(the oral history is obviously a bit sketchy, but she used to tell me her father also caught TB - cholera maybe ? - when he was removing bodies from the flooded Balham tube station in 1940 - https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/75th-anniversary-of-the...)
Well, I got quite the scolding about missing my jabs and a stern lecture about how many awful diseases have been cured because of vaccination. I could never forget how emotional she was about it.
To people born in the early 20th century, seeing the effects first hand of the vaccination programmes of the mid 20th century (not to mention antibiotics) must have seemed miraculous. I think we’ve lived without these diseases for so long that some people (stupid, selfish people) simply think they don’t exist or pose a threat any more.
This is true beyond just vaccines. All too often hardships are forgotten, history is just old pictures and stories, and people who are too far disconnected from those real events and don't learn from history will just walk the same path, leading to the same hardships.
They all think that the world is better today so they're smarter or better than the old generations, that the world evolved so they're intrinsically prepared, so the pains of the past can't harm them. Ironically they're ignoring all the lessons and the tools that made the world better and are needed to keep it like that, and instead think things are better because they just are.
They'll skip any vaccines or support extremist regimes because they think the modern world is just immune to this, it's intrinsically and permanently "fixed". We have freedoms or don't get sick because we "just" have freedoms and don't get sick.
Having close family spending a lifetime paralyzed by the polio virus before a vaccine was widely available, or spending some of my life in the cold embrace of dictatorship really drove the point home for me about learning the lessons of history.
It looks like it is no longer standard issue here.
If they then also understood that 90% - 95% of the population effectively has natural immunity, they would seriously question the ethics of vaccination.
Should a number of generations be allowed to profit from the benefits of vaccination at the cost of a loss of natural immunity in the group? Are future members of the group less entitled to this ~95% immunity, because the current generations prefer ( 100% minus epsilon ) artificial immunity?
Its easy to win a referendum in the advantage of the existing population at the cost of future populations, if those future populations aren't born yet to contest and vote against it.
From Wikipedia page on Tuberculosis:
> Roughly one-quarter of the world's population has been infected with M. tuberculosis,[6] with new infections occurring in about 1% of the population each year.[11] However, most infections with M. tuberculosis do not cause disease,[169] and 90–95% of infections remain asymptomatic.[87]
From the above it is clear that vaccination programs for TB should be strictly considered private healthcare since it can help specific individuals at the cost of collective fitness vis-a-vis TB. Governments collectivizing private medicine at the cost of group fitness ranks among the most populistic things in existence. Think of how communist systems justify their methods by emphasizing doctors and medical systems.
What exactly does the ethical axiomatization of a collective thought system look like when they look down on the ~95% natural immunity handed to them from the prior generations and simultaneously have no qualms to hand down a lower percentage of natural immunity to the next generations!
I believe they have this mistaken gut feeling that their decisions can be rationally axiomatized, more out of group think and delegation "others smarter than me are choosing this so it is probably rational"; and they are simply unaware of the fundamental inconsistencies they manifest.
Tax payer money ought not be spent on reducing the natural immunity of its taxated population, regardless of how confronting it may be to explain to the population how a lot of methods in medicine were started long before the consensus on natural selection as the origin of life and fitness took hold.
Your premise is flawed as this is a misinterpretation of what the data actually states. The statistic refers to the fact that most infections do not cause active disease. This is not the same as having "immunity." Rather, it indicates that the immune system in most individuals can contain the bacteria without eradicating it, resulting in a latent infection. Latent TB can become active under certain conditions, such as immunosuppression or aging.
Vaccination does not reduce natural immunity but aims to prevent the most severe manifestations of TB which can be fatal.
Your wider point re: the ethical argument against vaccination presumes that exposing populations to preventable diseases is acceptable to preserve a theoretical "natural immunity." However, ethics in public health prioritize the reduction of preventable harm. Sacrificing lives and health for a purist notion of "natural selection" disregards the suffering of individuals and the societal costs of disease.
If anything, the ethical failure lies in allowing preventable diseases to cause harm when safe, effective interventions exist. Future generations will inherit a world shaped by the decisions we make today. A world with widespread vaccination is one where fewer children die, fewer families suffer, and societies thrive.
The safety record of the BCG vaccine, in terms of permanent harm, is pretty good. But a normal side effect is "The usual expected reaction to BCG vaccination is redness and/or a small lump at the injection site, followed by a small ulcer (open sore) a few weeks later (usually less than 1 cm in diameter). The ulcer may last from a few weeks to months before healing to a small flat scar."[2] Mass vaccination will have parents screaming "my perfect baby has an open sore from the vaccine" on Instagram, with pictures.
The classic live-virus smallpox vaccine has similar side effects, by the way, plus a death rate of 1-2 per million.
Huge political problem. Remember all the screaming about the COVID vaccines, which are pure RNA, can't replicate, and have fewer side effects.
[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3349743/#s6
[2] https://www.rch.org.au/uploadedFiles/Main/Content/immunisati...
[https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious/tuberculosis/Pages/...]
Smallpox and TB vaccines both do though.
Perhaps you got a combo?
[https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/smallpox-vacc...]
As far as I can tell, German measles vaccine doesn’t cause a scar anymore than MMR (it’s a sub component).
That's so weird to me given that literally everyone where I'm from(Poland) has this on their left arm. Nothing to post on Instagram about. It's as universal as having a belly button - not having a vaccine scar on your arm would be the thing to post about if anything.
Although I do remember school being very strict about anyone whacking someone elses BCG arm.
This is misleading. Vaccines, including those for covid, generally include adjuvants to stimulate the immune system [1]. While I understand the point your making here, the covid vaccines were not syringes with pure RNA in them.
I got it when I was a toddler in the late 80s and I still remember the excruciating pain and have the scar to show for it.
I grew up in the third world. I have never met a Westerner with this scar unless they got it in the sixties.
Why is this?
There's an old Dutch fort in Ghana with a graveyard. Prior to modern medicine white people dropped like flies in Africa.