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I have the same policy - I will not use a vaccine until it's been in (at least moderate) use for at least 10-15 years.

A good policy is never use a vaccine that is still under patent (although that's 21 years, which is probably too much).



Lots of people are dying of vaccine-preventable disease. They are quite obviously not dying, or even getting sick, from vaccines, except in extremely rare cases.

So, that's a terrible policy.

Edit: removed inflammatory language. Sorry.


> Lots of people are dying of vaccine-preventable disease.

And all of those have vaccines that are much older than 10 years. And I use them - all of them.

The recent vaccines are for things that don't kill, or kill in such small numbers (in the US) that the risk is almost unmeasurable. Varicella, rotavirus, HPV, flu.

Rotavirus for example, should simply not be used in the US. In Africa? Sure. But not in the US.

Does rotavirus kill in the US? Yes, sometimes (about 37 cases per year). But the added risk of 100 million people in the US driving on the road to get the vaccination kills more people than the illness itself does. (Ok, not quite, but it's close.)

I'm very pro-vaccine, I just won't use new ones.

And just to confirm my policy of waiting, remember the fatal cases of intussusception that happened with the first rotavirus vaccine.


> And all of those have vaccines that are much older than 10 years.

Swine flu has killed 4,735 people [1] so far, and the vaccine is brand new. Seasonal flu kills about 36,000 people [2] a year in the U.S. alone, and the vaccine is different every year.

[1] http://www.who.int/csr/don/2009_10_16/en/index.html

[2] http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSN2932292920080...




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