To the editor: Why do folks nonetheless misunderstand vaccines (“Once I acquired COVID, readers stated it proved vaccines don’t work. What has RFK Jr. wrought?,” Sept. 9)? It’s actually not troublesome. The principle factor to know is that vaccines usually are not, by way of the science, preventive medication. They don’t preserve illness out of your physique. Vaccines truly do precisely what Well being and Human Companies Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says he desires to do: enhance your private immune system.
Consider them as a private coach for a specific sport (illness). They prepare your immune system into recognizing a menace so it could possibly turn out to be sooner at reacting to it and stronger to combat it off. They do that by giving your physique a small style of “the dangerous stuff.” This primes your immune system to combat off no matter it’s, whether or not it’s polio, measles, tuberculosis, the flu or COVID. Getting immunized doesn’t preserve you from getting sick, however for those who do occur to come back throughout “the dangerous stuff,” you may have a very good likelihood to combat it off.
As columnist Steve Lopez identified, he acquired mildly sick when he had COVID, however was not hospitalized. Examine his scenario to the one in the course of the pandemic earlier than the vaccine was developed. So many individuals have been hospitalized with extreme sickness, and so many individuals died from the illness earlier than we discovered the right way to prepare our immune programs to combat again.
Higher. Quicker. Stronger. That’s how vaccines work.
Dee Ois, Chatsworth
