I know nothing about an anti-vaccination movement. I’m happily signing up for the anti-pharmaceutical cartel movement though.

If I knew these scientists were actually independent thinkers and were researching for the sake of research, I’d be all for it. But they never find a solution. They always seem to find a disease that is just about to blow up and be a major issue. Then right afterwards one of the multinational pharmaceuticals announces that they have a solution, if you can pay the price.

The scientists are not conducting research, they are justifying a business plan. If they were actually practicing science, I’d defend them tooth and nail.

Let’s stick with your software analogy. Imagine my web software only ran on a special computer, and I was the only person that sold that computer. And that computer cost a $#%load of money.

There’s absolutely no conflict of interest or ethical quandary if I make a buck, right? Nope, that makes perfect sense, we call it capitalism!

Medical industry is not the same though. There are ethics and standards that are supposed to be practiced and they aren’t. Two questions for you then:

1) When the WHO announced that swine flu was a pandemic, did you notice the immediate press release from the pharmas that they already had a fix that was in trials? Timing is everything, what a coincidence…

2) Speaking of the swine flu, do you know where it came from? And the vaccine, how much profit did that turn? Was there not enough profit to justify helping impoverished nations combat the outbreak? I mean, the outbreak was bad enough to be called a pandemic right?

Back to the statement of ‘mindless vaccination’ – when the pharmaceuticals are bankrolling the researchers, and the solution always happens to be a product that is in a TRILLION dollar industry, something is up.

I’m a computer scientist, and it would be totally hypocritical for me to be anti-scientist. This isn’t science though. This is economics, and for the medical industry that is extremely questionable.

Here’s some independent research from someone that was NOT bankrolled by a pharma:

http://www.neiu.edu/~agkanali/ACTG450/Pharma.html

Hopefully you will at least understand my cynicism.

To me, it sounds like you don’t trust scientists. You say you’re against ‘mindless vaccination’ as if the general population is equipped with the skills to comb through the data and come to the correct conclusion. You can liken it to me looking over some of your code and hoping to understand what it does — I can’t, because I’m not an expert in the field.

An anti-vaccinationist would shudder if I told them I trust the consensus of the scientific community. And it is a consensus. We’re not talking about one scientist who comes out of his basement and wants to inject you with a strange substance — no one would want to be injected by that guy. We’re talking about a global community of scientists. They’ve done the research, and they agree that vaccines work.

That’s why I said the anti-vaccination movement is a conspiracy movement. If you don’t think vaccines work, then you’re saying that this community of scientists is conspiring against the public. Either that, or you have the extreme hubris to say that their data is wrong. That’s me combing through your code and saying it won’t make a website, even though you, and all your programmer colleagues, assure me it will.

My blog numbers are down after posting on the subject.

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/10/a-short-history-of-vaccine-panic/

Although it is good to discredit everyone on either side that is not factual – one gets the feeling at the end that nobody really knows for sure. Hrmph.

Any good links that are NOT sponsored by the usual suspects, something that can be taken at face value?

Perhaps you misunderstood my intent, as I’m not pro- or anti- just sick of the FUD. After re-reading my post, it does look like I’m bashing vaccination, however I’m really intending to bash _mindless_ vaccination. The curse of Generation X, maybe

Flu shots are safe. I don’t advocate putting any old fluid in your body because science comes up with it. I’m suggesting we need to use our heads and in this case getting kids protected is important. Maybe we just need to agree to disagree.