partially so I can find it and reference it. My original account was @[email protected]

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Cake day: June 11th, 2025

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  • This also applies to Covid

    It is true that natural infection almost always causes better immunity than vaccines. Whereas immunity from disease often follows a single natural infection, immunity from vaccines usually occurs only after several doses. However, the difference between vaccination and natural infection is the price paid for immunity:

    The price paid for immunity after natural infection might be pneumonia from chickenpox, intellectual disability from Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), pneumonia from pneumococcus, birth defects from rubella, liver cancer from hepatitis B virus, or death from measles. Immunization with vaccines, like natural infections, typically induces long-lived immunity. But unlike natural infection, immunization does not extract such a high price for immunity; that is, immunization does not cause pneumonia, intellectual disability, birth defects, cancer or death. If you could see the world from the perspective of your immune system, you would realize that where the virus or bacteria comes from is irrelevant. Your immune system “sees” something that is foreign, attacks it, disables it and then adds information to the memory bank, so your body can react more quickly the next time that same foreign invader arrives.

    The differences between a vaccine and getting the disease naturally are the dose and the known time of exposure:

    Dose — When someone is exposed to viruses or bacteria naturally, the dose is often larger, so the immune response that develops will typically be greater — as will the symptoms. However, when scientists are designing vaccines, they determine the smallest amount of virus or bacteria needed to generate a protective immunologic response. In this situation, more is not necessarily better. Time of exposure — Most of the time, we do not know when we are exposed to viruses and bacteria; however, when we get a vaccine, we know about the exposure. In essence, we are controlling exposure to the viruses or bacteria that the vaccines protect against because we know when and where they occur. In contrast, and more typical of the norm, we don’t know what viruses or bacteria we are exposed to from the trip to get the vaccine — the door knob, the office, the books in the waiting room, or the toddler at the restaurant we go to after the office visit. Luckily, most of these exposures do not result in infections that our immune system is unable to control. Of interest, a few vaccines induce a better immune response than natural infection:

    Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine — The high purity of the specific protein in the vaccine leads to a better immune response than natural infection.

    Tetanus vaccine — The toxin made by tetanus is so potent that the amount that causes disease is actually lower than the amount that induces a long-lasting immune response. This is why people with tetanus disease are still recommended to get the vaccine.

    Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) vaccine — Children less than 2 years old do not typically make a good response to the complex sugar coating (polysaccharide) on the surface of Hib that causes disease; however, the vaccine links this polysaccharide to a helper protein that creates a better immune response than would occur naturally. Therefore, children less than 2 years old who get Hib are still recommended to get the vaccine.

    Pneumococcal vaccine — This vaccine works the same way as the Hib vaccine to create a better immune response than natural infection.

    So, in summary, vaccines afford us protection with lesser quantities of virus or bacteria and the control of scheduling the exposure.