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"The vaccine was never touted as being 100% effective." We have overloaded the very term "vaccine" in a fairly misleading manner. One one hand we have vaccines that are highly effective in the longterm and can virtually eradicate dangerous diseases. On the other hand we have flu & covid vaccines, which can help control the severity of the disease, but are incapable of preventing regular widespread outbreaks. Childhood vaccines are from the first category. Let's enumerate: polio, smallpox, tetanus, hepatitis b, hepatitis a, rubella, hib, measles, pertussis, pneumococcal strep, rotavirus, varicella, diphtheria, mumps. Some of these had no cases for decades, for others very rare localized outbreaks make the news. From the second category, flu and covid have regular outbreaks in highly vaccinated communities and there is no hope for herd immunity. Perhaps it's time to clear up the semantic overload and create a new term to delineate the important difference between the two classes of vaccines. For example, use "vaccines" for the first category and "immunity stimulants" for the second. https://www.healthgrades.com/right-care/vaccines/14-diseases... |