[fat_tony]

Relativism is destroying our society. There are things that are not up for debate. They usually involve facts and science. Inoculation is one of them.

I think vaccines should be mandatory for all children. If you don't vaccine your kid, CPS should take the kid away after multiple warnings, because you are an unfit parent and a danger to our community otherwise.

[ghshephard]

There is relatively good science that demonstrates, in a well vaccinated population, that you are endangering your child's life by having them vaccinated for some diseases.

Vaccinations aren't without risk (though, clearly, autism is not one of those risks)- and, as long as all the other parents get their children vaccinated, your child can take a pass on some vaccines and come out ahead from a mortality perspective.

With that said, from a _societal_ perspective, it's imperative that parent's put their child's life at this (minor) risk so that the overall mortality rate goes down.

Don't be so quick to judge the parent as "unfit", though your comment about being a danger to the community does, in fact, hold.

And, perhaps we should be a little less quick to suggest the solution to other parents not doing what we want them to do is to have "CPS take the kids away after multiple warnings."

There is a cost to freedom, and sometimes it means that we have to let parents makes the call on these grey areas, even if it offends our own personal rational models of how the world should work. Vaccines are clearly not as cut and dry as something like a life-saving blood transfusion or surgery for appendicitis, in which I would suggest that there is an imperative to over-rule the parent should they decline treatment of their children.

[Retric]

Unfortunately, we don't currently bring up the parents of children who die from lack of vaccination on negligent homicide charges in large part because of your line of reasoning. Parents are in no way equipped to make informed decisions about vaccination, and giving them the option is a horribly bad idea.

Globally there is a huge unvaccinated population http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1272/is_2729_134/ai_n... all it takes is one passenger to bring something back and suddenly you end up with a large number of dead children. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1291987...

PS: Because it's often local doctors that accept this Anti-Vaccination bullshit small locations often lose their herd immunity. It's one thing to randomly replace 1/100,000 vaccinations with an inert substance it's another for 10+% of the children in a small area to avoid vaccination.

[ghshephard]

I think it's important that you realize I agree with you on the fundamental issues of whether we need to have 100% coverage on vaccinations - that is absolutely my belief, and those who don't think that should be the case, should go visit the third world where there isn't 100% coverage, and see how childhood diseases ravage the population. In the first world, we've gotten uses to a standard of living, sometimes not realizing how it came about (Clean Water, Vaccinations, Public Health Systems) - we take it for granted.

I'm just hoping that while you see how we agree on that topic, that we perhaps should have a little bit more consideration or respect for the role of a parent, in determining what is done to their children, from the perspective of vaccination (and by extension, education, religion).

I'd rather we ensure that all parents vaccinate their children through enlightened understanding of why it's important, rather than because some third-party believes they aren't equipped to make informed decisions about vaccination and doesn't give them the choice. (Excepting, of course, unusual circumstances where you have a pandemic underway and there is immediate and significant threat to the populace from unvaccinated individuals - in that scenario, Civil Health overrides personal choice and you get vaccinated (adults and children) whether you like it or not) - but that's a rare scenario, usually the one at risk from a missing vaccination is the one missing the vaccination.

[Opie_taylor]

If vaccination really works, then it's only the unvaccinated that will be affected.

[Retric]

People are not vaccinated at birth, so even with 100% effective vaccination really young children are still at risk. However, the reality is vaccinations while effective are not perfect so there is are range protection. AKA, Some poeple while at lower risk of infection can still get sick with prolonged exposure.

PS: A fire resistant couch save lives dispute the fact they can still burn in a hot enough fire, the benefit is focused on small ignition sources aka a spark or cigarette not a kiln.

[drstrangevibes]

right so we vaccinate even though theres a low chance of contracting a disease, a significant chance that the vaccination will cause side effects and a chance that it might not work anyway. Makes sense to me!

[Retric]

low chance of contracting a disease

EX: Just the M in MMR prevents ~1/2 million people from getting sick each and every year. The benefit of measles vaccination in preventing illness, disability, and death has been well-documented. The first 20 years of licensed measles vaccination in the U.S. prevented an estimated 52 million cases of the disease, 17,400 cases of mental retardation, and 5,200 deaths.[10] During 1999–2004, a strategy led by the World Health Organization and UNICEF led to improvements in measles vaccination coverage that averted an estimated 1.4 million measles deaths worldwide.[11]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Measles_US_1944-2007_inset...

Vaccinations prevent well over 50,000 deaths per year in the US alone along with a large number of vary serious side effects. On an individual basis the lifetime chance of infection is still higher than you might think and only increases as more people avoid vaccination. If we where talking about an adult taking the risks for themselves that's one things, but we are talking about making the choice for someone else as well increasing the overall risk to society.

[JoeAltmaier]

That is probably true, but also a selfish viewpoint. There's something called "enlightened self-interest" where you do something risky to yourself to help the community.

If vaccination were only about your own health, then your conclusion is valid. But its also about those you will infect should you get the disease.

I understand a parent making selfish decisions about their child - in fact that's a defining characteristic of a parent. Just understand that its not always morally defensible. Or scientifically. Or logically.

[davidw]

> in a well vaccinated population, that you are endangering your child's life by having them vaccinated for some diseases.

I wonder what those risks are like compared to, say, driving your child around town on a somewhat regular basis.

[nlogn]

"as long as all the other parents get their children vaccinated, your child can take a pass on some vaccines and come out ahead from a mortality perspective."

This is true, of course, but who decides which kids should get the benefit of reduced risk? If it's not ok for everyone to skip out on vaccines, it should be ok for noone (unless we can figure out ahead of time which kids are vulnerable).

[dhimes]

When things evolve along a bit and the pseudo-science hysteria dies down, we may be faced with the following question: Who gets to decide which children shall be saved because the rest of the herd is vaccinated, and which shall be forced to risk vaccination for the good of the herd? Perhaps we should do it by lottery, like when we decide who must go to fight in wars and who gets to stay home.

[luigi]

Can you please post a link to the "good science" that demonstrates your claim?

[MoreMoschops]

Here's a CDC page on it:

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00046738.htm

As you'll see, it discusses various studies and provides links to papers examining various cases in which people have had an adverse side-effect to a vaccine.

Please, everyone, no comments about how that may be true but what about this and that and the other; the poster asked for a link, here it is.

[stonemetal]

It is fairly well known that the flu vaccine uses eggs in its production, and that people allergic to eggs shouldn't get a flu vaccine. Is it really so far fetched to think that something similar might happen with the vaccines given to children?

[anthonyb]

Yep, that's the kicker - as long as everyone else gets their kids vaccinated. Does the "endangering your child's life" part count the risk of a major epidemic due to other parents making the same decision?

If everyone else is refusing to vaccinate, that's exactly when you should vaccinate, because your child is much more likely to catch chickenpox or the measles with a whole bunch of unvaccinated kids running around.

[fat_tony]

I'm new here, but thank your for teaching me a better viewpoint.

[logjam]

To be taken seriously, you are going to have to provide a citation to support your claim that "there is relatively good science that....you are endangering your child's life by having them vaccinated for some diseases." If you are talking about events with a probability of getting hit by lightning, then please say that happens to be the level of "danger" you are talking about. (The risk for an adverse allergic event like anaphylaxis after a hep B injection...regardless of whether the anaphylaxis is causally linked to the vaccination or not...is about the same risk as being struck by lightning, 1:700,000).

Someone posted a link below to a CDC summary of adverse effects from vaccinations. They describe other rare events which are orders of magnitude less likely than your child being killed in traffic on the way to school in the morning. If you want to argue that sending children to school endangers their lives, you can certainly find statistical evidence for children being killed on school buses...and by lightning strikes on the way to school, choking on hot dogs, etc.

In every instance I am aware of, the risks of a serious adverse event from a vaccine is orders of magnitude lower than these other dangers to which parents routinely (and unthinkingly) expose their children.

Please tell us exactly at what level this "good science" you've found somewhere <b>quantifies</b> this "endangering of" our children's lives, and the causal link(s) of this mortality to the vaccine.

At that point, we can compare them to lightning strikes etc, and most importantly, compare them against the well known and demonstrably associated common mortality and morbidity that has accompanied failure to vaccinate.

There may be much longer-term benefits to vaccination. Children vaccinated against polio and hep B, for example, appear to have a lower incidence leukemia (ALL), as well as all cancers combined.

http://www.pediatricsupersite.com/view.aspx?rid=80272

[iamelgringo]

I think vaccines should be mandatory for all children. If you don't vaccine your kid, CPS should take the kid away after multiple warnings, because you are an unfit parent and a danger to our community otherwise

They are in some places, and that is what happens unless you object on moral or religious grounds. I worked at a pediatric clinic, and on several occasions, we called CPS on parents that did not bring in their children for routine physicals and vaccinations.

Also, it's very difficult to get a child into the school system unless the child has been vaccinated.

/I moonlight as ER nurse, and I've done contract work at Chicago Children's, University of Chicago Children's, Fresno Children's and a satellite of Boston Children's.

[dedward]

Things should always be up for debate.... because sometimes we get it WRONG. New science replaces old.

Personally? I think it's not up for debate. The exact age and type of vaccine used might be if there are various options and risks to weigh, and as a parent I might want to choose those, but vaccinating our children against incurable diseases they are likely to be exposed to isn't up for debate in my mind. Why, as a society, would we not want to wipe out said disease?

Now, I think of my own vaccination history (hypothetically). When I was a kid, they didn't vaccinate us against Hep-B. They didn't. It wasn't part of the program. Then a few decades later when I had a Hep-B scare and read up on it, I said, WTF, how on earth are we not vaccinating our society against one of the most virulent diseases on the planet?

(The answer would be cost, and chances of someone from my country contracting it short of travel to other locations or IV drug use)

We stopped vaccinating against smallpox before I was born. IF smallpox shows up again, that will change.

Handling this a society requires trusting your health organisations - and that's where the problem comes in - people these days don't trust the established authorities.

A single unvaccinated child in a vaccinated society is not a risk to the entire society. A small number of unvaccinated children spread around a vaccinated society is not a risk to the entire society. At a certain number, i imagine, things suddenly go from "safe" to "deadly" with no middle ground.... so this is the type of problem that can probably be dealt with through education rather than force.

[nika]

Thank you for a fair response. I think the salient point of yours to address is contained in this phrase: "Why, as a society, would we not want to wipe out said disease?"

When you say "as a society", you're talking about the collective- the whole society. This is the intrinsic basis of collectivism. Inherent in this phrase, and the ideology that it implies, is the assumption that the needs of society are more important than the needs of the individual. (the opposite view is individualism.)

Later you endorsed the use of education to persuade rather than force to, er, force, and so I am not making a moral criticism of your position.

What I am arguing is that those who are constantly attacking people who question the dangers of vaccines are doing so to futher an agenda of collectivism. I don't really think they care about vaccination at all. They have bought into an ideology that believes the "needs of society" (inevitably represented by a small number of elites, it seems) outweigh the needs of the individual.

For sake of argument, I can grant that a society that forced vaccination would be healthier in terms of these vaccindated diseases than one that did not. I posit that not only is this not a morally superior position (because some number of kids will be killed by the vaccinations, who wouldn't otherwise) even if more kids are saved on balance because there is a very distinct moral difference between taking a risk and being compelled.

If a parent takes a risk and their child dies that is unfortunate. But this is the nature of life. If a parent is compelled to vaccinate the child and that child dies, then compelling them is a moral crime, it is quite literally murder. While some parents in the first case might be found negligent, in the second case it is always murder.

Secondly, and more importantly, if you allow the ideology of collectivism to gain power (and the horses are out of the barn on that one in the USA, both parties are collectivist) then the negative effects of centralized control, inherent in the nature of economics, will wreck massive havoc on society. Example: our current economic crisis caused by the central bank and the clinton era laws forcing lending to people who couldn't afford to repay because otherwise was (racist- a previous witch hunt similar to this one.)

The reason people don't trust the established authorities is because they are not authorities.

Remember, these people were, only a few years ago, trying to sell us on a fabricated swine-flu epidemic. They hyped that to the stratosphere when there really was very little (scientific) risk. Clearly these "health organizations" are operating based on political desire, not on a scientific basis.

This is one of the aspects of centralizing power under collectivism.

Decentralization, that is, individualism where people make their own choices, actually works well, and results in better over all choices being made.

The reason most people vaccinate their children is because they are given the choice and analyzed the science. Forcing those whose kids are high risk to get vaccinated, will also discredit those health organizations and may well end up in much lower ultimate rates of vaccination (depending on how draconian they are.)

[_delirium]

Whether vaccines do or don't have certain effects is definitely science, and not a matter of subjective opinion, so I agree on that. But the proposal "vaccines should be mandatory for all children" depends on non-scientific views as well, such as your views on when state compulsion is justifiable. I'm not sure if that's "relativism", but it seems hard to escape having philosophical argument somewhere in there.

[michaeldhopkins]

I would never trust you to make decisions for my children. That is essentially what you are proposing, since you do not say "CPS should decide whether parents may keep their children" but rather say that CPS should follow your policy.

I consider people like you a menace to a free and healthy society.

[nika]

The rejection of science, in favor of an ideological agenda, is literally destroying our economy, and may well destroy our society.

One of the key enablers of this is that people like you-- who soundly reject science-- believe they have "facts and science" on their side.

The idea that "things...are not up for debate" is the most profoundly anti-science (and anti-intellectual) thing that can be said. I have yet to meet a pro-vaccination person who was willing to talk about the actual science.

Please, also realize when you say "mandatory" you are saying that you endorse the use of violence on people who-- for whatever reasons-- choose to make a different choice about the healthcare of their children.

It is one thing to incarcerate, or kill if they resist, someone who has committed a crime like murder or rape. It is quite another for you to endorse the use of violence for the "Crime" of not being politically correct.

Your ideology posits that whatever you deem to be "good for society" gives you the justification of using violence to enforce. First I'd like to point out that there hasn't been a tyrant known to the face of the earth who didn't use such rationalizations. But secondly, it is worth noting that implicit in this claim is the presumption that everyone is your slave, and everyone's life is to be lived according to your (or your creed's) edicts.

That is the opposite of liberty, and contrary to the entire history of common law, and specifically the US constitution which recognizes people as having inalienable rights. One of these rights recognized in the declaration of independence is the pursuit of "life". Quite literally, that means the right and power to make their own health care choices, based on their best understanding of the state of knowledge at the time.

In my experience, those who are wary of vaccines are pretty well aware of the state of the science on the issue, while those are pro-vaccines are generally after an ideological agenda of mandatory vaccination, and only invoke the word "science" to put forth the idea that their opposition rejects it.

Well, I see thru your claim. You reject science, the scientific method and the entirety of intellectualism. You are being dogmatic.

Edit: Everyone who votes me down without responding to my issues, proves my claim. I made an argument here that substantially contributes to the discussion. You vote me down and you vote to make HN a popularity contest where posts are ranked by adherence to The Party Line, rather than contributing to discussion.

By doing so you just prove that the claim about being influenced by "facts and science" is false and the reality is political ideology over all.

[lmkg]

> ... endorse the use of violence on people who-- for whatever reasons-- choose to make a different choice about the healthcare of their children.

> It is one thing to incarcerate, or kill if they resist, someone who has committed a crime like murder or rape. It is quite another for you to endorse the use of violence for the "Crime" of not being politically correct.

By not getting vaccinations, they are putting other people's health at risk (cf. herd immunity, and children too young to be vaccinated). This is not simply an issue of free choice or ideology. This is not an issue of just what the consequences are to themselves (if it were, I wouldn't have issue). The issue is that they are endangering the lives of others. Force, or the threat of force, is a reasonable response to the endangerment of human lives. I would go so far as to say that it's qualitatively similar to murder (though quantitatively smaller). We have several documented cases every year of infants too young to receive the vaccination dying of whooping cough that they contracted from unvaccinated adults.

"Things are not up for debate" only in the sense that no amount of rhetoric can disprove an empirically proven fact. The facts, which were arrived at through science, are that vaccines save lives, and that when individuals are not vaccinated they put not just themselves but other people at danger as well. In the hypothetical, were science to discover new facts disproving this, I would revise my opinion, but these facts have been established over such a long time by so many studies that I consider the odds not just remote but literally impossible.

My experience, and you may be an exception although I doubt it, is that people who are ideologically opposed to vaccines have read scientific studies, but aren't actually familiar with science as a process. That is to say, they read a study, and think that it's science and its conclusion must be true. Evaluating a study means also examining its process for sources of bias, examining alternative explanations, and reproducing results in repeated studies. The effectiveness of vaccines and the concept of herd immunity has gone through that process. Anti-vaccination literature that I have seen does not withstand that process.

[nika]

"My experience, and you may be an exception although I doubt it, "

Of course you doubt it because you've been taught that anyone who disagrees with this position is a religious nut.

Reality is, I'm a scientist and an athiest. I'm not even taking a position against vaccination.

I'm just pointing out that your side is engaged in a witch hunt based on name calling... not on science.

You failed to provide any science, but you made sicentific claims that are... vague at best, and certainly not supported by any evidence you have provided.

[jerf]

"I have yet to meet a pro-vaccination person who was willing to talk about the actual science."

Either you're lying or not looking.

Here's the scientific argument of interest:

1. Before vaccinations, there existed several diseases that killed millions and maimed millions more on a routine basis.

2. Vaccines have been developed for many of these diseases, and deployed out into the population.

3. These diseases no longer kill millions and maim millions more.

If you find the "pro-vaccination" side a bit uninterested in the question of whether one in a few hundred thousand vaccinations have bad side effects at times, that's because scientifically it is worth how to further mitigate those risks but it isn't even remotely a scientific answer that vaccinations shouldn't take place.

In terms of the costs/benefits analysis of vaccinations, you are up against the deaths of millions on the plus side. You should expect it to be a bit of a challenge to lay out enough cons to win your point! The deaths of millions are hard to miss, if they weren't a great stonking benefit you wouldn't have to be arguing, it would be plainly obvious.

So, for the sake of argument, I will stipulate every pre-existing scientific argument you can show me is true. (Thatm is, you don't get to take advantage of my preemptive agreement to make new ones.) Show me how the scientific costs outweigh the scientific benefits, and given the nature of the benefits bear in mind that I'm demanding to see millions upon millions of bodies a decade and absolutely nothing less. Go for it.

Science isn't about slinging around big words or running lab tests. It's about making hypotheses, testing them, looking for why your hypothesis is wrong, and iterating that process. A pro-vaccination advocate does not need to go into biochemistry or argue about sub-.01% cases to make their point. They simply point at the positive results of vaccination and rest their case. That IS science, in its purest form. Stringing together words and selectively reading studies and biasing the argument until if you squint you might have a point in some cases is the opposite of science. If you're not finding people "scientifically" engaging with you I submit it's because the pro-vaccinators do not have a need to engage in what you think is "science" to prove the point, because they've got real science (and millions upon millions upon millions of non-corpses) on their side.

[pradocchia]

1.Before vaccinations, there existed several diseases that killed millions and maimed millions more on a routine basis. 2. Vaccines have been developed for many of these diseases, and deployed out into the population. 3. These diseases no longer kill millions and maim millions more.

I'll just leave this here:

http://www.vaclib.org/sites/debate/web1.html

I've seen similar graphs over the years, basically arguing that these diseases were in long-term decline before the introduction of their respective vaccines, and that the vaccines merely sealed the deal.

Were I more ambitious, I'd seek out the source data from official sources, and confirm or refute the analysis myself.

This paper appears to have asked the same questions:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9088445

It came to the following conclusion:

Historical data provide evidence of proof of efficacy of mass immunization for measles, polio, rubella, mumps, and pertussis, but not for diphtheria or tetanus.

This does not contradict the claim that the incidence of said diseases were already in significant decline prior to the introduction of immunizations, or that immunizations were not necessary for eradication.

It seems like a rather obvious analysis to do: compare the maximum historic incidence of said disease, the incidence at the time of vaccine introduction, and the rates of decline prior to and following said introduction. It should be fairly easy to argue from that whether a) the vaccine contributed to eradication, and b) the vaccine was necessary for eradication.

[anthonyb]

> I'll just leave this here:

> http://www.vaclib.org/sites/debate/web1.html

Ooh, is that a rabid anti-vax site? Let's look at the home page...

GRAPHICAL EVIDENCE SHOWS VACCINES DIDN'T SAVE US

HISTORICAL FACTS EXPOSING THE DANGERS AND INEFFECTIVENESS OF VACCINES

DOCTORS AND SCIENTISTS CONDEMN VACCINATION

WHY VACCINES ARE INEFFECTIVE

WHY VACCINES ARE HARMFUL

WHY VACCINATION CONTINUES

THE BENEFICIAL NATURE OF CHILDHOOD INFECTION

Yep, looks like it.

[pradocchia]

Did you consider the content of my post before posting that knee-jerk reaction? The first site is inflammatory, but for our purposes it is just hosting some graphs.

similar graphs, less inflammatory sites:

http://ocw.jhsph.edu/imageLibrary/index.cfm/go/il.imagesByTo...

http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/281/1/61.full

http://phe.rockefeller.edu/death/

The CDC addresses the claim of historical decline here:

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/6mishome.htm

with this graph:

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/images/measles_incidence...

Well, sure, so the measles vaccine sealed the deal, yes. But then you look at the longer timeline, and the vaccination occurred on the tail end of a much longer decline.

Science-Based Medicine has a particularly indignant blog entry on the topic here:

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=4431

Note the same trimming of the timeline.

I suspect the truth here is that vaccines were indeed effective in the (near-) eradication of most infectious diseases, but these diseases were already in longterm historic decline due to other more instrumental factors, like increasing urbanization and improved sanitation.

[anthonyb]

> Did you consider the content of my post before posting that knee-jerk reaction? The first site is inflammatory, but for our purposes it is just hosting some graphs.

Yes, yes I did. The next time you want to make a point, pick a site with a bit more credibility.

Better hygiene and medical care helps stop people dying of infectious disease. But your inference is that because of this, vaccines are ineffective. Oh look, here's a better image:

http://ocw.jhsph.edu/imageLibrary/index.cfm/go/il.viewImageD...

Right? There are hundreds of these sorts of graphs and epidemiological studies out there, and they all look pretty much exactly the same. Better hygiene only gets you so far - to completely wipe out an infectious disease, you need vaccination.

[nika]

You're confusing ideology, eg: "It is moral to force all people to be vaccinated even if the vaccinations kill some percentage of children" with science.

I really don't care what you're demanding to see because your sides position is to assert that "science agrees with our ideology" (without providing any backing and even though science and ideology are really fundamentally different) and then to demand arbitrary proof for the opposition to even be granted the chance to have an opinion.

While your at it, please feel free to prove-- scientifically of course- the claim that people concerned about the safety of vaccines want to "kill children".

You have made no scientific claims or scientific arguments. I think the unfortunate thing is that you do not even realize that you are rejecting science.

You don't get to pick and choose, and you don't get to reject results simply because they disagree with your ideology (which is what you're doing when you make up arbitrary bars to be met, which is positively absurd when you aren't meeting any bars yourself.)

One of the great dishonesties about this debate is that the pro-vaccination side won't even make a specific, defendable, scientific claim and then defend it.

Which makes sense because the entire point of this "debate" is for your partisans to label those who might opt out of vaccines as irrational...

It is nothing more than a witch hunt, and it is extremely offensive for you to wrap yourselves in the realm of science while absolutely refusing to even look at the literature on the subject.

[jerf]

"You're confusing ideology"

No, you are. I said science and explicitly held myself to the topic of science. You said you never met anyone willing to talk about the science, and that is all I addressed.

"You have made no scientific claims or scientific arguments."

And you are 100% utterly, totally, completely wrong. I told you, science isn't about big words or biochemistry or any sort of why, it is about what. Before vaccines, disease. After vaccines, nearly no disease. Causality established via details I didn't go into but you are free to investigate, at this point they are plausibly common knowledge. THAT'S SCIENCE. That's it. Right there. On the topic of whether vaccines are a net good, that is the argument. Mechanisms are irrelevant. Whys are irrelevant.

And the reason science works that way is that it avoids exactly the error you're trying to induce me into, where we bring various bits of "whys" to bang against each other until we're arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin and whether Pisces are more likely to marry Tauruses or Cancers, and all the other massive cognitive errors that way of thought creates, by valuing "explanations" over facts. The fact is that where vaccines go, deaths go down, and no amount of arguing to the contrary matters. This is exactly why science is so important, because it's one of the few ways known to prevent the error you're stuck in.

You're the one offering up psuedoscientific approaches and freely conflating ideology with the simple matter of how science determines the most likely outcomes for things. It is certainly a common delusion that science is about why, but the why comes later; once you establish that vaccines prevent disease, the next study hypothesizes a reason and tests that hypothesis, but no amount of fancy hypotheses will change the previous results.

You don't see science because you can't recognize it, not because it doesn't exist. You're asking for the ounce of proof and noticing the metric tons I'm handing you in the form of every living person who would be dead without them, in the millions. You may very well be one of them, even if you weren't vaccinated. Mercifully, we'll never have to find out.

(I actually freely admit the fact that vaccines are incredibly powerful and effective does not immediately prove compulsory vaccination is moral or correct, but I'm not addressing that, by choice. Science first, moral reactions to scientific results second. Neither step can be skipped but they should never be done out of order.)

[Robin_Message]

> The idea that "things...are not up for debate" is the most profoundly anti-science (and anti-intellectual) thing that can be said. I have yet to meet a pro-vaccination person who was willing to talk about the actual science.

MMR doesn't cause autism, as was fairly obvious at the time and the now-settled science shows. Do you accept that, in this case, it is not true to say "those who are wary of vaccines are pretty well aware of the state of the science on the issue," and in fact those people were flat out wrong?

> their own health care choices,

We are talking about childhood vaccinations. I agree these are difficult moral and political issues, but you can't just quote the founding fathers and act like you've proved your point. Children do not make their own healthcare choices, their parents do, and society is more than happy to restrict the choices of both parents and children.

> politically correct

This is ridiculous dog-whistle. Please taboo it and use a phrase that describes what you mean in each case. It like "health and safety", to which I say: Do you object to having people not die in factory accidents or is it that you want the privilege of drinking polluted water?

[nika]

I cannot debate a scientific issue with someone who rejects, out of hand, the entirety of the scientific process, as you do. When you use the term "now-settled science" you are rejecting the scientific method and science.

Only in the realm of politicians and ideologues is the term "settled science" used.

Since your opening position-- and that of the mandatory vaccination ideology-- is to reject science and claim that you don't have to be accountable under it because you claim your opponents reject science-- you have already lost.

[bryanlarsen]

Science relies quite heavily on the concept of "settled science". The word used in science is "assumption". No scientist has the ability to prove everything from first principles in their work, they rely on a base of assumptions. If any of their assumptions get overturned, their own work gets overturned as well, so they choose their assumptions carefully. Sometimes that stack of assumptions can get pretty high and shaky, but science cannot operate without it.

[Opie_taylor]

And we all know what assume does.

[philwelch]

Your ideology posits that whatever you deem to be "good for society" gives you the justification of using violence to enforce. First I'd like to point out that there hasn't been a tyrant known to the face of the earth who didn't use such rationalizations. But secondly, it is worth noting that implicit in this claim is the presumption that everyone is your slave, and everyone's life is to be lived according to your (or your creed's) edicts.

Of course every tyrant used such "rationalizations"--every governing institution in the history of man explicitly initiates force and infringes upon individual freedom in favor of the common good, and we have things like taxes, freeways, and food inspections to show for it. The kind of libertarian objection you mention isn't just an objection to especially oppressive government--it's an objection against all government.

This isn't a straw man attack, either. If you don't allow for some amount of initiative force for the common good, you don't allow for any system of government which has ever existed, including the US Constitution. Consistent libertarianism leads to anarchism. And that's why the force card isn't effective: it's the logical equivalent of saying "the government shouldn't mandate vaccination, because the government shouldn't exist".

The only two logical options are to be an anarchist, or to concede that some violence for the common good is justified--and then go on to discuss why this instance does or does not justify institutional state violence.

---

On the other hand, negligently infecting other people with communicable diseases is a form of physical force, and hence there is a legitimate interest in preventing this from happening.

---

Finally, what you're discussing is ideology. Now, it's important to point something out. There is an important distinction between science and "ideology", or whatever you want to call about it, in that science is only concerned with matters of fact. Matters of value and morality are explicitly outside of science. The closest science can possibly come to ideology is when the facts would dictate any sane person to choose one option over the other. For instance, if scientists tell us they are 99.99% certain that an asteroid will collide into the Earth 20 years from now, and that in the event of a collision, it is 99.99% likely the human race will immediately go extinct, any sane person would conclude "we have to do something to stop that astroid". But science, qua science, can't come to that conclusion by itself. If you were some type of madman who wanted to destroy all human life on Earth, the science would be just as interesting and convincing to you as it would be to a sane person, you would just be led to a different reaction due to your value system.

Or, back to this point--if your value system favors children not dying preventable deaths from 19th century diseases, you probably favor vaccination. But if your value system favors not being forced to do things against your will over children not dying preventable deaths from 19th century diseases, that's entirely up to you--just as long as you accept the facts of the situation.

And, historically, this is what a lot of anti-vax people fail to do. People aren't rational enough to just say "I value not being forced to vaccinate my kids over my kids' lives" (which is a disgusting value system, but you can't argue against value systems), they'd rather lie about facts and say "vaccines cause autism, therefore it's in the best interests of my child not to vaccinate them".

[Opie_taylor]

Your argument implies that the people that don't vaccinate their children are consciously inimical to their health, when the fact is that the parents are trying to do whats best for their children.

Heck, sixty years ago, the majority did not believe that tobacco was a carcinogen. What 'settled science' is going to be overturned in the next sixty years?

[philwelch]

I don't think any parent could be sane, rational, well-informed, and opposed to vaccinating their kids, so clearly there has to be something more going on there. And it's not that parents are insane.