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| |    Myth: Diseases Were Going Away Before Vaccines by Lynn Cates, M.D., F.A.A.P. reviewed by Laura Jana, M.D., F.A.A.P. Myth: Even before vaccines were introduced, many common infectious diseases had begun to disappear as the result of public health measures to improve living conditions, hygiene, sanitation, and nutrition. Fact: General public health measures may decrease the chance a child will be exposed to a disease-causing germ. However, they will not protect the child from getting sick if he is exposed, whereas immunizations will. This myth is based on the observation that public health measures such as better living conditions, hygiene, sanitation, and nutrition helped reduce the incidence of infectious diseases before some routine immunization programs began. There is no question that good hygiene and sanitation--especially safe drinking water and hand washing--are extremely effective ways to help decrease the spread of many infections. Similarly, good nutrition and less-crowded living conditions also are valuable ways to help reduce risk. However, none of these steps can protect a child against a specific infection as reliably as the appropriate vaccine. If your child has not been immunized and he is exposed to a disease-causing germ like measles, pertussis, polio, or diphtheria, he can develop the disease. And no matter how careful you are, your child will be exposed to disease-causing germs. You will bring them home from work or the grocery store, his brothers and sisters will bring them home from school or the shopping mall or the movies, and well-meaning friends and relatives will infect him when they hold him and play with him. There are many examples demonstrating how improvements in hygiene and other public health measures have not worked as well as immunization programs to reduce specific diseases. For instance, no improvements in public health in the United States in the past decade can account for the 99 percent decrease in serious Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) disease, (including a very serious form of bacterial meningitis) that we have seen following the initiation of routine Hib immunizations about 10 years ago. Adapted from the National Network for Immunization Information (NNii) Copyright 2000, and the National Immunization Program of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
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