[rleigh]

I disagree that the "anti-vaxxers" would have been "right".

They fail to trade off the risks appropriately.

No one can claim vaccines are "safe". They induce a host immune response so that the immune system is primed to fight a subsequent infection. The immune system can cause damage to the host, which is why we have a whole catalogue of autoimmune disorders, many of which can be modulated by infectious diseases and parasites. There is a risk a vaccine could induce a host immune response which causes damage. But it's a small risk.

You have to trade off the risk of vaccination with the risk of being infected with the disease, and the risk to society at large through spread of the disease when vaccination rates are too low.

In pretty much all cases, the risk of the disease is many orders of magnitude higher than the risk of the vaccine. If there's a 0.000001 chance of the vaccine causing problems vs a 0.0001 of dying or suffering long-term damage from the disease then the choice is obvious: get vaccinated.

Unless the "anti-vaxxers" are basing their arguments upon quantitative data, then I'll continue to view them as crackpots with little knowledge or understanding.

(I'm an immunologist, by the way.)

[sifar]

>> If there's a 0.000001 chance of the vaccine causing problems vs a 0.0001

The problem is how do I trust these numbers. That the vaccine risks aren't underestimated and the disease damage over-estimated. Something that can be confirmed only when enough time/data has elapsed.

The current pandemic is an example. Almost everyone who publishes data has some motive to push a viewpoint (knowingly or unknowingly). It will take some time before one can trust the data and its inferences. But then meanwhile, one is being asked to trust the experts who are not open about the data and methodologies.

[thu2111]

No one can claim vaccines are "safe".

Of course not, but they do anyway as I'm sure you must know!

Imagine someone who is just starting to worry about vaccines does a google search and ends up on this top result:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy

It says: "Arguments against vaccination are contradicted by overwhelming scientific consensus about the safety and efficacy of vaccines.[5][6][7][8]"

The first citation for this claim is an article on the WHO website which quotes Dr Giovanni Rezza, Director of the Department of Infectious Diseases at Italy’s National Institute of Health. He says:

"The media often sets up a false opposition between public health officials and anti-vaccination campaigners, rather than conveying a clear message that there is an overwhelming scientific consensus in favour of nationally recommended vaccines"

Scientists are quite happy to insist that there's no debate to be had at all; this is very far from it being all about relative risks which reasonable people can disagree on.

Unless the "anti-vaxxers" are basing their arguments upon quantitative data, then I'll continue to view them as crackpots with little knowledge or understanding.

I assume any anti-vaxxer with any knowledge would cite a case like Pandemrix, which does have quantitative data. In fact DanBC provided some: maybe 5000 long term cases in the USA if everyone had been vaccinated. But I think you must admit, clear data is a luxury that nobody seems to have about viral spread. The numbers for how many people got Swine Flu vary dramatically depending on who you ask, even today. If I were asked to support an anti-vaxxer in a debate, I'd point out there's no reason to believe scientists can accurately weigh the costs and benefits of vaccines given their inability to even tell us accurately how many people die of the flu each year, and the fact that diseases caused by vaccines only become widely accepted years after the fact.