People downplay the role of sanitation. Cholera would be extremely limited in its spread today thanks to wastewater treatment. Food handling makes a lot of 19th century illnesses hardly heard of. Thekey here is proven vaccines. Some are not so much in that category.
My real problem was with the tone of the article. It doesn’t invite reasoned debate any more than if the writer had titled it “Your mamma is a whore and you are too”.
As to your point I agree. We way underestimate the effects of things like modern sanitation, antibiotics, refrigeration etc. We don’t have 8 people living in a 10x10 cabin with farm animals wandering in and out. Its pretty rare for someone to die from a scratch or stepping on a nail these days.
If an AIDS vaccine is developed are we going to vaccinate nuns against it?