[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.

[pradocchia]

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

I'm not here to spoon feed you information in line with your heuristic baggage. You can "take me seriously" or not.

But your inference is that because of this, vaccines are ineffective.

My inference is that vaccines were not instrumental in the longterm decline of infectious diseases, contrary to the OP's claim. I thought I was pretty clear on that point.

to completely wipe out an infectious disease, you need vaccination.

This is a sound public policy message to encourage vaccination, but the data, as far as I can see, does not support such a strong and sweeping conclusion. Yes vaccines appear effective in the reduction of some infectious disease. It does not follow that vaccines are thus necessary to wipe out infectious disease. Surely this modest level of nuance is not too much to grasp?

[anthonyb]

Two things which contradict your position:

1. Diseases such as measles were still established in developed western countries in the 50's and 60's, when hygiene and diet were comparable to today.

2. Similar diseases (eg. Polio) are on the brink of being wiped out in 3rd world countries with inadequate infrastructure and hygiene - largely by vaccination.

This is not "heuristic baggage". You're just wrong about 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.)