People have always been susceptible to illness, along with every living organism on this planet (or don't animals get sick?). Are you implying that there was a time in which people were completely immune to illness?
"Four to five million annual deaths could be prevented by 2015 through sustained and appropriate immunization efforts, backed by financial support. Vaccination is one of the most successful and cost-effective public health interventions. Well over 2 million deaths are currently averted through immunization each year."
Okay, so to try and respond to both of these . . . First, yes, if you expose a population to a disease they have never been exposed to before, the population will be highly susceptible to that disease (having never had the opportunity to develop a natural immunity to it). This is much of what's caused epidemics in third-world countries and isolated population groups. Outsiders (traditionally, Europeans) arrive, carrying diseases the native population has never been exposed to before and - voila - instant epidemic in the native population. Vaccinate and, yes, that disease will no longer be a problem for many (not all, mind you, but many) members of the population. So, yes, vaccination is, at least moderately, "effective."
But at what cost? Vaccination works by triggering an absolutely unnatural response in the subject's immune system. So, yes, you get immunity to disease "x" - but what long term adverse impact is there on the immune system? The immune system is a remarkable thing - designed to recognize and fight off diseases that it has learned, through only the slightest exposure, are dangerous. Trying to manipulate the immune system to do what you want it to do (by injecting it with large amounts of toxin to produce an artificial immune response) impairs the system's ability to function the way it's supposed to. The result: impaired ability to fight off new diseases. The solution: more vaccination. The result: greater impairment. Long term outcome for the subject: chronic disease.
Illness is, contrary to the opinions above,
not natural! If it were, we would no longer exist as a species. The reason we survive is because we have developed an immune system which allows us to resist those diseases which typically affect our population group. Those members of the community that don't develop that immunity die off. The ones that have healthy functioning immune systems survive. Yes, bacteria have been around for a long time, but so have we. The only rational explanation is that we have learned to fight off the bacteria.
Tamper with the body's immune system by, for example, introducing artificial immunizations, and you are tampering with a system that has worked very effectively for a very long time. The result is the development of new types of disease that we - as a species - have not had to deal with before.
If you could find a population that had not yet been exposed to outside influences (new diseases, processed foods), and you introduced vaccination and highly processed foods into that population, you would see a dramatic shift in the health of that population . . . and not for the better! We do things to ourselves on a daily basis that interfere with our bodies' ability to fight disease . . . and it makes us sick. And leads people such as the posters above to assume that sickness is a natural state of being.
Interestingly enough (and, yes, I digress), we also assume that an unhealthy jaw structure - with teeth crowded together due to lack of space - is a genetic defect. And, yet, that "genetic" defect can either appear or disappear from one generation to the next in conjunction with a change in diet. The impact of diet on offspring's health is so profound that change can be observed from one
sibling to the next where there has been a significant change in the parents' diet.
So, yes, get vaccinated, take your cold pills, eat what's available at Safeway or Stop & Shop or Krogers . . . and get used to disease being a way of life.
Or, if you ever get the opportunity, talk to someone who was raised in a more isolated community in a different part of the world and learn something about the really remarkable things that other peoples have traditionally done to maintain their health. Just keep in mind that the way we view the world isn't the only way . . . .
Also, just because different cultures have alternative views/techniques to medicine, it's still medicine and it's still used to prevent illness. Or does no one die from illness in those other cultures?
