The debate on vaccination is always confusing. It has been so since many decades. Vaccination against small pox was known to Indians in pre colonial times as Dharmpal so emphatically shows. Traditional vaids were using material from the small pox patients for vaccination. Amazingly, the concept of immunisation was in place in Indian society.
Any viral disease has a resolution rate of more than 90% without any interventions. This explains the success of many interventions in the treatment of viral diseases, like for example, many herbal products and local popular concoctions for the treatment of hepatitis.
Secondly, vaccinations are never a foolproof guarantee against the occurrence of the concerned disease. The best protection rate is in the range of 70-75% perhaps. Most have figures much less than this. BCG for TB for example doesn’t have any great protection rates for primary lung disease though it works better for TB involving other organs like the nervous system.
Modern vaccination has always had a chequered history. Right from the beginning, injection of many vaccines into the human body in the the first year of life administered along with many additives and preservatives has been a source of intense concern and debate. Autism, diabetes mellitus, autoimmune disorders have all been claimed to be associated with vaccination. The vaccine promoters and a majority of paediatricians say ‘no evidence’; the anti-vacciners say the jury is still out.
The first generation rotavirus vaccination had lot of issues with intussusception in children, a real surgical problem. There was a 30 fold increase in the likelihood of intussusception. The later generations of this vaccine have a lower risk.
Any vaccine company wants only one dream situation. An official government policy to vaccinate the general population with that particular vaccine. This is the loveliest dream come true for any company to make for a massive kill in terms of business and healthy balance sheets.
Unfortunately, in a pandemic scenario where we are trying so many things it is expected that there would be attention to vaccines too. The background debate however against vaccines is nothing new despite being in extraordinary circumstances. This is perhaps the only time in the history of medicine where we are trying to develop vaccines and treatment strategies in the middle of a pandemic.
Beyond the narratives of greedy companies and bad governmental policies the fact is nobody knows anything. Most of the people are shooting in the dark. We don’t know about the nature of the virus; we don’t know about the natural history of the disease; we are not aware of any treatment strategies. Hence, the multiplicity of approaches to this natural or human made virus.
The human brain will keep on trying solutions to any problem. Like always in the history of humanity, complex political, social and economic factors, personal issues, emotional reasonings will distort a straightforward scientific or medical narrative. We are in a messy situation but that has always been our situation.
The present debate will never end as there are no ideal solutions excepting that the virus becomes completely quiescent, integrates into the human genome, or we develop a magic bullet like a quinine or chloroquine for malaria. Some scientists say that a great portion of human DNA might actually be of viral origin which got integrated nicely as a symbiotic relationship.
Unfortunately, with an explosion of knowledge and an easy access to information, we are getting all the more confused with the information. Extreme positions look at the worst of the opposite camp to justify their stands. The ‘anti’ people would only look at the small but real complications of vaccines. The ‘pro’ people would quote the complications and deaths in the unvaccinated group. We cannot get a balance and a golden mean within such polarised debates unfortunately. That is where we stand today.
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