The connection between infection and chronic disease is one I know personally. A few years ago, I was diagnosed with oral cancer. My doctors tracked the cause to a human papillomavirus (HPV) infection I’d had many decades earlier.
I am 69, and when I was growing up, there was no HPV vaccine like there is today — a vaccine developed thanks to infectious disease research. It’s estimated to prevent 90% of HPV-related cancers. If I had been born in a different time, I would have received the vaccine and likely would have been spared from this cancer.