Letter: Vaccines prevent far more problems than they create
Although I am a strong proponent of vaccine administration, I agree with vaccine opponents on two points. Vaccines (rarely) cause serious side effects; and motivated readers should make up their own minds about whether the benefits are worth the risks.
I urge readers to base their decision on rigorous science rather than newspaper ads. Anyone with internet access can do this. On Thanksgiving, an article in the New England Journal of Medicine, the most prestigious medical journal in the world, used big data to conclude that vaccination programs for children in the United States have prevented more than 100 million cases of serious contagious disease and 3 million to 4 million deaths since 1924. The data also demonstrate a clear resurgence of serious childhood diseases such as whooping cough when immunization rates drop. Although access to the Journal requires a subscription, the Nov. 29 issue of the New York Times offers an excellent summary of the article as well as a fascinating video at tinyurl.com/lqvcv2p.
In deciding whether these remarkable benefits are worth the risks, one might review an article in the Atlantic magazine that uses FDA data to estimate the rate of serious vaccine side effects at six per million doses administered. This article is available at tinyurl.com/7gpdyac.
Combining the data from these two articles suggests that vaccines prevent more than 2,000 serious diseases for every serious side effect they might cause. Concerned readers might ask: Given these odds, what is the best choice for my children and for myself?
Dr. JOEL C. BERMAN
(The writer is immediate past chief medical information officer at Concord Hospital.)