Vaccines are rigorously tested and monitored and are among the safest medical products we use. Millions of vaccinations are given to children and adults in the United States each year. Serious adverse reactions are rare. However, because of the high volume ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
The thing is, pretty much every child is given the MMR vaccine. It is required by most schools to even attend. So while just prior to the vaccination being made public, there were about 450,000 reported cases of the measles (about 400 deaths that year), the MMR vaccine is given to 3 to 4 million children every year. There are numerous complications, many of them quite serious, that have a relatively rare chance of happening which is magnified by the sheer volume of shots being given out. There were 500 million doses administered in 100 different countries in 2003 (I think). Maybe not with the measles, but there are vaccines where the dangers are worse with the vaccine than the disease it is supposed to prevent. The chicken pox vaccine, for example, is more dangerous than the chicken pox.
Don't get me wrong. My issue with the MMR vaccine isn't necessarily the safety of it. I do think it is generally safer than the measles, but I don't think it is as effective as getting the measles. It doesn't build up your immune system as effectively or as permanently. In a first world country with access to decent medical care, the measles are not very risky at all. I think there have been 700 cases on the measles in 2019 so far, and zero deaths from it. I think that the vaccine isn't very good at doing its job, and represents a large scale science experiment that we are performing on our children, and our species' future.
I'm still not sure what your ideal situation is. If you really think that the MMR vaccine is more dangerous than actual measles itself, would you prefer that the MMR vaccine be discontinued, and that people get exposed to the actual disease naturally instead of the vaccine because the actual disease is not that harmful, and because it confers lifetime immunity?
First, I don't think the MMR vaccine is more dangerous than the measles. You might suffer more consequences (some very bad), but it is absolutely true that the measles leads to more directly attributable deaths and MMR. I think the MMR vaccine is relatively ineffective over a long period of time, so I'm not sure if those complications are ultimately worth the trade off since we'll all probably get measles anyway in the next couple years as the vaccines wear off.
I'd like a few things.
1) I'd like the vaccines to be studied in more detail. Right now, the effectiveness of vaccines is only compared against other vaccines. There's been no studies, that I've seen, that compare a vaccinated population to an unvaccinated population when it comes to testing the potential side effects. For instance, if you have a group of kids with the MMR vaccine and a group of kids without it, how many of them get GBS or autism. I'd also like to see a comparison between when kids the vaccines and whether effects are more pronounced when multiple vaccines are given at the same time (like MMR). To be clear, I don't think vaccines cause autism, but I'm not sure how anyone can say for sure when they don't compare against a control group. The fact that it is impossible to find an unvaccinated control group these days, I consider a problem.
2) I'd like vaccines to be reclassified. They are currently classified as a biological agent rather than medicine, and are not required to go through the battery of tests that medicine has to before being released to the public. This was initially done in an effort to cut the red tape and get vaccinations out to the populace quicker, but right now, there are, I believe, 36 mandatory vaccinations for all children that have not ever been properly tested. And in a few cases where they were, the pharmaceutical companies were caught falsifying the studies. It should also be pointed out that the person in charge of the CDC when the MMR vaccine was approved now works for the company that makes it, and a whistleblower has come out and said that they hid studies and data under this leadership. He had a paper trail going back a decade, so it wasn't a sudden change of heart or something made up.
3) I'd like to see vaccinations only when it is of vital importance. Chicken pox doesn't need a vaccine, and the HPV vaccine may actually increase cases of cervical cancer that it is supposed to prevent. Like I said, 36 mandatory vaccinations, and I'm not sure that the majority of them should be mandatory. In fact, I'd like to see all vaccinations be optional, just because the concept of mandatory medicine seems absurd to me. I suspect that the vast majority of people would choose the vaccinations without the threat of law or ostracization trying to influence them. The more you push people, the more they push back, and I think you'd see adoption of vaccinations go up if people felt like it was their decision to do it.
4) I'd like to see the spite with which anti-vaxxers are treated to be softened somewhat. The idea that they are harming herd immunity and thus putting the entire nation at risk is paranoia, as is the belief that the measles is basically a death sentence. I'd like to see people be a little bit more aware of the actual dangers of these diseases, to the point that they are acting a reasonable, educated adults and not as scared little children. Right now, people are taking the religious exemption on vaccinations because they believe they are helping their children, but it's an all or nothing situation. While they might be willing to do some vaccinations, the way it works is the second you take one, you have to take all the mandatory vaccinations. Doctors are afraid to recommend against vaccinations, afraid they'll lose their licenses or get branded as quacks. Just recently, New York banned unvaccinated kids from public, and when that failed, decided to start fining the parents $1,000. Someone will have to explain to me how we can treat our fellow humans with such absolute contempt simply because they choose which chemicals they put in their children's bodies.
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