Column by D. Saul Weiner.
Exclusive to STR
There are a lot of heated exchanges going on right now in social media related to vaccination. Many people have become convinced that parents who do not vaccinate are jeopardizing the health of others and that vaccines for children should be mandated. Politicians who are expected to run for president in 2016 are starting to weigh in on the topic and some of them are coming out in favor of mandatory vaccination.
Given what we know about vaccines, this situation should not come as a surprise. After all, we have been told that vaccines have saved millions of lives and wiped out deadly and debilitating diseases. They have dramatically increased life expectancy and only rarely cause serious harm (only 1 in a million cases). Without vaccines, we might see the high infant and child mortality rates seen today in Third World countries. With that understanding, for most people the decision about whether or not to vaccinate their kids is a no-brainer. Why would any rational person turn their back on vaccination?
But arguments rest upon their premises. If we start with faulty premises, then we are likely to come to the wrong conclusion, no matter how logical and rational we may be. So if it turns out that our premises overstate the potential benefits of vaccination and understate the risks, then we will hold a more favorable view of vaccination than we would if we held a more accurate assessment of the risks and benefits. With that in mind, let’s reexamine many of these premises and see if they hold water or if there is more to the story than what we have been told. What if we have been misled?
Potential Benefits of Vaccination
Risks of Vaccination
The Vaccine Skepticism Movement
What if the chances are one in a million that what we have been taught about vaccines is correct?
Friedrich Hayek made the following statement:
“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design. To the naive mind that can conceive of order only as the product of deliberate arrangement, it may seem absurd that in complex conditions order, and adaptation to the unknown, can be achieved more effectively by decentralizing decisions and that a division of authority will actually extend the possibility of overall order. Yet that decentralization actually leads to more information being taken into account.” ~ The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (1988), p. 76
What if health care decisions cannot be centrally planned and are best made by individuals and parents?
Links:
[1] http://www.strike-the-root.com/user/306
[2] http://www.strike-the-root.com/topics/science
[3] http://www.strike-the-root.com/topics/health-care
[4] http://www.strike-the-root.com/topics/health
[5] http://www.amazon.com/Dissolving-Illusions-Suzanne-Humphries-ebook/dp/B00E7FOA0U/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1423306615&sr=1-1&keywords=dissolving+illusions
[6] http://www.vaclib.org/sites/debate/web1.html
[7] http://thinktwice.com/smallpox.htm
[8] http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/2011/11/17/smoke-mirrors-and-the-disappearance-of-polio/
[9] http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/2012/06/13/interview-with-phd-immunologist-dr-tetyana-obukhanych-by-catherine-frompovich/
[10] http://www.doctoryourself.com/klennerbio.html
[11] http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/91/5/1014
[12] http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/studies-show-measles-vaccine-spreads-virus/
[13] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Childhood_Vaccine_Injury_Act
[14] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3170075/
[15] http://www.vaclib.org/basic/unvaxhealth.htm#news
[16] http://healthimpactnews.com/2013/new-published-study-verifies-andrew-wakefields-research-on-autism-again/
[17] http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/05/15/microbial-diversity-gut-flora.aspx
[18] http://healthimpactnews.com/2014/cdc-whistleblower-cdc-covered-up-mmr-vaccine-link-to-autism-in-african-american-boys/
[19] http://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/articles/history-anti-vaccination-movements
[20] http://www.vaccinesuncensored.org/vids.php
[21] http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/gandhis-anti-vaccine-views-ring-true-century-laterA