Agreed, but small pox + vaccine = bigger profits for (eg) drug companies than would small pox alone.
Actually, vaccines are very low profit; hence why most drug companies no longer make them (I think we're down to 3 companies who still manufacture vax). No company develops vaccines any more - they simply licence those invented by immunologists such as myself (myself, as in I do immunological research; I'm not directly involved in vaxdev).
At the end of the day, for a vax to be adopted it needs to be cheap per-dose, and provide a meaningful degree and duration of protection. Ergo, it is far more profitable to treat an infection than it is to vaccinate against one.
For example, the pertussis vaccine costs about $15. A non-hospital treatment course of antibiotics runs ~$500; a case requiring hospitalization runs tens of thousands of dollars in drugs, consumables and one-use supportive. Without vaccination, most children will experience a pertussis infection before the age of 5, of which about 4% will require hospitalization. The numbers write themselves - even ignoring economic costs - the savings are huge.
Bryan
