General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Neil DeGrasse Tyson Tells Bill Maher That Anti-Science Liberals Are Full of Shit Too [View all]Fast Walker 52
(7,723 posts)to be clear, I am not against vaccines.
But also I think you have granted my point that vaccines can cause side-effects in some people.
From the beginning, I was merely making the point that science says we should continue to study the side-effects of vaccines, and of course any new vaccine needs to be evaluated for safety.
There is a legitimate academic hypothesis that vaccines pre-dispose to allergic immune responses by inducing a type of T cell response that also promote allergies. Because the incidence of allergies and asthma has soared in recent decades. There are of course other hypotheses, such as the hygiene hypothesis, for the increase in allergies and asthma, but I don't think at the current time, we can rule out a role for vaccination.
The thing that bothers me, as an academic, is we have this ridiculous vaccine debate in this country, where you either have to believe vaccines are the best thing ever, or you are a dangerous anti-vaxxer. And you can never question the safety of vaccines! Witness this thread. But the truth is much more nuanced.
Yes, I can understand why the public health community wants to promote the idea that vaccines never cause any problems, because they want everyone to get them and to induce herd immunity, etc. But there is a propaganda aspect to it that still bothers me.
"I frankly doubt that you're a tenured professor of immunology, because I hate the thought that an accredited university would pay money for someone with such a foolish notion of science."
I think it's *you* who doesn't understand science.