🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <45kbat$17d9@bigblue.oit.unc.edu> "a. phillips" <a.phillips5@genie.geis.com> writes:
>From: "a. phillips" <a.phillips5@genie.geis.com>
>Subject: Vaccinations: Did You Know...?
>Date: 13 Oct 1995 00:19:41 GMT

>Did you know...

.....SNIP.....

>..and that the majority of the adverse events are attributed to the 
>pertussis vaccine, yet when compared to the Centers for Disease Control's 
>report of only 11 deaths per year from pertussis (1992-94, which includes 
>the fall 1993 outbreaks), that the vaccine is therefore somewhere between 
>10 and 100 times more deadly than the disease?

.....SNIP.....

While I am sure that A Phillips means well, it seems necessary to dispell a 
few elementary myths contained in his posting.

If 99% of a population receives a pariticular vaccine, and 1% of that 
population dies as a direct result of the vaccine, and 50% of the unvaccinated 
1% dies of the disease, more people will die of the vaccine than of the 
disease. Does that make the disease less dangerous than the vaccine?

I would prefer a 1% risk of dying to a 50% risk any day!

Rodney D Gilbert