AIBU to worry about our increasing reliance on vaccines?

[Jolonglegs]

The number of viruses seem to be increasing - ebola, zika, covid-19 etc - and I'm becoming increasingly concerned that we 're becoming ever more reliant on vaccines's. I'm not a scientist, so not really sure what a vaccine is or what it is made of, but I like to keep my body is as natural a state as possible, so don't like putting ever more stuff into it.

I think we need to be reflecting on human behaviour that encroaches more and more on the animal environment, and what we can do to reduce it. Population growth, Insecticides, deforestation, meat eating should all be reduced.

So basically you think viruses are a good thing to cull the human herd and increase the animal population?

Hope you don't take any paracetamol, don't use moisturiser, didn't have any medical interventions throughout your life given that none of those are natural.

I wasn't aware we had to choose between vaccines and the environment. How odd.

YABU. Keep your body as pure as you want. I'll just be happy my kids likely wont die or be left disabled due to smallpox or hep b or measles or rubella or whooping cough or polio or hib or mumps or pneumococcal disease...

You’re so concerned that you can’t even do basic research to discover what a vaccine is?

@RonObvious

You’re so concerned that you can’t even do basic research to discover what a vaccine is?

This.

I agree with your second paragraph, but it bears no relation to the first one. If we didn't have vaccines we'd all be dying of small pox etc. and the average life span would probably be about 40 years. If we can vaccinate against diseases why wouldn't we?

We'd have a hell of a lot more viruses knocking about if it wasn't for mass vaccination programmes!

Yeah, I'm sure you'd meet the 'natural' ebola like an utter stoic, bleeding from the eyeballs without so much as a couple of toxic paracetamol to see you off.

Have a wander around a very old graveyard and look at the ages of people when they died.
And then wonder whether modern drugs, vaccines and other inventions are good or not.

Two things mixed up together. I'd agree with you about needing to reflect on how we're taking over more and more of the planet, and in the process wrecking it. We think of ourselves as so superior and we're the worst species for out-breeding our resources.

But vaccines? Love 'em. Did anyone pick up earlier this year that polio has been eradicated in Africa?? Here, found it www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-53887947
So something brilliant did happen this year!

@RonObvious - well said

The first vaccines were developed from ‘natural materials’ - cow pox pus was used to prevent small pox in humans.

Also natural doesn’t equal safe, wouldn’t suggest eating any deadly nightshade for example and that’s completely natural.

Hm, pretty sure cavemen were as natural as they come with no vaccines and wasn't their life expectancy 27?

@Jolonglegs

“ that we 're becoming ever more reliant on vaccines's. I'm not a scientist, ”

Yeah, they tend to have higher literacy levels.

Ohhh god, the homeopathic environmentalist vegan my body is a preacher take on vaccines. Yyyyyyeeeeep that’s just what the world needs now!

Virus’s and bacterial diseases wipe out whole populations, go ask the Incas, always have done, not just of humans, they’ve spread through plant and animal populations and decimated them if not driven them in to extinction. You might actually argue that the research on finding away of preventing and curing viruses is an effort to protect the natural world.

It’s an odd cross to hang on, while many will agree with your impact but as most vaccines are produced in a “vegan” friendly way, perhaps it would have been a good idea to look that up before preaching. Also considering your not a scientist may be it would have been worth looking up the impact of viruses before writing this post!

The natural state I like my body to be in is alive, so I'm all for vaccines. I also really like having other people for company and support mass vaccination.

I don't believe letting people die or become injured from preventable diseases is the way to protect animal habitats from human encroachment.

The advantage of vaccines is that what often happens naturally when you are exposed to something (meningitis, ebola, etc) is that you die of it. The vaccine prevents that. We are indeed reliant on vaccines if we don't want to have absolutely enormous, and preventable, mortality rates. It's a good thing we have vaccines to rely on.

For pity's sake. Did you not study history at school?

Ok, well, the natural state of affairs would be for viruses to rip through a population and kill or disable lots of people.

Death is natural, so presumably you're cool with that outcome.

Vaccines are arguably much closer to nature than drugs which need to be taken on an ongoing basis.

They enter the body and present the immune system with a part of the virus which it can recognise as foreign, without the harmful payload. The immune system mounts a response in the same way as it would do if you were exposed to the actual virus, but without the risk of serious illness or death. The vaccine itself is cleared from the body within days, but the immune system "remembers" how to fight the virus in exactly the same way as it does for every infection you have ever caught.

Well obviously you can choose that you’d rather just take your chances and die of covid, smallpox, etc. Or have your children’s health, sight, hearing etc permanently damaged by preventable childhood diseases.
At least you won’t have put anything unnatural into your (possibly dead) body.

Smallpox was a killer. It has been eradicated because we had a vaccine, and in the end it died out because there were no unvaccinated human hosts. Without the vaccine, people would still be dying from it.

There needs to ba a vaccine for stupid.

Your ignorance is embarrassing. It’s an overused phrase on MN, but you really need to educate yourself.

@Berthatydfil - spot on .

Maybe don’t take any medicines and don’t have any vaccines then?