Immunization Key To Fighting Disease

Smallpox. Polio. Measles. Rubella. These words struck fear in past generations. Contracting one of these diseases could mean death, disability or disfigurement.

But thanks to the miracle of vaccination the words don’t seem so powerful anymore.

Smallpox has been eradicated. Polio is on the verge of extinction.

The ravages of a host of other diseases are held in check by immunization.

In fact, we’ve done such a good job of fighting off these perils, that some of us have become complacent. The diseases that we routinely immunize against seem as distant as “Leave it to Beaver” and sputnik.

Do we really need to vaccinate anymore?

Don’t be fooled. It’s still important. If immunization rates dip too low, many of the horrible diseases we’ve forgotten will be back.

In the 1970s the United Kingdom suspended immunization for pertussis because of health fears about an early version of the vaccine. As immunization rates fell, cases of pertussis skyrocketed, to more than 100,000 cases in an epidemic in the mid-1970s.

In 1997, an outbreak of pertussis in North Idaho was blamed partially on the state’s dismal 68 percent immunization rate at the time.

Vaccines were developed because the human toll for a variety of diseases was too terrible to ignore.

Polio was an awful crippler that cut across age and station in life from schoolchildren to the president of the United States. In the years before vaccination, 13,000-20,000 cases were reported each year in the United States. In 1996, only 3,500 cases were reported worldwide, a testament to aggressive immunization. As recently as the mid-1960s before rubella immunization was widely used in this country, 20,000 children who were born to mothers infected with the disease developed congenital rubella syndrome. It killed 2,100 of the infants. Another 11,600 were deaf, 3,580 were blind and 1,800 were mentally retarded. With vaccination, the incidence of rubella has plummeted in this country.

But many developing countries don’t vaccinate against rubella. In a free society where people of many countries enter the United States daily, exposure is still very real.

Fighting disease with vaccination is like sandbagging against a flood. It’s a community effort. If the great majority pitch in, they can build a strong wall against the rising water. But if too many decline to help out, raging water will soon push through the weak barrier and flood the entire community.

The slight inconvenience and mild discomfort of routine vaccinations are greatly outweighed by the benefits both to the person inoculated and to society.