A conversation on TED.com: Vaccines good or not? Confusing?

Tom Jacques
Rimouski
Canada

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Vaccines good or not? Confusing?

Many people say that vaccines are VERY good.
Many people say that vaccines are VERY bad.
Some say that it's dangerous other that isn't.
Many say: I don't know, I'm confuse (like me), or I don't have many informations about it must be great..

Then,
is vaccines propaganda, a real solution, the worstest thing ever, or anything elses?

I asked a question but I'm sure that it will be a great debate!

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Tom Jacques
- +1
Jun 2 2011: Thanks for comments.

Now I want to know what is a vaccines! The ''ingredients''. It is just an infine part of the virus or something else? I'm realizing that I don't really know about it. :P

Thanks, giving your time to educate me!
Etienne Baudoux
- +2
May 29 2011: it has to be said again and again: publications about establishing a link between vaccination and autism are frauds.Everything has to be done to reduce the burden of infectious diseases that are preventable by vaccination.
Besides, having your child immunised (and polio is a very good example) is an act of solidarity, something that is done by everyone to improve public health.
The rest is misinformation done by people who see conspiration everywhere. just ask one of them: what exactly do you know about polio, smallpox, measles, HIB?
- Tom Jacques
  - 0
  May 29 2011: Hi Etienne.
  
  did you say that vaccines have NO negative effects whatever the kind?
  
  Then I'll take my flu vaccines each years! (maybe you wrote about Polio vaccine)
  I don't think so, vaccins is in kind chemicals that you inject in your body, I don't think it have no negative effect...
  - Patrick King 30+
    
    +1
    May 29 2011: Vague disdain for "chemicals" will not cut it in a matter as important as this one.
    - Tom Jacques
      
      0
      
      May 29 2011: Then what it is?
Patrick King 30+
- +3
May 28 2011: You would be hard pressed to find a single respectable scientist who believes that vaccination is anything but the single most effective way of preventing death and disease that humans have ever come across. The people who stir up concern over vaccination are generally uninformed individuals who do not trust governments, and the needle is an obvious sinister symbol for them to attack. I should perhaps mention that on many sites condemning vaccination you will actually see a lot of researchers mentioned, however in all likelihood these individuals died before 1900 so they're not exactly up to date on the stats. The stats which demonstrate very clearly how miraculous vaccination has been. There are also stats on what happens when popular mistrust prompts parents not to vaccinate, when the herd-immunity drops enough, children die.
- Debra Smith 100+
  - 0
  May 29 2011: Patrick. Thank You!
- Tom Jacques
  - 0
  May 29 2011: Hello Patrick,
  
  You said:
  ''You would be hard pressed to find a single respectable scientist who believes that vaccination is anything but the single most effective way of preventing death and disease that humans have ever come across''.
  
  Then i'll take every existing vaccines?
  
  No bad effect? long life? no diseases?
Comment deleted
- Debra Smith 100+
  - 0
  May 27 2011: Respectfully S.R., The question was about vacines not about being confusing.
Maxime Touzel
- 0
May 27 2011: Some people are good and some people are bad, vaccines have helped saved lives in the past. But times change and people change.

Did you know that Dichloroacetate (DCA) cures most cancers, but none of the pharmaceutical corporation sees any profitable benefits from curing cancer, since they will lose a big proportion of their customers. Corporations have thirst for money, if making people sick is going to make them richer, it's not a problem for them as long as they don't get caught. They will make people sick so they can provide a solution, sell a product on daily basis.

But it's not the cases on vaccines, vaccines cure, you get one shot and you're suppose to be cured, it's not like a pill you have to pay every day so you don't get sicker. Anyway just remember people : Dichloroacetate (DCA) cures most cancers.
- Patrick King 30+
  - +2
  May 28 2011: DCA does not cure most cancers. Its first trials in the University of Alberta showed promise but subsequently it demonstrated negative side effects and even promoted tumor growth in some cases. Further research on the drug is underway and hopefully it will produce something. At present there is no way to use DCA as an effective cancer drug in any case, and people who have tried (and there are plenty) have not been miraculously cured. Pharmaceutical companies should be watched closely by all means but this story and many like it are just spun to satisfy individuals who want to condemn big pharma but are not prepared to do the research necessary to understand the details.
Kelwalin Dhanasarnsombut 30+
- 0
TED Translator Associate

May 27 2011: It's true that vaccines have been used for such a long time, but I'm afraid that our knowledge of how to make efficient vaccine is still not complete; Similarly, our knowledge on diseases and our immunity is very limited.

It may sound quixotic developing vaccine on the fact that we don't know so much about this. And since each disease is unique, vaccine design for each should be different. For me, I think we can't wait until we have all basis data on disease and immunity before start working on vaccine. Researching on vaccine, however, actually revile lots more background knowledge as well as making progress on fighting against diseases.

In my view, I don't think vaccine is a bad idea at all. By far, it's the most cost-effective tool we ever have to fight against diseases. True that it can't stand alone in helping eradication the disease. Yet it's very powerful tool; When it works well, it really does. And if we act fast, using vaccine in combination with drugs, control the vectors and encourage good hygiene, I believe we can control the disease and eventually totally wipe it off.

People debating that using vaccine cause the change in diseases' gene pool. And therefore, selected the more virulent strains. It could happen, however, this very same effect can be seen in case of using drugs. So, I think that combination of curing by drug and protection by vaccine would be a good system.
Debra Smith 100+
- 0
May 26 2011: The Internet is a fantastic source for information in most cases, This topic and the fear it caused is one of the saddest results of the Internet. The fear mongering against vacines is astounding. THE ORIGINAL RESEARCHER IN THE PAPER THAT MADE THAT LINK BETWEEN VACINES AND AUTISM HAS BEEN EXPOSED AS A FRAUD. IT IS CLEAR THAT HE FAKED HIS DATA.

But no one ever gets to see this because it does not make it up as high as the hysterical sites pertaining to vaccinations and autism on Google type searches. No one has to take their site down and say- OOPS sorry guys we were basing our fears on FAKED data but just dismiss everything that has been making our website so profitable for the last few years and keep clicking and sharing what is false!

All people have a natural tendency to associate two events which happen at the same time as causal. The only major event that happens in the lives of most babies are vacinations and the babies cry making parents feel conflicted and guilty. It provides ripe and fertile ground for eroneous conclusions that people make because they are desperate to answer 'why my child?' in a way that places blame somewhere- anywhere but on themselves. The people who capitalize on this are almost guilt of crimes against humanity. Every parent wants their child to be healthy. As more and more work is being done on Autism there are now checklists which can help diagnose it much younger.
Comment deleted
- Debra Smith 100+
  - 0
  May 26 2011: Nichola, I think that is exactly why this thing had such 'legs'. People thought to themselves, 'if the tobacco industry could do this and get away with it just by denying and denying it could be the same for vacines.'
  
  If we now know it was all false from the vey first and I think, (not certain) only paper it should be easy to change things but it is like trying to calm the theatre AFTER someone cries fire. - 'Oh, just jokin'' doesn't stop the stampede. This is especally cruel because people want to do what is really right for their kids. They might put a cigarette in their own mouth but they would do something drastic if someone tried to addict their kid. The very ideas alone that some corporate cover up would cause a child to have autism is a fear and a risk that people who read those articles wer not wiling to take. That is why I think this nears my definition of a crime against humanity.
  
  I have been at infection prevention meetings where experts were gathered who were so shocked and frustrated with this. In Canada a couple of years ago we had several outbreaks of mumps among the nonvacinated whose parents had decided to listen to the defective research. Mumps is an annoyance in childhood but it is much more serious in adult males. They formed very virulent clusters because they were mostly university aged and they spread it to their peers.
  Part of vacinating large groups is that people get variing degrees of resistance to the disease and having everyone vacinated protects the whole group. The disease caused a lot of missed school, agony and a wake up call to the scientists. People had thought those who opted out were only a risk to themselves but low and behold they put many more people at risk.
Joachim Schoder 50+
- +2
May 26 2011: Like I posted in the comment-section :D
Vaccines are far to complicated to use a black-and-white-brush.

Different vaccines have different "strength" and specific highly potent vaccines might even trigger the disease that it should prevent. (Please don't ask me for a list since it is really difficult to get actual scientific data on how save each vaccine is and the Internet is full of "anecdotal evidence".)

Also the location is very important. If you get bitten by an animal infected with rabies you have about 24 hours to get to a doctor who has the right medication. So while living in Germany I didn't see any necessity to get the vaccine. But when I went backbacking in India I took the shots since I wasn't sure if I could reach a doctor in time.

In the end it is always a risk-benefit-analysis but in most cases vaccines are the better choice. When it comes to Polio and Smallpox vaccines it is the only realistic chance I can see to wipe out the disease all together. So I have to say: Hurray Polio-vaccine!
Gabriel Hand
- +2
May 26 2011: My suggestion would be to first identify who has the most in-depth and factual knowledge on the subject, then seek their opinion. In this case, immunologists have more knowledge on this subject than anyone else, and therefore their opinions are more valid than most of the garbage floating around in various media.
In my personal opinion, the eradication of disease is a fairly good thing to do and the best way to do this is through vaccination. There are risks in terms of reaction to whatever substance is used in the vaccine to stimulate an immune response, but these risks are small in comparison to the overall benefit to the human species, especially as more diseases gain more and more antibiotic resistance.
So it depends. I suppose you could consider vaccination bad if you're incredibly selfish and worry more about an extremely small risk for yourself or your children than a massive risk to our species overall.
That is my opinion, and it is based on the opinions of those who have studied immunology extensively. It isn't more valid than their opinions; perhaps you should even ignore it. The important thing is not to formulate opinions based on the opinions of others who do not know as much about the subject as they claim.