1. Scientists have thoroughly looked into and still look into the safety of vaccines. The dubious autism connection, for example, was extensively researched. Nobody ever believed that the safety of vaccines is not important and doesn’t have to be tested.
3. As long as a vaccine kills less children than the disease it prevents, it is already preferable to the disease, there is no need to even prove that vaccines kill absolutely no one. A one percent likelihood of death is obviously preferable to a ten percent likelihood of death. (Numbers for illustrative purposes only.) All the evidence we have tells us that vaccines are perfectly safe — but even if they weren’t, they don’t automatically become useless.
I don’t think anyone has anything against being worried. Being oblivious to evidence and spreading lies kills children, not being worried.
If the vaccine definitively will prevent/end the disease, it may be worth it; but you seem to be ignoring the fact that most of these situations are far from binary.
Where did I say that the situation was binary? Vaccines obviously don’t have to be 100 percent effective and they can kill kids and still be worth it. (A 0.5 percent chance of dying from the vaccine and a 0.5 percent chance of dying from the disease is obviously better than a 10 percent chance of dying from the disease. Numbers for illustrative purposes only.)
Oh, and in the case of, for example, smallpox the situation was actually binary. As late as 1959 two million people were dying from smallpox every year and millions more contracted the disease every year. There have been no deaths from smallpox since 1978, it has been completely eradicated.
The smallpox vaccine saves millions of lives every year.
That would depend on your chances of contracting the disease. If there were 0% chance of you contracting the disease, then there would be a disincentive to take the vaccine- it would actually raise your chances of dying.
Am I really so hard to understand? I’m a bit insulted that you would really think that I’m that stupid.
The 10 percent in my completely hypothetical example were obviously already factoring in the chance of getting the disease in the first place, otherwise the comparison wouldn’t even begin to make sense.
Today one problem is obviously that herd immunity protects individual defectors. The chances of getting measles even without being vaccinated are relatively low when everyone around you is vaccinated. I would have less of a problem with people who freely admit that they don’t want to vaccinate because they are selfish gits. That’s not the argument they are making, though (it also wouldn’t scale), they think that no one should vaccinate and if that were the case massively more people would die from measles and other preventable diseases. (We have already seen that herd immunity can be seriously compromised in places where many parents don’t vaccinate.)
I think the burden of proof is on those who want to force everyone to be vaccinated to prove that none of these vaccines will ever kill a child.
No, the burden of proof modern medical science is built on is that the benefits of a procedure or treatment outweigh the risks of the treatment.
There is never a guarantee that _any_ medical treatment will not kill you. Acetaminophen (Tylenol) while great at reducing fever and treating pain is one of the most toxic drugs that can be taken in an overdose. Same thing can be said for aspirin. But, the benefits of taking acetaminophen or aspirin in the proper doses, outweigh the small potential risk that you may be allergic to the medicines.
> I think the burden of proof is on those who want to force everyone to be vaccinated to prove that none of these vaccines will ever kill a child.
That's a poor argument. I was once a proponent of further study based on Dr. Wakefield's "connection". Turns out his findings were absolutely bogus. And yet, it continues to impose unnecessary fear, and at times - death.
The burden of proof is far-stretching in this matter. For example, any one could supposedly find anything and then progress needs to stop to prove otherwise.
If an issue with a vaccine were to come to light, the solution is to make the vaccine better - not eliminate it.
It reminds me of Aspartame, probably the most studied food additive in the world, yet it still suffers propaganda from armchair MDs claiming carcinogenic, cancerous connections. Some of the connections being made aren't even scientific, just anecdotal hearsay. It's really disappointing to see people pushing fear instead of progress.
Seriously, that's what this whole thread is about. If you are worried about whether vaccines are safe, then you want to "kill children".
I think the burden of proof is on those who want to force everyone to be vaccinated to prove that none of these vaccines will ever kill a child.