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Vaccines

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A kid born in New Delhi today can expect to live as long as the richest man in the world did 100 years ago. Think about that, it's an incredible fact. And why is it true? Smallpox. Smallpox killed billions of people on this planet. It reshaped the demography of the globe in a way that no war ever has. It's gone. It's vanished. We vanquished it. In the rich world, diseases that threatened millions of us just a generation ago no longer exist, hardly. Diphtheria, rubella, polio ... does anyone even know what those things are? Vaccines, modern medicine, our ability to feed billions of people, those are triumphs of the scientific method. And to my mind, the scientific method -- trying stuff out, seeing if it works, changing it when it doesn't -- is one of the greatest accomplishments of humanity.

So that's the good news. Unfortunately, that's all the good news because there are some other problems, and they've been mentioned many times. People wrap themselves in their beliefs. And they wrap themselves so tightly they can’t be freed. Not even the truth can free them. And whilst everybody is entitled to his or her own opinion, they’re not necessarily entitled to their own facts. People have lost faith in institutions, in authority, and sometimes in science itself, and there's no reason we shouldn't have. There are questions and problems with the people we used to believe were always right, so be skeptical. Ask questions, demand proof, demand evidence. Don't take anything for granted. But here's the thing: When you get proof, you need to accept the proof, and we're not that good at doing that. And I say that because we now live in an epidemic of fear.

About 12 years ago, there was a story published that linked the epidemic of autism to the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine shot. Consequently, tons of studies were done to see if this was true. The data came back. The

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