[aurizon]

There is a steady stream of anti-vaccine fake news - all designed to look plausible. People with an education in biotech detacts this, the common person weighs it as a bit of valid news = seeds of doubt are sown. check microbe.tv for the real goods.

[jjgreen]

I have to say, I think that vaccine advocates are making a tactical mistake by characterising those who do not like or do not want the vaccine (and say so) as "fake news", "designed to look plausible", and so on. They have a different view to you and people can have differing views without either of them having hidden agendas, being evil etc.

Before you ask, I'm keen on vaccines (and have had AZ), but I'm an old git, it makes sense for me. Younger people could make a valid different choice, and others would be wise to respect that choice.

[aurizon]

That is the tyranny of the uninformed manifesting. In technicall matters the vote of uninformed people lacks validity to change affairs. The human immune system(s) - yes, we have a number of them. The innate system which evolution has fine tuned to protect us, and the adaptive (learns to defeat a pathogen). These are not voted on by an animal's free will. They are entirely automatic, as animals and man in the past had zero comprehension of what occurs behind the scenes. People have the unwise right to refuse vaccination - perhaps to their detriment or death. (try to keep living after you get bitten by an infectious rabid animal and see what happens). This brings to center stage the true merits of the anti-vaxxers. Get enough doubters and many controlled viruses will lose their 'herd immunity' at which point we well get sweeping waves of infection of many of these 'defeated' viruses. This is OK, of you feel mankind has overpopulated the earth - the added deaths will reduce the degree of overpopulation. I for one want measles to be eliminated and stay dead. Many orthdox Jewish communities seem to want measles to be an ongoing scourge of man. What about smallpox = 35% death rate. The plague - about the same. Polio? I am old enough to recall the huge rooms full of people doomed to live the rest of their lives encased in an artificial lung. So, no, I will not respect that choice = no respect at all - they can do it if they like, but if they choose to let their kids get those illnesses deliberately, then they need to be forced to buy disease specific health insurance, and remove that burden from my health care pool.