I used to support vaccinations, but am in the process of reconsidering that support.
I think of the many medical solutions/interferences over our history, such as bloodletting, thalidomide, other approved drugs whose side effects are worse than the condition for which they are prescribed, the dangers of anesthesia... and my faith in western medicine is quickly waning.
Do you ever wonder if 50 years from now we will look back on vaccinations the way we did bloodletting, and realize that we shouldn’t have been messing with our immune system, thinking we “knew” better than God’s design?
I believe in science, but it can be used for good or evil, as we can see happening today.
Smallpox was introduced into human populations about 3,500 years ago. In its last 100 years alone, it killed 500 million people. A 10 year long mass vaccination campaign wiped it off the face of the globe. The only known smallpox left on Earth is stored in laboratories for future study. No cases have been observed in humans since the 1970s. We don’t even vaccinate against smallpox anymore because it’s just gone. 3,500 years and then gone in the blink of an eye.
Polio entered the human population around 3,000 years ago. In that time, it killed a lot of children and paralyzed a lot more. As recently as 1996, polio was paralyzing over 75,000 children in Africa each year. By 2016, Africa was declared free of wild polio. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only places left on Earth where you can find wild polio because everywhere else vaccinated it out of existence. The last case of polio acquired in the US was in 1979. It’s gone. No more iron lungs. No more paralyzed and disfigured children.
Bubonic plague wiped out 1/3 of Europe’s population. Antibiotics would have stopped it in its tracks.
Cancer mortality rates rates overall have decreased by 20% since the 1950s. Some types of cancer have seen survival rates soar with new treatments. In the 1970s, a woman had about a 70% chance of surviving 5 years after a breast cancer diagnosis. That’s over 90% today.
If you want to cherry pick a handful of mistakes in the hundreds of years of medical science advancement, you can certainly find some things to complain about. But when you look at the totality of what modern medicine has done, the net-net is hundreds of millions of deaths and lifelong debilitating injuries prevented.
You want to talk about God’s design? God gave man brains bigger than dogs so that man would rule over nature. That includes viruses, bacteria, and other pathogens. We have brains to study, observe, and plan ahead. We have hands useful for wielding tools and improving tools. We have language and culture to help pass down knowledge so incremental improvements can happen over time. That’s God’s plan; not some hippie commune where all modern human achievements are cast aside until daddy’s money runs out and the game is over. If you want to see what life looks like without the benefits of modern medicine and science, move to rural Pakistan or Afghanistan. Sure, it’ll be miserable and your life expectancy drops in half, but at least there you can yield to nature and let Jesus take the wheel.