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In praise of vaccines

In praise of vaccines

Last updated on: September 10, 2026 at 10:40 pm by Dan Peterson

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In praise of vaccines 2026-09-10T22:40:19-06:00 Dan Peterson

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Benjamin West (1738-1820),
Isaiah’s Lips Anointed with Fire (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

Steve Densley Jr. — who, by the way, serves as the very capable executive vice president of the Interpreter Foundation and who will be accompanying an Interpreter Foundation tour focusing on the travels of the apostle Paul this coming April — has recently written an article for Meridian Magazine that I want to bring to your notice: ““Here Am I; Send Me”: Isaiah’s Vision and the Sacrament”

And, once again, I want to remind you that you can subscribe to the Interpreter Foundation’s ongoing Becoming Brigham series — at no charge — by calling up the official Becoming Brigham website, clicking on the button there that’s (rather cryptically and mysteriously) labeled “Subscribe on YouTube,” and following the simple instructions there. Our thirty-third installment of the series went up this past Monday. Don’t miss it. And please be sure to watch all of the thirty-two preceding episodes. (We now forecast at least seventy-five of them, and, possibly, ten or more additional episodes. We’re getting such good material, in such quantities, that we’ve been obliged to expand our vision. In large part, this is owing to the wonderful support, in terms of both interviews and onsite assistance, that we’ve received from the Church History Department, for which we are deeply grateful.)

Not far above Cedar City, Utah, lies Cedar Breaks National Monument, which is something of a miniature Bryce Canyon National Park. (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

For many, many years, my wife and I — we’re both lovers of Shakespeare and she was a theater major — never missed the annual Utah Shakespeare Festival. We never skipped a single play. That tradition has broken down a bit during the past two years, though, and I regret it very much. Attendance at the plays in Cedar City was my end-of-summer ritual, signaling the approach of the fall academic semester.

This year, alas, we missed all of the Shakespearean plays. Every single one. (They’re done for 2026.) It’s been our travel schedule that’s been doing us in, but my wife’s shoulder surgery was the major obstacle for this current season. However, we’ve finally managed, as something of a last minute “Hail Mary,” to make our way down here with a friend. We’ll be able to catch two of the season’s non-Shakespeare plays. It’s not what I would have preferred, but it’s what we can do.

Despite a few rotten apples in the barrel like this infamous specimen, the notorious Big Pharma CEO and public health official Bela Lugosi, most scientists aren’t actually out to kill you or to ruin your life. Not primarily, at least. (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

I saw a video clip this morning in which a woman declared her opposition to all vaccines. “Even the polio vaccine?” asked the interviewer. (I’m paraphrasing.) “That’s right,” she said. “We’ve hardly had a case of polio since 1960!” “Since the vaccine,” responded the interviewer. “That’s right!” she replied. Here’s the video. It’s only twenty seconds long; watch it for yourself: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1100402215748528. And this interview, in which a woman accuses the polio vaccine of actually causing polio rather than preventing it, is one minute and twenty-one seconds long. Finally, and I recommend this as a modern-day treasure of popular wisdom and folk-insight: If y0u want ten-minutes of absolutely mind-bending revelations from the proverbial (wo)man-in-the-street, here’s a really entertaining mini-documentary.

Meanwhile, however, back on Planet Earth, I’ve just read a brief and accessible article in the high-prestige journal Science: “More Impossible-to-Ignore Vaccine Effects.”

The author of the article is Derek Lowe (Ph.D., Duke University). After completing his Ph.D., Dr. Lowe conducted post-doctoral research in Germany on a year-long Humboldt Fellowship, since which time he has spent his career working on preclinical drug discovery in the pharmaceutical industry. He is also a columnist for the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Chemistry World. Here are the final two paragraphs of his article, the whole of which I commend to your attention:

Taken together, though, all of this work strongly suggests that more people – especially more older people! – need to get the current vaccines against infectious diseases. They are not only good at preventing the diseases they are targeted for, but they show health benefits above and beyond what you would have anticipated. As for me, as mentioned I have had the recombinant shingles vaccine, and I have had the pneunococcal shot as well. I have had coronavirus vaccines every year since they became available, and I look forward to getting the latest one soon. I will also cheerfully be getting this year’s influenza shot. I have no desire to get any of those diseases, and since I also have strong desires to avoid cardiovascular events and dementia I am just thrilled that it appears that I’m doing something about those at the same time.

Anti-vaccine activists are wrong about the benefits of these shots, and the ones who are currently in high positions in our public health system are worse than wrong: they are culpable. Downplaying the need for these vaccines has caused and is causing significant mortality and morbidity just by the targeted infectious agents themselves, and that alone seems to me to be a total abdication of responsibility. But more and more it appears that discouraging these shots is also exposing people to higher rates of heart attacks and dementia as they age, and what the hell do we have public health officials for if it is not to help lower the rates of all these things? Well?

The Kansas City Missouri Temple (LDS.org)

As those who are familiar with the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™ will immediately understand, this expression of “gratitude” (which comes from St. Joseph, Missouri, about thirty miles to the north of Kansas City), if it isn’t the product of outright deception, must surely have been coerced:

Second Harvest Community Food Bank

Thank you to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Platte City Stake Friends for their donation to support those facing hunger. Every contribution brings us closer to a hunger-free community!

Posted from Cedar City, Utah

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