The danger of seeing vaccines as a cure-all I Letter

Reports of new jabs being developed could fuel the perception that medicine can somehow eliminate death, says Dr Tabitha Winnifrith

The claim by Moderna's chief medical officer that vaccines may save millions of lives is misleading and will only fuel the perception that somehow medicine can eliminate death (Cancer and heart disease vaccines ready by end of the decade', 7 April). This in turn leads to a disproportionate fear of death and a belief that dying is somehow a failure.

There will be instances in which vaccines could prevent young, active people with a good quality of life from developing cancer, which might be welcomed. But cancer is a disease that is much more prevalent in late middle age and in elderly people. In these cases, a vaccine, while preventing someone from dying from cancer, will enable them to live a little bit longer, by which time they will have developed other ailments. They are consigned to living out their latter years while enduring the many debilitating conditions of old age.