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It's sometimes even rational for parents not to vaccinate their children. There are (very rare) side-effects, even up to death, for some vaccinations, and consi
by bayesian_horse 9y ago
It's sometimes even rational for parents not to vaccinate their children. There are (very rare) side-effects, even up to death, for some vaccinations, and considering that everyone else vaccinates and thus the chance of getting infected and having a bad outcome is even lower than the rare incidence of vaccination side effects.
Of course, that only applies up to a certain point, where enough parents opt out to make vaccination individually the optimal choice. And of course, it's the right thing not to endanger the rest of the population.
- laumars 9y agoThat kind of game theory doesn't work because you'll never get close to 100% vaccination coverage so long as there are infants in the world who are too young to take the vaccine and adults who think the diligence of others will keep themselves covered.
- bayesian_horse 9y agoHerd immunity kicks in at well below 100% vaccination coverage, and that is good news for those who really can't vaccinate.
- laumars 9y agoGot any sources to back that up? 1% of an entire population is still a massive number of people. Or to put things another way: it's pretty easy to interact with 100 people each day so even just 1% of the population means you will bump into someone who isn't immunised during the course of your day.
- Cthulhu_ 9y agoThere's some side-effects, even up to death, to preventable diseases like polio, whooping cough, measles etc too; I'd say it's a "greater good" kinda thing, small chance of complications if you take the vaccine, big chance of debilitating diseases for your child and people around them if you don't.
- bayesian_horse 9y agoMy point was, that in a situation with "herd immunity" even the unvaccinated have close to zero chance of infection. Without herd immunity, benefits of vaccination strictly dominate, even if you just consider the individual.
- hycaria 9y agoBut then again, since every medicine has side effects, I hope these parents have the same reasoning towards all of them, not only when it's "convenient" (considering the abysmally low side effects, I can't even consider vaccines that risky in the first place).
- bayesian_horse 9y agoI had hoped I made it clear enough that there is a rational case on the scale of an individual and a rational/moral case on the scale of society.