"Hans-Georg Michna" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 6 Dec 2004 15:18:16 +0100, "riverman"
wrote:

What an idiotic and academically wasteful argument.

riverman (and Claude),

do your sums. Estimate the likelihood of side effects. Compare
it of the likelihood of contracting yellow fever. Both can kill.

Without the numbers your statement has no meaning. The argument
that it can't hurt to get the shots is simply not true.


First of all, I'm not saying 'it cant hurt to get the shots' any more than
you are saying 'it cant hurt to skip them'. The shots can kill, the disease
can kill. We are talking about probable outcomes and acceptable risks.

Additionally, I'm saying that choosing to spend $5 on bug dope instead of
a vaccine is a false economy, and that WAS the academically wasteful point
of your post. My suggestion: get both, and get a mosquito net too.

But OK, I'll do the sums, and provide my sources.

The CDC and WHO have documented exactly 7 patients worldwide who developed
severe side effects from the YF vaccine between 1996 and 2001*. This is out
of 30 million who have had the vaccine, so that makes the odds of getting
really sick, sometime in a 5-year period, about .000023%. (I am disregarding
the less than 5% chance of getting headaches, muscle aches or a temporary
rash as a 'serious illness' on par with getting Yellow Fever.)

Although the vaccine is not required, the WHO considers Kenya one of their
'at risk' countries**, and recommends a vaccine for anyone who enters Kenya
and goes outside the urban area****, considering that there was a serious,
and unexpected, outbreak as recently as Sept 92-March 93***.

This outbreak was attributed to the poor vaccination program
in-country...you speak of the altruism of helping a native Kenyan with your
money...I'd offer that participating in the vaccination program to eliminate
any chance of helping start another epidemic is much more altruistic.

These stats are for Yellow Fever only. Do the sums for all the other
diseases of that region, then add them up. Or just take your chances...the
traveller just might be sitting next to someone coming from Nigeria (20,000
cases between 1982 and 1996).

--riverman

* http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/yell...cine/index.htm
** http://www.who.int/vaccines-surveill...s/htmls/YF.htm
http://www.who.int/vaccines/globalsu...cidenceyel.htm,
page 48.
*** http://www.who.int/vaccines-document...DF/www9842.pdf
**** http://www.travmed.com/maps/country.epl?c=Kenya