Choose Life

I got a taste of Steven Johnson's new book, A Short History of Living Longer, with the article written by him printed in the NY Times Magazine about How Humanity Gave Itself an Extra Life. 

A century ago, humanity's life expectancy was half it is now. HALF. To provide some examples, approximately 25% of children died before reaching their first birthday, 50% by their fifth. 

So, what changed? Scientific discoveries, bit by bit, here and there, and applied by governments programs, made life possible. Take, for example, the realization that cholera was not spread via miasma in the air, but rather infected water. That lead to the chlorination of the water supply, which, today, is seen as evil. Or how milk used to be a killer of children, and pasteurization was resisted by the public until Nathan Straus (of Macy's), who had buried two children himself, used PR and discounts to make pasteurized milk sexy. 

The article (and I'm sure the book) continues to list all the developments that we consider to be givens in our society. Jon Stewart was recently being interviewed, and he was comparing the current pandemic with the Spanish flu crisis a century ago. A hundred years ago, they were saying what we are saying today: "Wear a mask and wash your hands." Nothing else has changed? The advice is the same? Well, yes. What's true is true. 

Steven Pinker reviewed Johnson's book, and his tone becomes positively irate at those who today discount these great advances that guaranteed life—like vaccines. When I brought Ben in to the doctor for the first time, he suspiciously asked me what's my opinion of vaccines. "My mother had whooping cough as a baby in Hungary," I said. "I believe in vaccines." There is a family photo of her following her recovery, and her scrawniness would frighten me. 

Quite frankly, in my opinion, people have been getting vaccinated for quite some time, and what we have gained has been the blessing that people live. I read an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal about how in 1957, an "Asian flu" arose that targeted the young generation. Back then, there was less bureaucracy between the government and the drug companies, and in three months a vaccine rolled out, everyone took it, and the deadly threat was gone. 

Because of people's reluctance to get the vaccine, covid is not going away. If anything, it's morphing into deadlier variants. I've read a number of articles about how since today's culture, that prizes the rights of the individual over the many, we lack the unified outlook that enabled us to beat the bad guys in WWII. Herd immunity cannot set in if people refuse to get vaccinated. It means covid will stay present and deadly. 

The year Ben was born, measles arose yet again, as many, including those in our community, chose not to vaccinate their children. I was nervous to take him into certain public areas, because he was too young to be vaccinated. I felt like I was exposing him to danger, because others would not protect their own. 

Life. It's all that matters. Vaccines have made that possible. Let's not demonize them.