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> Please, vaccinate your child. The worst possible side effects from all of the vaccines put together pale in comparison to the damage these very preventable di

> Please, vaccinate your child. The worst possible side effects from all of the vaccines put together pale in comparison to the damage these very preventable diseases can do and have already done to our society. Between my wife and I, I have been the one more open minded to doing it or not. We may end up vaccinating him. But for now we're exercising a lot of caution because it's not something that can be undone, and there are reasons to be skeptical about the quality of vaccines and the honesty of the industry that pushes them. Edit: are people getting pleasure out of downvoting me? Am I not contributing to the discussion, whether or not you disagree with me?

davidw 10y ago
You might as well be "contributing to the discussion" of whether the world is round or not. You'r not a scientist nor a doctor, so you don't have any firsthand knowledge.
- artursapek 10y ago
  No I am not - but our pediatrician is.
  - archgoon 10y ago
    Then have him contribute rather than play a game of telephone.
  - dpark 10y ago
    Clearly not. It's utterly unacceptable that a pediatrician would recommend against routine vaccinations. Yes, some children end up having reactions (not autism). No, the risks of those reactions are not worse than the risks of the diseases the vaccinations prevent.
- fwn 10y ago
  basically this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority combined with a wobbly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum edit: sooo, why the downvotes? You see that this is exactly what he did, right? That topic seems so boiled up, reasonable, therefore non-faulty discussion doesn't even appear to be a goal.
  - chimprich 10y ago
    There's nothing wrong with an argument from authority - the problem with such an argument is when the expert is being cited from outside their sphere of expertise, for example. In this case the experts in the field are in agreement with a very strong scientific consensus based on a very solid body of data.
cjslep 10y ago
> There are reasons to be skeptical about the quality of vaccines and the honesty of the industry that pushes them. When you make a vague statement like this with no evidence in the face of decades of successful vaccinations that has led to huge elimination of permanent life crippling diseases such as polio, your post doesn't seem that substantive. Add to that the "think of my child" mentality being demonstrated at the expense of your own life and every other vaccinated human's life, it signals to me (what I get out of it) that your family is being irrationally selfish in a way that is dangerous to greater humanity as a whole.
colanderman 10y ago
As others have pointed out, the question isn't "health of my child with or without vaccines", it's "health of all children with or without vaccines". If your child doesn't get vaccinated, that puts other children at risk. Further, you're implicitly relying on other children to be vaccinated to protect your child from debilitating diseases; were their parents to reach the same conclusion as you, your community would likely suffer a measles outbreak (as some such communities already have). To choose not to vaccinate your child but to rely on the protection of others – while simultaneously putting others at greater risk – is a quite privileged and selfish decision.
nommm-nommm 10y ago
>Am I not contributing to the discussion, whether or not you disagree with me? Spreading lost discounted vague FUD about vaccines while admittedly taking part in gravely endangering public health are not constructive. Because of the population density of NYC your son of all people needs to be vaccinated. As long as he is healthy enough to be vaccinated.
JoshTriplett 10y ago
> Edit: are people getting pleasure out of downvoting me? Am I not contributing to the discussion, whether or not you disagree with me? Imagine, for the sake of understanding the downvotes you're getting, that your post could be read as "well, science might mostly be right, but we're exercising a lot of caution before relying on the germ theory of disease, because washing our hands could be dangerous; one person we talked to said that, so it might be true, and there are reasons to be skeptical about the quality of soap and the honest of the industry that pushes it". And, not only that, but imagine that comment was posted in the middle of a thread containing many links explaining the problem, and links debunking material that started the anti-soap conspiracy theories. That post would get downvoted into oblivion, just like yours. There's a giant pile of anti-science conspiracy theories and "think of the children!" paranoia, started around a single falsified paper, and your comment plays into that. There are already numerous comments in this thread explaining that, including links to articles about the falsified paper. You're getting downvoted because, in the midst of all that, your posts suggest that your immediate reaction wasn't "we might have some deadly misinformation here that will hurt ourselves and others, we should learn more about this issue, figure out how badly we've been misled, and solve the problem"; instead, your reaction seems to be "eh, changing our minds would be hard, we're 'exercising a lot of caution' instead [and probably won't end up doing anything, because that's how hesitation like that works]". Changing your mind, really changing your mind, is hard. Finding out that an expert you should have been able to trust was dead wrong is hard. Accepting, as an otherwise educated and intelligent person, that you were wrong about a question of fact is hard. The mind has non-trivial defense mechanisms that make it easy to avoid doing any of those things; people use those defense mechanisms every day, in lieu of feeling uncomfortable or incorporating new information.
coldpie 10y ago
> Edit: are people getting pleasure out of downvoting me? Am I not contributing to the discussion, whether or not you disagree with me? You are spreading dangerous misinformation that leads directly to the spread of disease and death.
maverick_iceman 10y ago
>Edit: Am I not contributing to the discussion, whether or not you disagree with me? No, you're not.
roywiggins 10y ago
Do you have any friends with babies? Because babies can get sick from diseases before they can be vaccinated. If your kid gets measles or whatever and gives it to an unvaccinated baby, your "caution" is not going to be any comfort to the baby's parents. Similarly, immune-compromised people who might not be able to get vaccinated or, if they are, are vulnerable anyway. Vaccination isn't just for you, it's for everyone around you.

davidw 10y ago

You might as well be "contributing to the discussion" of whether the world is round or not. You'r not a scientist nor a doctor, so you don't have any firsthand knowledge.

artursapek 10y ago
No I am not - but our pediatrician is.
- archgoon 10y ago
  Then have him contribute rather than play a game of telephone.
- dpark 10y ago
  Clearly not. It's utterly unacceptable that a pediatrician would recommend against routine vaccinations. Yes, some children end up having reactions (not autism). No, the risks of those reactions are not worse than the risks of the diseases the vaccinations prevent.
fwn 10y ago
basically this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority combined with a wobbly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum edit: sooo, why the downvotes? You see that this is exactly what he did, right? That topic seems so boiled up, reasonable, therefore non-faulty discussion doesn't even appear to be a goal.
- chimprich 10y ago
  There's nothing wrong with an argument from authority - the problem with such an argument is when the expert is being cited from outside their sphere of expertise, for example. In this case the experts in the field are in agreement with a very strong scientific consensus based on a very solid body of data.

cjslep 10y ago

> There are reasons to be skeptical about the quality of vaccines and the honesty of the industry that pushes them. When you make a vague statement like this with no evidence in the face of decades of successful vaccinations that has led to huge elimination of permanent life crippling diseases such as polio, your post doesn't seem that substantive. Add to that the "think of my child" mentality being demonstrated at the expense of your own life and every other vaccinated human's life, it signals to me (what I get out of it) that your family is being irrationally selfish in a way that is dangerous to greater humanity as a whole.

colanderman 10y ago

As others have pointed out, the question isn't "health of my child with or without vaccines", it's "health of all children with or without vaccines". If your child doesn't get vaccinated, that puts other children at risk. Further, you're implicitly relying on other children to be vaccinated to protect your child from debilitating diseases; were their parents to reach the same conclusion as you, your community would likely suffer a measles outbreak (as some such communities already have). To choose not to vaccinate your child but to rely on the protection of others – while simultaneously putting others at greater risk – is a quite privileged and selfish decision.

nommm-nommm 10y ago

>Am I not contributing to the discussion, whether or not you disagree with me? Spreading lost discounted vague FUD about vaccines while admittedly taking part in gravely endangering public health are not constructive. Because of the population density of NYC your son of all people needs to be vaccinated. As long as he is healthy enough to be vaccinated.

JoshTriplett 10y ago

> Edit: are people getting pleasure out of downvoting me? Am I not contributing to the discussion, whether or not you disagree with me? Imagine, for the sake of understanding the downvotes you're getting, that your post could be read as "well, science might mostly be right, but we're exercising a lot of caution before relying on the germ theory of disease, because washing our hands could be dangerous; one person we talked to said that, so it might be true, and there are reasons to be skeptical about the quality of soap and the honest of the industry that pushes it". And, not only that, but imagine that comment was posted in the middle of a thread containing many links explaining the problem, and links debunking material that started the anti-soap conspiracy theories. That post would get downvoted into oblivion, just like yours. There's a giant pile of anti-science conspiracy theories and "think of the children!" paranoia, started around a single falsified paper, and your comment plays into that. There are already numerous comments in this thread explaining that, including links to articles about the falsified paper. You're getting downvoted because, in the midst of all that, your posts suggest that your immediate reaction wasn't "we might have some deadly misinformation here that will hurt ourselves and others, we should learn more about this issue, figure out how badly we've been misled, and solve the problem"; instead, your reaction seems to be "eh, changing our minds would be hard, we're 'exercising a lot of caution' instead [and probably won't end up doing anything, because that's how hesitation like that works]". Changing your mind, really changing your mind, is hard. Finding out that an expert you should have been able to trust was dead wrong is hard. Accepting, as an otherwise educated and intelligent person, that you were wrong about a question of fact is hard. The mind has non-trivial defense mechanisms that make it easy to avoid doing any of those things; people use those defense mechanisms every day, in lieu of feeling uncomfortable or incorporating new information.

coldpie 10y ago

> Edit: are people getting pleasure out of downvoting me? Am I not contributing to the discussion, whether or not you disagree with me? You are spreading dangerous misinformation that leads directly to the spread of disease and death.

maverick_iceman 10y ago

>Edit: Am I not contributing to the discussion, whether or not you disagree with me? No, you're not.

roywiggins 10y ago

Do you have any friends with babies? Because babies can get sick from diseases before they can be vaccinated. If your kid gets measles or whatever and gives it to an unvaccinated baby, your "caution" is not going to be any comfort to the baby's parents. Similarly, immune-compromised people who might not be able to get vaccinated or, if they are, are vulnerable anyway. Vaccination isn't just for you, it's for everyone around you.