In poorer countries that have no systems to take care of the elderly, the children have to take care of their parents when they reach old age. To assure themselves that they will have someone to take care of them, and because of the high rate of infant and childhood mortality—due to easily preventable diseases—couples have many children in order to make sure that there will be someone to care for them.

With a double-edged program, such as vaccinations to prevent childhood mortality AND good sexual and reproductive health programs (including birth control and post-natal care), couples would not feel the need to have large broods of children (an heir and a spare, and another spare, and just in case, another spare, and another, and. . . .). And women could exert some control over their own bodies and decide when enough is enough.

Thereby reducing the explosive birth rate in poorer countries.

Michael, you simply don't understand—or with your mind-set, don't want to understand—what Bill and Melinda Gates, and others, are talking about. The idea that the purpose of the vaccines is to either kill people off or to sterilize them is another example of the befuddled nightmares that conspiracy-theory paranoiacs (of the kind you are showing every symptom of being) are so fond of embracing.

Don Firth