Читать книгу Top 10 Vaccine Objections - Alex Ramirez - Страница 9

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I NEVER GOT THEM AND I’M FINE

This is something I hear sometimes, and it often comes as part of a package which can include the relative in his 90s who smokes twenty a day and the health freak who got hit by a bus. For some reason, a bus seems to be the most dangerous vehicle out there. Maybe someone should look into that.

This kind of unvaccinated and generally lucky person seems to believe that because nothing bad has happened to him in the past, he doesn’t need to take precautions against the future. In fact, he’s so confident in his good fortune that he sometimes wonders whether vaccines serve any useful purpose at all, other than to offer some kind of empty reassurance.

Johnny Goodluck’s entire ethos seems to revolve around the idea that precautions make very little difference if your number’s up. There’s almost an element of stoic fatalism in this kind of outlook, but it’s usually pretty superficial when tested in the real world.

Years of making very little progress in situations like this has taught me that it’s far better to discuss vaccination in terms of things that we can all relate to, rather than trying to explain with hard data, facts and figures.

I’m not really surprised that the average, reasonably healthy 40-something sees very little reason to go rushing off to the doctor because he missed a few injections when he was a toddler. Those missed appointments were many decades ago and, assuming he lives in the developed world, it’s doubtful he’s had much if any contact with victims of poliomyelitis or whooping cough. He hasn’t been vaccinated, and as yet he hasn’t contracted any of the diseases that his non-existent injections are designed to protect him against. If I’m honest, there’s a good chance he could live out his entire life without ever catching measles or mumps, much less polio. The real reason he doesn’t encounter these diseases is because they’ve been virtually eradicated in the industrialised world. So why should he bother so late in the day?

Well, simply put, he should bother because vaccines are like seatbelts, and the fact that you’ve never had a car crash before doesn’t necessarily mean you won’t have one tomorrow. If you never wear a seatbelt, you might have concluded that it’s a useless car safety feature … so long as you never have a traffic accident.

However, it’s an inescapable truth that accidents can and do happen to the good, the bad and even to the lucky. You could be the most careful and considerate driver in the entire world, but that doesn’t mean the other guy at the junction isn’t drunk, half asleep or just not paying attention. You could be doing everything right all the time and still end up with your door dented in or, God forbid, something much more serious. The fact that it’s not your fault won’t make your car any less written off or you any less injured.

Now just imagine being that same careful driver who’s been on the road for 20 years without ever wearing a seatbelt! I guess you don’t need me to elaborate on what could happen if that other drunk or sleepy guy ploughs into you when you’re not safely tethered inside your car. It could literally mean the difference between being pretty badly shaken and being pronounced dead at the scene. Would it really be worth it? Besides, what do you actually gain by not wearing your seatbelt in the first place?

A vaccine can be thought of as a kind of seatbelt for your immune system. In the same way that seatbelts and airbags can’t prevent accidents from happening, they can significantly reduce your risk of serious injury in the event of a collision. In a similar way, vaccines can’t actually keep you from coming into contact with dangerous viruses and bacteria, but they do offer a measurable and demonstrable level of protection in the event of an infection.

Sometimes I’ll just casually mention that I assume Johnny Goodluck doesn’t have any sort of insurance either. I’ll admit that I’m playing the percentages here, because it’s a fairly safe bet that most people have at least some basic form of insurance, you know, just in case something happens. This is a useful method of exposing an unconscious double standard, as long as you do it in a kindly and good natured way.

After all, if somebody’s insured against accidental death or injury then it’s a de facto admission that the unknown and the unpredictable is always just around the corner, and it’s not always good. So then the question becomes, why bother to insure against unlikely events while taking a much bigger risk with your personal health?

Don’t forget that a vaccination does something that no insurance policy can ever do, and that’s to prevent a bad situation from escalating in the first place.

Any security expert will tell you that if you have limited resources, the best way to use them is to invest in preventive measures like locks and lights to protect your property, rather than buying an insurance policy designed to help cope with the aftermath of a break-in. As well as the seatbelt in a car, a vaccine can also be thought of as a good-quality door lock. It can’t stop the undesirables outside from rattling the handle, but they’ll soon pass on by and head for the house down the street with the open door.

Prevention is always better than cure, and vaccines are one of those rare and inexpensive measures that can actually prevent illness from developing, while medical treatment and health insurance can only help to deal with something once it’s already happened.

In the final analysis, this kind of conversation always revolves around possibly the five most dangerous and irresponsible words in the entire English language: ‘It won’t happen to me.’ But car crashes do happen sometimes, and if we accept the benefits of protection offered by seatbelts, airbags and insurance, then it makes a lot of sense to accept the similar benefits offered by vaccination, even if you’re doing just fine without them … for now.