I never thought about it this way:
- Infectious diseases (smallpox, polio etc) inflict horror on the population.
- Vaccines are invented and make the population safe and healthy.
- The population never sees the horrors of what infectious diseases can do
4.Populations start to think the vaccines are not needed. - Horrible disease and death comes back with a vengeance.
There seems to be small sporadic outbreaks of infectious diseases lately so I hope that step 5 never really takes hold.