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Comment by Angostura | Hacker News Reader

> In France, for instance, 41 percent of those surveyed said vaccines are not safe — more than three times the global average of 12 percent.

That’s a pretty astonishing statistic

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A few months ago, I heard people in the break room at work - educated software engineers in Silicon Valley - saying the same thing and nodding their heads sagely. It was hard for me to say something in opposition without losing my temper or insulting anyone.

Not really. "Safe" is a feeling. Unless you define it in some study as a % risk of something bad happening, it is not defined. It is similar to saying that 41 percent of those surveyed felt some uneasiness about taking vaccines. That does not seem really astonishing.

One should be a bit nervous when putting things in your body that are strange enough to change your immune system. Doesn't mean you shouldn't get over those feeling and get you and your kids vaccinated. Maybe this anti-vax movement is largely sustained by the "follow you feelings, reason will fool you" philosophy that seems to be ascendant at the moment.

The anti-vax movement as well as some of the things going on around genetically modified good or even just plain old organic foods frequently remind me of the anti-vax technology couple that Pirsig starts his motorcycle trip with in "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance". There are so many things all around us that most people don't understand and people are overwhelmed and tired from it resulting in this somewhat delusional pushback against modernity. We are building nostalgia and longing for a past that never existed because we don't want to have modernity which also isn't as esthetically pleasing as the made up, idyllically past.

Well, it's because of the government that once lied to the population on this subject. And, here we think that the vaccine is not safe, but the benefits are worth the small risk. But there is also a bunch of idiots thinking it's better to not get vaccinated and don't vaccinate their childrens.

"Well, it's because of the government that once lied to the population on this subject."

Can you elaborate on this? It's a strong claim and I'd be interested to know exactly what you mean.

Generally vaccines are fairly safe, however the government has created numerous incentives for their to be a lack of accountability, thus its to be expected that safety will fall over time. Specifically, they made it illegal to sue vaccine companies (making it so you must go to special vaccine court with predefined minimal damage awards).

Have you ever wondered why you see "get your vaccine shots" at every grocery you go in to? Its precisely because its almost risk free for big pharma. Those that have permanent or fatal reactions have little recourse.

Imagine trying to create a startup company whose business model was you were injecting strangers with some substance you created and your pitch was "we can just inject this into everyone at the local Walmart"...think that idea would get past the lawyers? Easy to do if you get congress to pass laws saying you will be held harmless.

Here is the original paper where the statistics about vaccination sentiment come from:

“The State of Vaccine Confidence 2016: Global Insights Through a 67-Country Survey”

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S235239641...

In 2009 Franch Governement allowed to bypass mandatory checks for the H1N1 flu vaccine and it made a lot of controversy. A lot of people remember the controversy today, and are suspicious.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_controversies#Swine_fl...

The link you've posted doesn't include anything about the government allowing the vaccine to bypass mandatory checks. It just says there was a controversy about its potential safety. You need to link to something that backs up your main claim.

But they're not safe. Like any kind of medication, there's a risk of hidden effects or bad reaction that could and do happen. Rather than trying to lie, I think it's better to be honest about the possible side effects, and communicate about the nasty diseases we don't have to deal with thanks to those vaccines. Most anti-vaccines are stuck on the possible danger of vaccine, and aren't balancing it with all the benefits that come because we forgot how bad those diseases were.

The risk is something on the order of 1 child per million dies (or gets a lasting severe outcome, IIRC). That's ~4 children per year in the US, traded for the lives of millions.

Calling them safe is an abstraction that simplifies the conversation. Seat belts are meant to keep you alive at all costs. Often they're very damaging. But calling them unsafe muddies the conversation.

The biggest danger that the anti-vaxxers focus on, autism supposedly caused by vaccines, is based on a discredited paper published by a now-discredited researcher. It has no basis in fact.

No one is denying that there is a chance of a bad reaction or side effects. Safety is always relative, and vaccination is a lot safer than non-vaccination.

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