NOTE: Please welcome Alberto Castro as a regular contributor to AofA. His posts add a South American perspective to our content. English translation below. Please share widely. Gracias!

By Alberto Castro

Lawrence Palevsky, M.D. y otros expertos como Suzanne Humphries MD, están actualizando la narrativa sobre las vacunas que se enseña en las universidades de medicina de varios países, con un estudio publicado en la revista Pediatrics de diciembre de 2000 escrito por miembros de Johns Hopkins y científicos de los CDC. Aproximadamente el 90% de la disminución en la mortalidad de enfermedades infecciosas entre los niños estadounidenses ocurrió antes de 1940, cuando habían pocos antibióticos y las vacunas de DTP y sarampión aun no estaban disponibles. Por lo tanto la vacunación no es la responsable de las impresionantes caídas de la mortalidad observadas en la primera mitad del siglo como se enseña en las Universidades de Medicina.

Ver extracto en Pediatrics.

Bernard Guyer, MD, MPH*, Mary Anne Freedman, MA‡, Donna M. Strobino, PhD*, Edward J. Sondik, PhD‡

From the *Department of Population and Family Health Sciences, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland; and the ‡National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Hyattsville, Maryland.

Translation

The Real History of Vaccines

Lawrence Palevsky, M.D. and other experts such as Suzanne Humphries MD are updating the vaccine narrative taught at medical universities in several countries with a study published in the December 2000 issue of Pediatrics, by members of Johns Hopkins and CDC scientists. Approximately 90% of the decline in infectious disease mortality among American children occurred before 1940, when there were few antibiotics and DTP and measles vaccines were not yet available. Vaccination is therefore not responsible for the impressive declines in mortality observed in the first half of the century as it is taught in medical universities.