Life is a dangerous condition full of dangerous possibilities. Just as well that we have developed sophisticated ways of dealing with the increasingly threatening environment.
From the humble aspirin to complicated surgery, one can be pretty sure that complications are lurking around
In particular, in the medical field there is hardly a drug or a procedure that is not potentially fraught with a varying level of danger. From the humble aspirin to complicated surgery, one can be pretty sure that complications are lurking around ready to spring on us when we least expect them.
No wonder that other modalities of treatment that purport to be complication-free, including the majority of so-called ‘natural’ therapy, have become more and more popular in recent years.
In most developed countries, billions of dollars are spent on over-the-counter medicines, including vitamins, hormones and minerals which are touted to improve one’s health and prevent the inevitable. Yet it is a mistake to believe that even these are complication-free.
But perhaps the most dangerous idea is that we should not expose ourselves, and especially not our newborn children, to anything which is not ‘natural’. This includes the fear that vaccination, in particular, can be followed by serious complications.
This is a philosophy which has infiltrated the western world where we can afford fads of this nature – until cataclysms in the form of epidemics actually strike the nation, as has happened recently in the UK.
Luckily for us, the vaccination rate in Malta is still pretty high, within the acceptable limit. Why is this so important, not merely to protect your child, but also to protect your nation?
While there are definite complications associated with vaccinations, these are usually trivial compared to the dramatic risk associated with a full-blown case of childhood disease, with serious complications, and where death is certainly not unknown.
This is the risk that over the past century has to a large extent been abolished. Flout this recommended practice at your own risk!
However, a severe infection of a child is not merely a disaster to the child and to the immediate family. It is also a risk to the community. An important concept in this context is encapsulated in the term ‘herd immunity’.
When the proportion of immunised people within the community is high, around 95 per cent, the chances of spread of infection from one person to another is very low. Herd immunity refers to this situation where the majority of people are thus protected.
In these days of easy and rapid transport it is quite possible to have a lethal bug originating in some remote corner in the world and be transmitted within hours worldwide. Whether an epidemic results or not depends to a large extent on whether the majority of the population have been protected through vaccination (namely, where there is adequate protection through herd immunity).
The issue, however, is this: why has this fear of complications become a hallmark of developed nations?
It is certainly not evident in Third World countries where the value of vaccination is very well appreciated, and where the risk of individual infection is so very high.
I believe that fear of complications is directly related to the ease with which we can acquaint ourselves with various medical conditions through the wonderful but dangerous device called ‘the internet’.
Imagine that you are deliberating whether you should immunise your child or not.
What is more reasonable than to ask the question: “Are there any complications associated with vaccination?”
Very reasonable, and arguably very misleading, because it is a loaded and lopsided question.
When you ask specifically for information about complications, you are going to get a list of complications.
You get what you ask for. And as I said above, there is no medicine or medical procedure without complications. Asking a ‘loaded’ question like that will not give you a balanced picture, comparing risks with benefits of any procedure.
What most anxious parents lack is the background necessary to evaluate the degree or chances of complications, and more importantly, the ability to balance the beneficial effects with the far less common serious complications.
Are the chances of having a mild flu-like illness, or even a chance in a million of a child developing autism after vaccination (assuming that that might happen, which has been abundantly disproved) as serious as one chance in 1,000 of have a dead child on your hands?
Unfortunately, it takes an epidemic like the recent one in the UK to hammer in the cliché that prevention is better than cure.
It is also difficult to appreciate the fact that there is no such thing as a ‘natural’ existence any more.
Advances in medicine have made sure that even the weakest in our community, those who would have been weeded out a long time ago through natural selection, are still alive and depend on medical advances – most ‘unnatural’ one might say – to live another day.