Childhood Vaccine Schedule Thoughts and Questions

3517 sats \ 86 comments \ @Undisciplined 30 Mar health

Right up front, I don't have super strong views about this topic. However, I do have an increasing number of questions, so I wanted to see what the SN ~health community knows about it.

Unless I really devote a significant chunk of time to unpacking all the competing claims, I don't think I have sufficient expertise to really evaluate the arguments. That's where it's nice to have access to thoughtful people with a decent range of opinions.

Issue 1

I had really not given childhood vaccines much thought until we were expecting our daughter and I read Emily Oster's great parenting books (reviews forthcoming). She describes how the vaccination schedule itself has not ever been subjected to any kind of testing. The individual vaccines have gone through safety and efficacy tests, but not any kind of optimization of timing of the vaccines or interactions between them. (I might not be remembering this perfectly since it was about five years ago.)

It sure seems like it would be important to do that kind of testing when we're talking about dozens of medical interventions during the most sensitive stages of development.

Issue 2

There's a hepatitis vaccine that often gets administered right after birth. I thought newborns weren't able to produce antibodies that young, so what's the point of that one? Also, unless the mom has that type of hepatitis, why would you expect a newborn to be exposed to it?

Issue 3

There's also an issue of why we're vaccinating really young kids for diseases long before they have any appreciable risk of exposure. I didn't get a rabies vaccine when I was a newborn, for instance (that waited until after a dog bit me in the Caribbean). Shouldn't timing be somewhat related to likelihood of exposure?

Issue 4

My operating assumption is that these vaccines do work pretty well (maybe extremely well) for preventing the diseases they're targeted at and, other than an alarming association with SIDS, I haven't seen much evidence that they are extremely dangerous. It does seem like they're over administered, though. They aren't completely harmless, so what's being accomplished by forcing kids to get them in communities that are well over the herd immunity thresholds? And making them get them so early in their development.

Issue 5

There's a pretty big moral hazard at the heart of the vaccine industry: legal immunity from liability. Most of you probably know this, but vaccine manufacturers were made immune from consumer lawsuits. My mantra is "Outcomes follow incentives" and those incentives stink. However safe and effective vaccines were when that was conferred, I can guarantee that they will become less safe in an environment free from liability.

Issue 6

During the Covid vaccine mandates I was giving more thought and attention to vaccine science. One of the biggest concerns I have now is that the proliferation of childhood vaccines has weakened general immunity. There's been a long known tradeoff between specific immunity, which is conferred by vaccines and prior infections, and general immunity, which is your body's adaptive system for dealing with pathogens.

I'm eager to hear every one's thoughts and to have the many errors I made pointed out.

view all related items

276 sats \ 11 replies \ @kr 30 Mar

the legal immunity from liability strikes me as a big red flag.

can someone make the case for why this immunity from consumer lawsuits should persist?

125 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined OP 30 Mar

I was trying to fashion this off of some of your great discussion starter posts. I feel like you do a really good job of getting into your questions and posing them succinctly. I still need to work on that.

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @kr 30 Mar

well done!

64 sats \ 4 replies \ @kepford 30 Mar

Because the companies pay off political figures and have a revolving door with regulators. Its sick.

73 sats \ 3 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 30 Mar

That's the real reason, imo, but the official rationale was that irrational anti-vaxxers could take down this entire vital public health industry through scientifically baseless lawsuits.

210 sats \ 2 replies \ @kepford 30 Mar

If their rationale were true that would mean the legal system is a failure. Its like when they talk about sin taxes and then reject the idea that taxes affect business and consumer behavior. When one pays attention long enough and uses consistent logic one comes to the conclusion they are full of it.

85 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined OP 30 Mar

You hear people make a similar case for granting immunity to Big Ag companies like Bayer (Monsanto).

My experience with jury selection certainly didn't leave me with a favorable impression of jurors, but liability is too important of a feedback mechanism to ever let someone operate without it.

62 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 30 Mar

This aligns with my jury experience and coming from an AG focused area I strongly believe the incentives are a big problem with AG.

61 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 30 Mar

It is a huge red flag. No treatment is free of risks. Safe is not a Boolean. Some people are at more risk with treatments than others. Medical decisions should never be coerced period. Its the ultimate violation of rights.

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 30 Mar

Immunity for vaccine industry

Sounds terrible

19 sats \ 1 reply \ @Lumor 31 Mar

I guess because it's a game of statistics. 0.01% or something are expected to have serious side effects, some death. "For the greater good of the collective".

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 31 Mar

That was the official reasoning. Basically, the civil suits from those outlier cases would make it not worthwhile to manufacture the vaccines at all.

327 sats \ 3 replies \ @duvel 30 Mar

I was never sceptic of childhood vaccines until the covid vaccines arrived. I wanted to know more about childhood vaccines and I read the first 2 chapters of Turtles All The Way Down: Vaccine Science and Myth that described in detail about it's never tested against a placebo, among others. That was for me the point to not take anymore vaccines for my kids.

30 sats \ 1 reply \ @Bell_curve 30 Mar

Clinical trials using children as subjects must be tricky and possibly unethical

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 30 Mar

That's a non-starter. You can't even use women in most clinical trials, because they might get pregnant. Clinical trial selection is actually a huge methodological rabbit hole, if you want to get into some really concerning weeds.

There are other experimental designs that could be used, though. One is what's called "Intent to Treat" where one group is given an extra reminder to keep up with the vaccine schedule. Then you use the difference in compliance rates to evaluate the schedule.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 30 Mar

By the time I had started looking into it we had already made most of our vaccine choices. With my current understanding, I would have spaced them out a little more and maybe pushed back stronger on a couple.

I'll keep that book in mind. I've been wanting a good resource for this.

290 sats \ 1 reply \ @BitcoinFreedomSiim 31 Mar

Did minimum schedule for my daughter. 3 year okd ones did not go good, luckily not much permanent damage but to see your child blue in front of you ( almost dead) I do not recommend to anybody.

Cant get this picture out of my brain.

Would not do any, if I could go back in time. Will regret this until I die. I felt I failed my family that lead to divorce.

Dr for sure say it is DNA etc. All bs.

My sister child 3rd month ones made her dayghter permanently disabled.

Covid ones who took, also good luck.

It has been a 200 years lie. Dont trust any dr anymore. Just my own common sense.

Good luck agreeing with your wife whst is best to do in your case.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 31 Mar

I'm sorry. That sounds terrifying.

I also vividly recall seeing my daughter's oxygen deprived face when she was a newborn. It is quite traumatic.

230 sats \ 1 reply \ @Signal312 31 Mar

I have huge regrets in regards to vaccination - in choosing to vaccinate, that is. And I never really perceived it as a choice. I just believed the standard message, and just accepted the vaccine schedule, etc.

Like I said, now I think that was a huge mistake. Covid sure reversed that line of thinking dramatically.

The funny thing is, I actually remember how I thought about vaccines, before covid. I thought parents who didn't vaccinate their kids were evil.

That thought didn't just bubble up in me spontaneously, it was planted there by the media I consumed. I seriously used to think up until a few years ago that "anti-vaxxers" were complete kooks. And now I'm one of them - not necessarily completely anti-vaccine, but definitely I regard them much, much more skeptically.

One resource to look at is Children's Health Defense - https://childrenshealthdefense.org/.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 31 Mar

I wouldn't say I'm quite at "huge regrets", but I relate to that pretty strongly.

In a way we were a little fortunate that during the pandemic wellness checkups were a little bit more spaced out and I always opted for the later options of follow up visit dates. That spaced the vaccines out a bit more, which was mostly what I wanted to do.

210 sats \ 2 replies \ @john_doe 31 Mar

Quick thought, my father is a (medical) doctor so I know somewhat the subject. Old medication does not produce big money. If I am in the business and want big money I need some shiny new medication. Shiny, new and untested or tested during a couple of years is best, old and thoroughly tested is bad because in terms of risk it is conservative and stops science to involve, it would also lead some pharmaceutical companies to bankruptcy. The human body is full of disease, incapable to recover naturally with old medication therefore for a cancer or similar disease we don't need to stop smoking for example, we need surgery. Now I think everyone should make their own opinion and I am pro-whatever-people-want (even war, chemical products in Vietnam or nuclear bomb, I believe I cannot oppose it just can merely influence friends).

So to sum up, although I am an extreme minority, and everyone will oppose that after watching the TV, humans can heal naturally without the need of the last best-in-class and industry-grade medication, vaccines are socially deeply accepted therefore opposing it is seen as an heresy and the scientific aspect is almost undisputable, even though from a scientific perspective we should be able to question it. So bottom line, vaccine are more of a social and economic tool rather than scientific tool, medical science is influenced by financial interests, and state sponsored medical checkups are also based on political and economic incentives, not on science.

Example based on a true story which I think is quite telling for the whole medical industry: I am in good shape, 65-70kg for 1m70, doing sports everyday and still I have been diagnosed with obesity and not doing sport by doctors after a mandatory medical checkup... My coworker called them to ask on what basis I was diagnosed with obesity, and someone else asked me if they didn't confused muscles with fat. Medical checkups are state sponsored so didn't lose my time to complain but even for a simple medical checkup, wasn't there some incentive to sell something?

20 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined OP 31 Mar

The financial aspect is the part that's hard to unsee once you see it. Many of these interventions seem to primarily benefit Big Pharma, rather than the kids receiving the interventions.

I remember someone pointing at that Michael Jordan, in the prime of his career, met the criteria for "obese". So, you're in ok company it seems.

19 sats \ 0 replies \ @john_doe 31 Mar

Interesting, didn't know that for Michael Jordan. To be fair on my report it was written keibi himan 軽微肥満, which means "slightly obese" in Japanese, but still, it was not true (unless we include muscular mass in the measurement).

211 sats \ 2 replies \ @Natalia 31 Mar

I don't have much experience or knowledge in this topic either, but I do know one of the good ways to judge if something is necessary by looking across cultures. e.g., Are ppl in other places also getting it? Or if they can live a healthy life without it, then the answer is NO.

That's how I judged the covid vaccine, I was still traveling during that time, and I was amazed in the Balkan countries, like nothing happened there, no masks, no lockdown, just people living their life, so I didn't do anything but stop reading any news.

77 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined OP 31 Mar

I didn't know that about the Balkans during Covid. We mostly only heard about Sweden and Japan as the dissenting countries.

19 sats \ 0 replies \ @Natalia 31 Mar

now you know. 👀

and I was taking notes on where it is more free even during those mad times.

53 sats \ 1 reply \ @watchmancbiz 29 Apr

Cancel it all & cure SIDS, Autism & more! 💥

5 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 29 Apr

There's really no good reason not to at least do a truly randomized experiment to find out. They could specifically limit participation to communities that are well above herd immunity.

61 sats \ 1 reply \ @DesertDave 6 Apr

I will never give my children vaccines. Its bad news in my opinion. There are red flags everywhere.

11 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 6 Apr

There are a lot of red flags. I'm glad the control group is getting a little bigger. That should help us better evaluate these things.

50 sats \ 2 replies \ @zapdrsurge 12 Apr

the word vaccine is derived from "cow." another way to say "cattle" or "chattel." instead of focusing on the term and the narrative, look at all of them as injectables. people are starting to look at the injected (or inhaled) liquid under a microscope and spectroscopy, and new questions arise. that is the inquisitive bitcoiner way.

it's also a lottery, imho. never know what u gonna get thru the needle from a certain batch.

after i saw a graph showing number of polio deaths was already on the decline when the injectable was rolled out, i started a deeper dive on the topic.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined OP 12 Apr

It's definitely a much more complicated situation than they want us to think.

50 sats \ 0 replies \ @zapdrsurge 12 Apr

if what i suspect is going on is true, it is so insane and irreversible (i.e. no going back) that most people will either dismiss it as crazy, quietly accept their fate, or get super panicky. any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. new technology can be used for good or bad, it's true, and this one has some potential to be good, somehow. however, the number of power-hungry wrong-doing people in the world with access to such technology is worrisome.

511 sats \ 32 replies \ @oliverweiss 30 Mar

I understand your concerns. I think this chart can give yet another perspective.

The life expectancy increased dramatically exactly because we could save the little ones. With vaccines. One of the greatest inventions ever. Now, with all this anti vaccination stuff we see child diseases in the developed world we haven’t seen for a while.

73 sats \ 7 replies \ @BitcoinIsTheFuture 30 Mar

This! As a parent these ARE the facts and I agree you can do research, but many vaccines have and will saves children’s lives.

0 sats \ 6 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 30 Mar

Why lump them all together though? Not every disease is very risky or even likely to be encountered, but every vaccine has known risks.

It seems like there's both an aggregation error and a myopic focus of the harms on one side of the ledger, while ignoring the harms on the other.

Where's the assessment of tradeoffs? Risk-benefit analysis?

21 sats \ 5 replies \ @oliverweiss 30 Mar

What do you mean by lump them all together? As far as I know there is always a “vaccine holiday” in between.

100 sats \ 3 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 30 Mar

I mean conceptually. Saying that vaccines save kids lives is a blanket statement that puts all vaccines in the same category category.

For instance, small-pox and chicken-pox are very different. Just because the small-pox vaccine has saved an incredible number of lives, does not mean anything about the value of the chicken-pox vaccine.

29 sats \ 2 replies \ @oliverweiss 31 Mar

What is the difference from getting a small load from a vaccine than a load from another kid, e.g., at a chickenpox party? If we talk about chickenpox vaccine specifically. Btw., chickenpox vaccine is optional and given much later, at least where I live.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined OP 31 Mar

The differences are however the risks of the vaccine compare to the risks of chicken pox. I'm not an expert on that, but I am confident that the difference between those two things is smaller for chicken pox than it is for small pox.

Some vaccines are great, some are marginal, some are harmful for certain people. My point is that making blanket statements about how great vaccines are omits all nuance on the topic.

19 sats \ 0 replies \ @oliverweiss 31 Mar

This is it: some are harmful for certain people. And I would emphasize the word certain here.

reply on another page

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @BitcoinIsTheFuture 30 Mar

Yup exactly it’s a big bundle!

119 sats \ 4 replies \ @john_doe 31 Mar

The chart shows the child mortality rate from 1800 until 2021. It doesn't show anything about vaccines. As the well-known saying, correlation is not causality. However as far as I know child mortality is correlated to hygiene like hand washing.

20 sats \ 3 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 31 Mar

Also, wealthier families can afford better medical treatments, so their kids survive infections more often.

It would be much more informative to see when some of the big vaccines were introduced, so that we could see if it corresponds to anything on the graph.

19 sats \ 2 replies \ @john_doe 1 Apr

Indeed. I tried to find a date of introduction of vaccines in Brazil and found the seventies according to one English source. So my very quick conclusion was that there is not even correlation in his graph. However just one random source is not enough and it was not an official source in Portuguese so I am not sure. For transparency my source is: https://www.scielo.br/j/csp/a/XxZCT7tKQjP3V6pCyywtXMx/?lang=en It says 1973, but it would require more investigation to be sure.

20 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined OP 1 Apr

And really you'd want to know when some threshold of adoption had been reached.

19 sats \ 0 replies \ @john_doe 1 Apr

Indeed.

20 sats \ 1 reply \ @Bell_curve 30 Mar

It depends on the vaccine which vary in safety and efficacy

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 30 Mar

That's a point I should have included. The conversation is so universal that "vaccines are safe and effective" that people don't even discuss how safe and how effective (and what exactly the side effects are) of each one.

As kepford noted, "safe" and "effective" are not Boolean, they're scalars.

336 sats \ 8 replies \ @clr 30 Mar

Of course, widespread clean running water, sewage and vast improvements in cleanliness and sanitation have absolutely nothing to do with reductions in infant mortality. /s

63 sats \ 6 replies \ @Bell_curve 30 Mar

It’s probably the biggest factor

83 sats \ 5 replies \ @oliverweiss 30 Mar

Not at all. Consider smallpox as an example, it was not eradicated because of sanitation or whatnot, but vaccine! Unfortunately this is the only disease eradicated to date.

73 sats \ 4 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 30 Mar

They got pretty close with Polio, but now that's reemerging, possibly in part because people are getting it from the vaccines.

81 sats \ 1 reply \ @oliverweiss 31 Mar

Maybe, maybe not. It sounds strange to me however: we got it almost eradicated using vaccines but now the vaccines cause its reemergence? I would say it is because of insufficient collective immunity.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 31 Mar

I'm certainly not an expert, but you can read up on the phenomenon here if you want to. The search I did just now indicates that it's a well recognized phenomenon.

The situation is that the vaccine has a very small chance of actually creating polio in the recipient and since the disease had been nearly eliminated many current cases are from the vaccines.

29 sats \ 1 reply \ @anon 31 Mar

People do get it from vaccines. The only polio vaccine that prevents you from giving it to others is live polio. If you give a bunch of people the live polio vaccine, some of them will get polio. Since polio hardly exists in the wild anymore, as we're close to eradicating it with the polio vaccine, the main way people get polio is the polio vaccine.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 31 Mar

That's what I recall having read, too.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @oliverweiss 30 Mar

Of course, it does!

0 sats \ 4 replies \ @Taurus 31 Mar

I was looking for this comment thx to reminding us about it. Such a shame that some people lack of trust (generally in institutions and big companies) make them think vaccines, doctors, etc. are bad. I can understand why tho Bad individual economics, misinformation, abuses due to ultracapitalistic policies .. I just want to remind that lot of psychological studies show that our minds fell really easily into conspiracy. Mainly because it’s the easiest way to explain something. Our brains prefer to be lazy.

100 sats \ 3 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 31 Mar

I'd remind you that I didn't say anything about conspiracy theories and you said nothing about anything I actually said.

As you said, "Our brains prefer to be lazy."

19 sats \ 1 reply \ @Taurus 31 Mar

Wasn’t about you but against all those internet people who think they are different or see things better than specialists. Anyway, I encourage you to talk with more professionals/experts if you didn’t studied it. And be aware that even antivax theories serve another purpose than really searching “truth” or secret “health”.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 31 Mar

Does it cause you any concern that no one on the "Pro Vax" side had an answer for any of the issues I brought up?

We're talking about dozens of medical interventions during the earliest stages of development and it doesn't seem like anyone who supports them knows much about it. I would think the burden would be on the pro-intervention side to have answers for concerns about the interventions.

I have talked to professionals and specialists about this and they are often unaware of this information or other basic facts that you'd think were relevant. The problem with living in a censorious bubble is that you don't find out what the actual criticisms of your position are.

Notice that I'm not pushing a particular position in this post. My hope was to find out that I was missing something.

I'm very familiar with this kind of situation, from my own academic work that often touches on politically charged topics. Most "experts" in those areas have no clue what the counterarguments/critiques/questions are from "the other side" either.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Taurus 31 Mar

deleted by author

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @zuspotirko 31 Mar

Exactly. Progress is good. E/acc.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined OP 30 Mar

I appreciate that. Like I said, I do believe they are effective at preventing their target illness. I would much rather every child got these vaccines than no child got them, but I'm interested in whether we're making the right assessments at the margins.

Also, it's not clear how much of the decline to attribute to vaccines since the trend predates these vaccines.

I think it's misguided to conclude we're under vaccinating just because there are some occurrences of the disease. We have to know how to weigh those instances of infection against whatever the costs would be to vaccinate enough kids to have prevented it.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @duvel 31 Mar

If every child took the vaccine, then there would be no placebo control group.

30 sats \ 1 reply \ @clr 30 Mar

Thanks for posting this.

I have a question regarding this part:

There's also an issue of why we're vaccinating really young kids for diseases long before they have any appreciable risk of exposure. I didn't get a rabies vaccine when I was a newborn, for instance (that waited until after a dog bit me in the Caribbean). Shouldn't timing be somewhat related to likelihood of exposure?

What is the rationale for getting a vaccine after exposure? Someone please explain it to me.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 30 Mar

I don't think it makes sense for most things. Rabies has a slow enough incubation that if you get vaccinated within a couple of days your immune system can win the race.

I was thinking more of things like the hepatitis B vaccine or anything that isn't common in your area. It makes more sense to me to follow the same logic people use when traveling: get vaccinated for dangerous illnesses shortly before going somewhere that might expose you to the disease.

52 sats \ 5 replies \ @freetx 30 Mar

My kids were not vaccinated. All are healthy.

YMMV

16 sats \ 4 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 30 Mar

I'm glad to hear it. One of my concerns is how we're increasingly vaccinating against diseases that aren't very risky in the first place. It seems like it's better to have those circulating than whatever new thing will replace them.

30 sats \ 2 replies \ @freetx 30 Mar

That was precisely the conversation I had with the Dr.

"So whats the real downsides if kids get chicken pox?"

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 30 Mar

I'm old enough to have experienced "pox parties". It had been common knowledge that chicken pox is not dangerous to most kids.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 30 Mar

There were chicken pox parties during the old days

9 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 30 Mar

Like covid?

Most covid fatalities were age 80 plus

20 sats \ 5 replies \ @DudeJLebowski 31 Mar

Compare the amount of childhood vaccines in the US vs other developed nations, along with the childhood disease stats and you'll quickly reach the conclusion that the vaccine industrial complex in the US is out of control.

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @zuspotirko 31 Mar

In terms of money? Yes. In terms of childhood mortality compared to underdeveloped nations. No.

100 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 31 Mar

You're moving the goal posts. He said "US vs other developed nations".

19 sats \ 1 reply \ @zuspotirko 31 Mar

True. But the difference between US and other developed countries isn't big if you ignore the money aspect (including using comparable demographics money wise)

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 31 Mar

That's why I asked my follow up question (below). I don't know what the comparisons are like between developed countries.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 31 Mar

Can you elaborate on that? I was hoping someone bring some international perspectives into this conversation.

20 sats \ 1 reply \ @Bell_curve 30 Mar

How many vaccines are on the schedule?

Hepatitis B vaccine seems unnecessary for a child.

Hepatitis A is only a problem you live in a state or country that lacks sanitation

Measles, mumps, rubella ?

I think a tetanus shot is a good one for adults

Sometimes schools require certain vaccines etc

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 30 Mar

I'm not sure, exactly. The number RFK Jr was ludicrously inflated. I think it's about two dozen injections, but some of those are part of a sequence for the same disease.

19 sats \ 2 replies \ @Coinsreporter 1 Apr

This is what we have here in India.

the

11 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined OP 1 Apr

Isn't Bill Gates in serious legal trouble in India for some vaccine he pushed on you all?

19 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinsreporter 1 Apr

Yes, it was for some covid vaccination fault from Serum + Bill Gates

19 sats \ 0 replies \ @konstantin21 31 Mar

went through this with our infant as well and decided against it. pretty sure he got rotovirus which sucked for a week and a half but not worth the vax. the only one that has given me pause is tetanus since our kid is an extreme risk taker.