Perhaps in no area is the divide between the developed and developing worlds as striking as it is for vaccines: While healthcare consumers in economically advantaged nations worry about risk, in developing nations compelling need forces a focus on potential benefit. "People in the United States want a quick solution, not prevention, so they prefer drugs to vaccines. Elsewhere, people are afraid of drugs and side effects, and prefer vaccines," says Shan Lu, a primary-care physician who has worked in many countries. He is developing an HIV vaccine at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he is associate professor of infectious diseases and immunology.
In 2002, more than 2 million people died worldwide from vaccine-preventable illness, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Geneva-based Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI). While some healthcare consumers in privileged nations eschew vaccines because of side effects, real or perceived, elsewhere ...
