How Far We’ve Come, Some of Us Anyway
October 14th, 2009 10:05 pm by Shane
The following video has been going around the skeptic blogosphere the last few days:
It's amazing to me that someone who could be so rational about religion and the (non-)existence of God, could be such a twit about the rock solid science of vaccines. Vaccines are the single greatest achievement of human medicine. Nothing has changed and improved the lives of so many. I'm not a gifted enough writer to explain with words of how amazing vaccines have been, so here is a little handy chart, based data from the US.
| Disease | Deaths Before Vax | Deaths in 2007 | Lives saved by Alternative Medicine |
|---|---|---|---|
| Smallpox | 48,164 | 0 | 0 |
| Measles | 503,282 | 43 | 0 |
| Mumps | 152,209 | 800 | 0 |
| Pertussis | 147,271 | 10,454 | 0 |
Note the column "Lives saved by Alternative Medicine", each row tallying up a big fat zero. Of course, I did a small little trick here. There is no such thing as "Alternative Medicine." If something works better than a placebo in double blind tests over and over again, it's just medicine. Otherwise, it's just untested, unproven folk tales. This is what Bill Maher's view on vaccinations did to kids one hundred years ago:
Horrible thing to happen to a child, and it will happen a lot more children if vaccination rates plummet. This next picture might be shocking to some. It's a picture of a child, who has been stricken with a disease that effects the mind, and so far is incurable. Symptoms include narcissism, asininity, and ignorance.
I don't want to add too much more to this post. I think the numbers speak for themselves. Vaccinate your kids, vaccinate yourself, and if you're in a risk group, get the flu vaccines. Don't waste money on homeopathy, acupuncture, chiropractics, or anything claiming to be "natural" or "eastern" medicine. And remember the face of the child in this post. That's how far we've come.
