No longer necessary? Is that why those diseases that were eradicated decades ago have made such a comeback? See what happened when people started thinking "We don't need this, measles is history"

It's good to question, especially where our children are concerned. But all you have to do as a rational adult is to look around and see just how many children you know PERSONALLY dying of those preventable diseases. Not many I'd assume.

It is also not mandatory because we have virtually eliminated smallpox from the world with vaccines.

It's no longer neccesarey because it's been eradicated worldwide. The disease has been wiped of the face of the planet, a credit to vaccination policy.

They're generally safe, though some flu vaccines, for example, may be bad for people who have egg allergies because of the way it is produced. Healthcare professionals who administer this type of vaccine ask their patients if they have allergies before administering the shot.

Wow. That was quite an testimonial you just gave for the value of widespread plague. Think of all the damage we have done to society by wiping out smallpox instead of cultivating a (much smaller) society of strong survivors. Ah, the good old days.

But that holds for nearly all medical intervention. Curing diseases, fertility treatments, all these things interfere with natural selection... but then, they make for their own natural selection. And with vaccines, we as a species hadn't been particularly good at evolving a natural immunity to any of those diseases,…

If you really want to be concerned, do a Google image search for the diseases your kid is being vaccinated against.

Not shooting people who think children should be allowed to die for the good of the species into the sun allows these malignant, anti-altruisitc genes survive when they would otherwise naturally have been ejected from the community as useless resource hogging jerks. That means the genetic disposition to argue that…

I keep hearing about these "new" vaccines, but I have yet to hear anybody actually name the new unsafe vaccine.

It is a perspective, thats for sure, but it ignores the positives of genetic diversity. It may keep a 'weakness' in the gene pool for future generations, but it also might (unbeknownst to us) keep a strength as well. Who knows, maybe people that are naturally susceptible to measles will be immune to super aids

There are several counter points to that argument.

Vaccines created for mass production and distribution are not without potentially debilitating side effects, by far the most common being a severe allergic reaction (which itself is extremely uncommon, but enough of a concern that sometimes people are asked to hang around for 15 minutes following injection). But the…

Hey, don't worry, you're way ahead, you have a two month old child who can read! ;)

Thimerosal has no causal link with Autism. Here is a handy literature search and summary of the various studies out there:

In general, yes.

All medical care is emotional. There's no scientific basis for saving human lives because value is entirely subjective. And anyway, in a few decades we'll be able to engineer away most of the genetic defects you seem to care about.

All medicine, and all treatments, cures, etc. do the exact same thing. We've decided that sabotaging natural selection might not be so bad when the alternative is having to medicate or treat more living, functional humans than leaving people to die for things we can prevent or alleviate.

If someone wants to reject the facts, that's their business, in a free country

If someone wants to reject the facts, that's their business, in a free country.