# 4041
Laurie Garrett, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance and a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations - along with Dana March, a doctoral candidate at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, have collaborated on a terrific look at the benefits of vaccination for Newsweek.
I’ll just wisely step out of the way, and direct you to the link.
The Long-Term Evidence for Vaccines
Vaccination does more than protect against flu. Study after study shows that keeping children safe from viruses has long-lasting, positive health benefits.
By Laurie Garrett and Dana March | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Dec 7, 2009
With some reports saying that the worst of the H1N1 outbreak may have already come and gone this flu season in North America but not worldwide, parents who decided to sit out vaccinations for their children may feel validated. But not only is that strategy risky, it's uninformed, and ignores a larger truth about the benefit of vaccines.
Throughout North America and Europe, an anti-vaccination movement has steadily grown over the past two decades, and was recently jet-propelled amid anxiety over immunizing pregnant women and children against the H1N1 "swine flu." The greatest fall-off in child vaccination, and the strongest proponents of various theoretical dangers associated with vaccines, are all rooted in wealthy, mostly Caucasian communities, located in the rich world.
At a time when billions of people living in poorer countries are clamoring for equitable access to life-sparing drugs and vaccines for their families, the college-educated classes of the United States and other rich countries are saying "no thanks," even accusing their governments of "forcing" them to give "poison" to their children.
