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.