How common was it for parents to lose a child?

Re:How common was it for parents to lose a child? by mikeash on Friday September 13, 2019 @04:44PM (#20966336)

I think it’s misleading to act like vaccines weren’t saving kids’ lives until my parents’ generation.

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Re:How common was it for parents to lose a child? by eej71 on Friday September 13, 2019 @04:55PM (#20966443)

I think it's fair to say that the uptick in lives that were saved made a huge leap forward with the arrival of industrialized medicine which is to say mass produced vaccines made available to the many and of course the arrival of vaccines for even more diseases that were not previously covered.

I hope we can agree that the recent down tick in the rate of vaccinations is a step backwards.

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Re:How common was it for parents to lose a child? by mikeash on Friday September 13, 2019 @06:05PM (#20967121)

I’m not sure about that. The death rate from smallpox was unbelievably high before the vaccine, and it was eliminated or nearly so in many countries well before this supposed 1960s date.

Certainly more recent advancements have been wonderful, and the anti-vaux movement is callously throwing away lives and the hard-fought victories of our ancestors.

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