We do not want vaccines to produce side effects. We would like the cost of vaccines to be less than the cost of the disease. However, cost effectiveness must be measured in the long-term to be useful . It can be difficult to select which vaccines to use. There are two general philosophies which seem to guide vaccine selection.
Some producers believe they use vaccines as an investment .
These people expect the cost of the disease will be greater than the cost of vaccine use. Some people actually use vaccines for insurance . They use vaccines with little information as to the cost of disease in their herd. Vaccines are used in an attempt to reduce the chance of catastrophic losses occurring even though the likelihood of this happening is quite small. Vaccines should be used as a management tool that is part of an overall program to produce a quality product at a reasonable cost.