If WHO and Gates spent one TENTH of what they spend on vaccines to establish fresh clean water sources and sanitation facilities ALL infectious diseases would decline. Profit mongering to vaccinate while continuing to ignore a cesspool existance for so many is pathetic.

Sanitation was and remains the sole cause for reduction and eventual eradication of infectious diseases, not vaccinations. Vaccinations ultimately bring immune disorders and the culture of "Super bugs".

It always amazes me that these people claim the lack of vaccination is bringing a disease back so they do all these vax programs and when they are done the people are still without clean drinking water, sanitation, good nutrition and are often living in cramped, over-crowded camps. Really they need to clean up the condtions these people live in and that allow germs to breed and spread.

Even if you have clean water, you still need immunizations which is why we still need them in more advantaged economies. If you really care about getting clean water to Africa, India, and other parts of the world, YOU can help make a difference. Living Water International <a href='www.water.cc'>www.water.cc</a> and other organizations like that are doing just that but need our support.

I was a resident when the big measles outbreak hit in the early 1990's. That was in Dallas Texas by the way. (I guess our fresh clean water and sanitation didn't help enough in Dallas???) I was personally very impressed with how transmissible measles was. People would come to the hospital clinic for whatever medical problem and then return within a few day having contracted measles from somebody else in the waiting room. Most of those people had been vaccinated by the way and that is when we discovered that one vaccination at 12-15 months of age was not enough. I got my second vaccination quickly then. Anyway, to paraphrase one of my old professors...if you are more afraid of the measles vaccine then you are of measles, then you haven't seen enough measles.

It amazes me when people deny the good that vaccines do. It is a pretty simple observation that when vaccination levels fall, desease rises. When Muslim Imams were forbidding polio vaccinations because they believed the vaccinations were a plot to poison african babies, polio, which had been close to wiped out made a strong resurgence. What is so difficult about understanding this relationship?

@Grammaknows

Your comment suggests that you don't know much about immunology. Vaccinations don't lead to superbug infections - the overuse of antibiotics does.

A lot of infectious diseases aren't spread by contaminated water, so while establishing clean water sources for people would reduce the transmission of things like cholera, it wouldn't help with airborne or contact-transmitted diseases, like measles. Only vaccination, which exposes the immune system to a dead or weakened virus and allows the body to mount an immune response, can protect against contracting measles when exposed to a live full-strength virus.

It angers me when people with healthy children do not vaccinate. My cousins child has a heart condition and so can not be vaccinated, by order of his doctor. All it would take is one child in his class to refuse vaccination and then come into contact with the disease, and he would be dead because his body can not fight the same way a healthy childs can. If you do not vaccinate out of fear of the vaccine, you are sentancing children you may not even know to death and are one of the most selfish people around.

My son has a serious heart condition also. He has been vaccinated for all his shots. His cardiologist never told us to not get his vaccines, actually he told us that is was more important for him to be vaccinated. Its weird how doctors can be so different. I wish your cousins child the best of luck.

Ditto PHD2B on the Superbug comment.

We are also seeing an increase of Measles in the US too. It is unbeliveable the people who do not understand the real impact they have when not vaccinating their child. It takes a high percentage of effectively vaccinated people to protect the people who are not vaccinated. The percentage of vaccinated people (children) is on the decline likely out of misinformation that leads to fear and panic in parents. Vaccines are safe and protect us from deadly diseases.

first hand experience is the best teacher. a generation or two with no deaths or morbidity related to a specific disease and complacency or suspiciousness can set in reducing vaccination rates.

few who lived through the 40's 50's polio and vaccine development would deny the value and decline vaccination.

likely it's going to take some hard lessons to turn thinking around again. death in your own back yard can get one's attention.

when so many americans cannot find germany on a world map, you know why many don't understand the scientific principles involved.