(Yet another) reason to vaccinate your child

Vaccination may be one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs of all time. Smallpox eradication alone probably saves 3 million lives a year, and the routine childhood vaccines save another 3 million lives a year. Vaccines are so effective and successful, in fact, that they are no longer seen with the awe they deserve. The virulent fear of infectious disease has faded so completely forgotten that clueless celebrities are happy to campaign against vaccines based on the incorrect claims of a discredited  fraud.

Take measles, for example. While often dismissed as a harmless childhood disease, measles can be a killer. It is extremely infectious virus, putting most other viruses to shame for just how incredibly infectious it is. For children or adults in poor health (immunocompromised or malnourished), measles has a mortality rate of 30%. Even under the best scenario, measles can cause blindness and brain damage and kill 0.2% of those infected. 0.2% doesn't sound that much, but consider that in the USA without vaccination we would have 3-4 million cases a year - that is 8000 infant deaths being prevented every year.

Well, it turns out that measles is probably even worse than this. A new study demonstrates that measles infection increases the risk of dying of other diseases (scientific paper here, lay verion here). When measles vaccines are introduced, it is not only deaths from measles that are eliminated - deaths from a wide set of childhood infections dramatically drop. In fact, rather than "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger", surviving measles seems to suppress the immune system for several years, making children more likely to die from alternative diseases. Vaccination gives protection against measles without the risks of infection and without the immunosuppression of infection - a great "win-win" situation.