Disease

The cold and flu season is coming. Do you know how to keep yourself from getting sick? Many, especially elderly, will receive flu vaccinations, in which a small amount of the virus is injected into the body, creating the reaction that leads to immunity. Shots are a fact of life. You need to have your immunization record to enter school—measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, hepatitis A, B and C, polio. When you start college, it will be advisable to get an inoculation against meningitis. Vaccination has become the primary method for eliminating and preventing the spread of infectious disease. It is not, however, without its risk. You are, after all, injecting a healthy body with a small amount of a maleficent agent. But the benefit far outweighs the risk, for most people. On the other hand, there are many who oppose childhood immunization on religious grounds. Here as an excerpt:

Vaccines have become sacraments of our faith in biotechnology in the sense that 1) their efficacy and safety are widely seen as self-evident and needing no further proof; 2) they are given automatically to everyone, by force if necessary, but always in the name of the public good; and 3) they ritually initiate our loyal participation in the medical enterprise as a whole. They celebrate our right and power as a civilization to manipulate biological processes ad libitum [as desired] and for profit, without undue concern for or even any explicit concept of the total health of the populations about to be subjected to them.

The risk-benefit ratio shifts when God enters the equation. A basic tenet of Christianity and Judaism holds that the body is a sacred temple of God. Injecting toxic particles into the body to produce an artificial immune reaction is seen by some religious persons as opposed to natural methods of promoting health. This view was a major source of the opposition to smallpox vaccination in the 1800's. One opponent described it as "an attempt to swindle Nature." Similarly, the benefit of immunity against disease becomes irrelevant for those who believe that faith in God protects the individual from illness. Refusing immunizations may therefore be seen as an act of faith.

History is replete with examples of contagion, plague, and worldwide pandemics that forced the human race to fight these little killers. And it seems that there are always those who suggest that the spread of infectious, fatal disease is the malicious intent of those waging biological warfare. Northern Europeans blamed the Italians for the Black Death. The influenza pandemic of 1918 was attributed to the Germans. Historians continue to blame the Spanish for genocide because they brought smallpox with them to the Americas. And HIV is portrayed as a conspiracy by the US government to eliminate people of color from the earth.

Recently, the Adrian Daily Telegram ran a great story on our own Tyler Webb’s battle with Staph infection. It was really enjoyable to hear how the family, like Job, continued to praise God through all of the uncertainty and anxiety, and it has become the exception rather than the rule for today’s media to let Christians freely speak their faith and convictions without editing or censoring those remarks.

There appears to be an attempt to broaden public awareness of staph infection and its deadly character. In another recent story, it was reported that more people die in the United States each year from staph than from HIV-AIDS. Check out the site from the Center for Disease Control to see what the leading causes of death actually are. The problem is that nobody is giving benefit concerts or writing Broadway musicals about people dying from staff infection. In fact, AIDS is the only disease where the infected person’s privacy now outweighs public health concern. We wouldn’t want these victims to become the subject of public scorn or ostracism, would we? And AIDS activists are also intent on continuing the search for a vaccine, when 25 years of research readily demonstrates that the majority of HIV-AIDS cases are contracted by willful behavior. It’s almost like someone with lung cancer demanding that billions of dollars be procured to find a vaccine so that he can continue his behavior choice of inhaling tar and nicotine into his lungs.

The debate topic for this fall also has to do with disease in sub-Saharan Africa. After thousands of years of dealing with disease, the human race still seems incapable of a modicum of common sense. If you know that a disease like malaria is born by mosquitoes, and a substance harmless to humans (DDT) can eradicate the mosquitoes, then why has DDT use been outlawed?

UPDATE: I'm not sure where some of our skilled debaters are getting their "DDT is harmful and causes cancer" information, but here is a link with plenty of support to the claim that it is harmless and its prohibition was brought on by fears of overpopulation in the third world. Sad. It's the same mindset that Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood had.

One of the most overused “gotcha” challenges that a Christian hears is “If God is almighty and if God is all-loving, why have millions of people suffered and died from these cruel diseases, and why is there so much suffering in the world?” You and I know that God’s creation was perfect, but that sin entered the world, and death by sin. All causes of death are the consequences of sin. But in Psalm 103, David wrote, “Praise the LORD, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. He forgives all my sins and heals all my diseases.” God is my healer—and, most importantly, he is my gracious forgiver.