SHOW ME THE MONEY w/Dr. Todd Brown

Infectious diseases have historically shaped public policy and societal behaviors. The success of vaccination dramatically altered public perceptions of infectious diseases, effectively reducing fear but inadvertently creating vulnerability.

In the early twentieth century, diseases such as diphtheria and whooping cough were devastating killers. Diphtheria alone caused around 15,000 childhood deaths annually by creating suffocating membranes in the windpipe. The violent coughing fits of Pertussis similarly killed thousands each year. The widespread introduction of vaccines eventually suppressed these fears, fundamentally shifting society’s attention to other illnesses like polio, measles, mumps, and rubella.

By the 1950s and 1960s, polio emerged as a significant public fear, paralyzing 30,000 children each year and causing approximately 1,800 deaths. Measles similarly presented significant danger, causing 500 deaths annually and leading to severe complications such as encephalitis, leaving many, especially children, permanently impaired. Mumps was a leading cause of childhood deafness, and rubella resulted in catastrophic congenital disabilities when pregnant mothers were infected early, severely impacting newborns.

However, medical advancements, including vaccines, profoundly changed clinical practices. Doctors training in the 1970s regularly performed spinal taps to diagnose bacterial meningitis due to ineffective vaccines against Haemophilus influenza B, pneumococcus, and meningococcus. This once common practice has become rare today, reflecting a significant shift in medical reality due to successful immunization programs.

Yet, this very success laid the groundwork for exploitation. By virtually eliminating visible disease threats, public memory of their severity diminished dramatically. The diminished public awareness fostered complacency, inadvertently weakening vigilance against infectious diseases and creating conditions conducive to misinformation. Public health initiatives increasingly faced challenges in maintaining vaccine compliance due to the fading collective memory of the devastating impacts of these diseases.

This has seemingly created an opportunity for the U.S. government to implicitly adopt Governor Richard Lamm's controversial philosophy, capitalizing on societal complacency born from vaccine success. Lamm had suggested that some members of society, when very ill, had a "duty to die," questioning the use of expensive, life-extending treatments and, by extension, advocating for the selective use of medical interventions.

In a troubling parallel, the government may now exploit public complacency by subtly permitting vaccine skepticism to flourish, leveraging society's fading memory of once-feared diseases. Instead of actively reinforcing awareness of the severe impacts these diseases once had, authorities may be employing a strategy of quiet neglect, allowing misinformation about vaccine safety, real or imagined, to grow unchecked. Consequently, parents are becoming more fearful of vaccines than the diseases they prevent, thereby unintentionally aligning with Lamm’s philosophy by implicitly accepting increased public risk through reduced vaccination compliance.

Evidence of this manipulation can be seen clearly. CDC data highlights a troubling rise in vaccine-preventable diseases coinciding with historically high vaccine hesitancy rates. In 2023, measles outbreaks accounted for 59 cases, sharply increasing to 284 in 2024. Pertussis cases also surged dramatically, rising from 5,600 cases in 2023 to over 32,000 in 2024, surpassing pre-pandemic levels and signaling potential governmental negligence or intentional policy direction, echoing Lamm's controversial perspective.

​The ethical implications of this apparent governmental strategy mirror Lamm’s philosophy: a conscious choice to accept some level of public harm by allowing preventable diseases to resurface, effectively assigning lesser societal value to collective health to justify resource allocation decisions. This approach subtly places economic considerations above collective welfare, quietly allowing the erosion of vaccine trust to minimize long-term medical expenses associated with widespread vaccination programs. Using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), NBER—a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization—found that excess deaths due to COVID among individuals aged 25 and older between 2020 and 2023 reduced Social Security future retirement payments by $294 billion.

The contemporary situation resonates with Lamm’s ethical dilemma of weighing individual versus societal benefits. The government’s subtle acquiescence to growing vaccine skepticism mirrors his controversial notion of societal "duty," where the collective good is quietly compromised by diminishing preventive measures. Allowing vaccine exemptions to flourish through ambiguous public communication implicitly shifts responsibility and blame to the public, exploiting ignorance or misinformation.

However, unlike costly medical interventions of uncertain benefit that Lamm criticized, vaccines provide a clear, measurable benefit by preventing severe disease and death. Allowing vaccine skepticism to proliferate represents a deliberate and ethically troubling governmental abdication of responsibility. It permits previously controlled or eradicated diseases to re-emerge, jeopardizing public health and safety.

Addressing this manipulated vulnerability requires renewed educational and communicative transparency. It demands emphasizing the historical consequences of infectious diseases clearly and unequivocally, thereby revitalizing collective memory to reinforce vaccine necessity and counter governmental inaction or implicit endorsement of vaccine hesitancy. Restoring public trust in vaccination must become an ethical imperative, not merely a public health recommendation.

Historical success against infectious diseases has ironically positioned society for potential exploitation through the strategic negligence of vaccination advocacy, implicitly reflecting Lamm’s troubling philosophy. A vigilant and informed public, supported by transparent governmental communication and accountability, remains essential to safeguarding collective health from preventable illness resurgence. ∎