[mowenz]

You're correcr, but it's worth mentioning that studies != experiments.

I'm not an anti-vaccer for the record.

The studies vs experiments problem is larger in social sciences than medicine.

[roywiggins]

They do run vaccine experiments with controls, not just observational studies.

[mowenz]

The above comment did refer to population studies.

Most drugs are studied using clinical trials, which contain control groups. Not perfect experiment, but close to it.

There are plenty of examples studies and trials published in scientific journals with erroneous conclusions. With a purwly scientific experiment that would be impossible (at least for the experimental outcome to disagree with nature).

[mowenz]

Perhaps someone would explain why they downvoted?