Editor's Note: Robert G. Sharrar, MD, wrote this opinion piece. Dr. Sharrar is a distinguished Philadelphia-based epidemiologist whose career spans several pivotal moments in public health history. A University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine graduate and CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service alumnus (Class of 1967), Dr. Sharrar led the Philadelphia Department of Public Health’s communicable disease division during the landmark 1976 Legionnaires’ disease outbreak, playing a crucial role in the discovery of Legionella pneumophila. He subsequently directed AIDS surveillance efforts in Philadelphia during the early years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. He transitioned to the pharmaceutical industry, where he specialized in vaccine safety and pharmacovigilance at Merck and United BioSource Corporation. A Fellow of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia since 1976, Dr. Sharrar’s contributions to infectious disease control, epidemiological investigation, and pharmaceutical safety have established him as a respected leader in public health practice and research.
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Vaccines are the most effective and safe protective agents in all of medicine. There is not even a close second agent that compares with them. What are the facts that support this bold statement?
Vaccines were developed to prevent serious communicable diseases that are difficult or impossible to treat. Once these infections occur, the disease will progress through its natural course, causing, in some instances, paralysis from polio, congenital anomalies from rubella, and encephalitis and pneumonia from measles, to name a few of the possible complications. Two vaccines prevent cancer: the , and the .
Vaccines work since we no longer see cases of paralytic polio, , or . Furthermore, protection from most vaccines lasts a long time. Some vaccines need to be updated because of changes in the agents that cause the disease. Vaccines give your immune system an advantage over the wild viruses/bacteria that you might encounter.
We know that vaccines are safe because adverse reactions from vaccines are closely monitored in clinical trials and, then later, . Clinical trials have shown that there are short-term adverse reactions associated with the administration of vaccines, such as a sore arm, fever, rashes, and fatigue. These reactions have no long-term significance.
More serious adverse events associated with the administration of vaccines in the general population are closely monitored by the manufacturers of the vaccines, the FDA, and the CDC. These serious reactions that rarely occur following vaccination are studied and, in most cases, turn out to be unrelated to the vaccine. Once these adverse events are identified and evaluated, they are well publicized. Since vaccines are widely used, vaccines get blamed for many events of unknown cause that happen in the population. These unfortunate events, , occur at similar frequencies in vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals, suggesting that they are not caused by the vaccine but are due to unknown and unrelated causes.
Vaccines are given primarily to protect the individual receiving the vaccine, but . The decision not to take a vaccine is an unwise decision. Unvaccinated individuals run the risk of experiencing these serious illnesses with their complications. Don’t be fooled. Good nutrition or leading a healthy lifestyle will not protect you against these diseases. However, vaccines will protect you.