On Vaccines and Long-Term Per Capita GDP Growth

There looks to be increasing evidence that viruses are responsible for long-term health conditions. That is, a wide variety of viruses seem to be a cause or a trigger or a contributor to health conditions like cancer, degenerative diseases of the nerves, muscles or mind, problems with guts and bowels or with cardio-vascular or repiratory systems and long-term flair ups of unpleasant illnesses like shingles.

There also looks to be the hope that vaccines will become cheaper, quicker and more effective.

So as we work out which viruses contribute to which nasty conditions and therefore shift the risk-reward-cost-benefit position towards vaccinating against those viruses over the long-term our populations will enjoy better long-term health and also lower health care costs and more productive populations. A widespread and enduring health and economic benefit.

But only if populations are politically in favour of vaccine programmes.

So I'm wondering at what point in the future does general hostility to vaccines start to have a noticable drag effect on economic performance? Ten years? Twenty years? Thirty years hence?

We've seen this sort of impact before with the removal of lead from petrol and the impact on crime decades later.

At some point I'd expect to see differences in long-term per capital GDP growth figures driven by vaccine adoption.