important recent example is the world's widespread rollout of COVID vaccines. These are primarily aimed at better protection against severe illness, hospitalization, and death; these are not primarily aimed at preventing an individual from ever being infected by any COVID variant.
Name another example. The flu vaccine, maybe? But that’s because they don’t know which strains to target.
Both the CDC director at the time and Biden said the vaccine would prevent you from getting COVID.
It’s insane we’re changing the definition of words because the COVID vaccines were kinda crappy and that would be bad politically.
Not that the vaccine discussed here shouldn’t be called one - it absolutely is.
Don't get me wrong, it saved a lot of lives. Compared to every other vaccine we've all taken in our lives it's the absolute bottom of the barrel, and the fact that politically (and possibly for public health reasons) a good portion of politicians effectively lied about that made it so companies didn't feel like they should invest in making a better vaccine. I've had Covid twice and both times I was very sick - I'd love a better, more broad, vaccine.
I'd argue it's definitely not as effective as flu vaccines vs omicron. On a good year the flu vaccine can prevent 50% of flu cases in those that take it. Everyone I know has gotten Covid, vaccinated or not.
Omicron was considerably more virulent than flu - the risk of getting an infection is also a function of prevalence.
I'm not arguing that vaccines can't or shouldn't be much better. Just that they actually were considerably good if we take everything we should into account.
Sure, another example is the flu vaccine as you mention. The primary aim of the flu vaccine in the U.S. medical system is to protect high-risk people from life-threatening symptoms, even during infections from different strains.
Another example is the shingles vaccine. The primary aim is to prevent severe symptoms (such as neural damage and long term pain) during a reactivation of an existing chronic infection.
> It’s insane we’re changing the definition of words
The semantic meaning of the word vaccine hasn't changed. All that's changed is the U.S. CDC official definition text, to clarify that the primary aim of vaccines is to activate the body's immune system, rather than solely to prevent a new specific infection.
If you're curious about the language exactness, beyond the U.S. CDC, the U.S. FDA is also involved. For example, the U.S. FDA during COVID stated that a vaccine would need to be at least 50% effective for diminishing the severity of COVID-19 symptoms to obtain regulatory and marketing approval. In other words, the primary aim was to help people reduce damage; the primary aim was not to full-stop prevent infection.