Vaccines - Safe or Dangerous?

Every day, you find news articles that say contrasting facts about vaccines. Some ask you to get vaccinated, while others claim vaccines are dangerous. The question has always existed since the invention of vaccines but has now become a worldwide topic due to the ongoing Covid-19 crisis.

Before I dump the answer on your head, you must know a little about your Immune System and Vaccine that are not written anywhere.

How Your Immune System Works

Your Immune System is super complex, consisting of billions of different cells. It would take years of serious studies to learn it in detail. Unfortunately, it would take me years to write everything in detail. So long story short, I am going to omit the useless parts.

When a microbe attacks your body, your Immune System responds with its greatest weapon, antibodies. Antibodies are just like missiles that target the invader to destroy them.

Simultaneously as your antibodies attack the intruders, your Immune System remembers which antibody is being used to fight. This enables it to respond more swiftly and effectively the next time the same microbes attack you again.

How Vaccines Work

When you get vaccinated, you are injected with a dead or a very weak strain of a particular disease. This tricks your body into thinking that dangerous microbes have entered you. As a result, your Immune System fights back and remembers the antibodies being used.

It is due to the ability of your Immune System to remember the microbes, vaccines can be made.

Some vaccines like those against measles, chickenpox, tetanus protect us for our entire life. On the other hand, some diseases like the flu mutate so often that you need to take a new vaccine every year. In essence, as long as the antibodies your body remembers are effective against the disease, you are safe.

However, there is a catch. Vaccines have side effects. Most of them are minor, but there are a few major ones. However, none of us are willing to get these side effects, some of us more than the others. This is the cradle of anti-vaxxers.

Hypothetical Experiment

Let us take measles as an example.

In Europe, before the year 1963 when the vaccine for measles was not yet invented, an estimated 135,000,000 people contracted it every year. In 2018, only 83,000 cases were reported for the entire year since almost everyone was vaccinated against it.

Nonetheless, this is not a fair comparison. Technology is not the same as it was in 1963. We have robust, state-of-the-art healthcare with new technologies. A far more equitable way to find out if vaccines are safe or dangerous is to do a hypothetical experiment.

Imagine that in a parallel universe, 1 million unvaccinated children are given measles.

• 98% of them, aka 980,000 children would get a high fever and an unpleasant rash.
• Up to 8% or 80,000 would suffer from severe diarrhea.
• 70,000 or 7% of them would suffer from a hearing problem, which might lead to deafness.
• 6% of the children, or about 60,000 would get pneumonia.
• 0.1% or around 1,000 would get encephalitis.
• 2,500 kids (0.25%) would contract SSPE. (Subacute Sclerosing Panencephalitis)

All in all, around 250,000 (25% of the participants) children would suffer from somewhat serious effects of measles. Out of them, about 2,000 would die.

But it does not end here. For many kids, their Immune System would be so weak, they might not survive another battle against severe disease.

Now, let us try the same experiment on 1 million vaccinated children.

• 10% of the children that is 100,000 would get a fever.
• Up to 5% or 50,000 would get a mild rash.
• 10 children or about 0.001% might have a severe allergic reaction to the vaccine and would have to be treated.
• Around 10 boys might get inflammation on their genitals.
• Last but not least, about 10 kids would get the most dangerous side effect, encephalitis.

All things considered, around 120 (0.012% of the volunteers) children would suffer from a grave consequence because of the vaccine, though almost all of them would be back to normal thanks to good healthcare.

The Conclusion

From the experiment, it is evident that vaccines are safe and effective.

Readers who still do not believe it and think that vaccines cause autism or contain microbots with which Bill Gates is planning to rule over the Earth, please leave your Facebook anti-vaxxers group or the like. Not everything you read on the internet or hear from your friends is true. Trust the experts in the field and not your average Joe.

Vaccines are the most potent weapons we have against our prime adversaries. Get vaccinated, and stay safe!