igenlode | Answer for question 4248.

[Error: unknown template qotd]Vaccinations against diseases like polio and smallpox are obviously beneficial; when it comes to common childhood diseases like mumps and whooping-cough that everyone of my generation had before we reached puberty, and that none of us within my acquaintance suffered any ill-effects from, my irrational and unscientific feeling is that if naturally-acquired immunity was good enough for us then it ought to be good enough for today's children.
But I know that these things can, on occasion, cause harm -- my own mother somehow failed to catch German measles as a child, and in consequence was terrified that she might get it while she was pregnant with me. (She had it as an adult rather badly later on.)
I just... I suppose I have a stupid gut feeling that it's not safe if no-one in the world has any resistance to disease save for an artificially-induced safeguard -- if we never have the experience of coping with being even mildly ill. (And if that's really what I'm worried about then I always have the common cold to celebrate -- thoroughly unpleasant and almost never lethal!)
I violently disliked the BCG vaccinations, which scarred children for life in order to prove that they had been immunised -- that still seems to me a terrible thing to do to a generation.

So intellectually I'm in favour of the vaccination, obviously. But when it comes to individual cases I'm more... wobbly :-(

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I don't know if vaccines can cause chronic diseases, but I doubt it. They do stave off deadly diseases, which is very beneficial. I saw Polio, Measles, Rubella, Mumps, Whooping-cough, Diphtheria and more recently Chicken Pox, wiped out in this country. I believe any risks are far outweighed by the benefits. Medicine has come a long way over my lifetime, and it is still making steady progress. I believe that vaccinations are very important! It's not so long ago that nobody could count on a child's surviving to the age of 5!