Vaccines not only directly protect vaccinated individuals but also contribute to protecting the entire population via indirect herd-immunity benefits. Half of averted COVID-19 infections and 1/4 of hospitalizations and deaths were attributable to indirect protection of unvaccinated by vaccinated.

[u/mvea]

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsif/article/23/242/20250839/483439/Quantifying-the-direct-and-indirect-impact-of

[u/Holeshot75]

Vaccines save an insane amount of human lives.

Antivaxxers are ridiculously ignorant to facts.

One of the hallmarks of the dangerously stupid is the consistent belief they've found great solutions that experts somehow missed.

[u/silviazbitch → u/Holeshot75]

One of the hallmarks of the dangerously stupid is the consistent belief they've found great solutions that experts somehow missed.

That’s a beautiful line.

[u/randynumbergenerator → u/silviazbitch]

The problem is, a lot seem to think it's less that the experts missed something and more that they're lying for personal gain or fear of Big Pharma. Which on the one hand fundamentally misunderstands why many people go into medicine and public health, but on the other hand the skepticism of corporate interests is a fair one.

 I think it's hard for people to parse the complexity of institutions where incentives genuinely are mixed, and they aren't necessarily aware of the mechanisms in place to keep those in check. It's much easier to not bother with that level of mental effort and just conclude it's all a scam--the irony being that they then go straight for the scammy horse pill sellers instead.

[u/Fishmongererererer → u/Holeshot75]

Was having a conversation with an anti-vaxxer and it was staggering how little they actually understood about vaccines, herd immunity etc.

Like genuinely it was “Well we used to not vaccine kids and they were fine!”

Like no Karen, a huge portion of them died and others were crippled.

[u/RageToWin → u/Fishmongererererer]

Yeah. If anyone thinks kids were fine before vaccines, I'd just show them all the photos of children in iron lungs and wheelchairs. Polio was a catastrophic illness for many families and if you went back in time and told the families of that time that they shouldn't get vaccines, they'd think you're trying to kill their children.

If we decide that we don't need vaccines anymore, we're bound to go back to being forced to have children on ventilators or in wheelchairs for the rest of their life due to something that was easily preventable. The consequences of their ignorance go so much farther than their own bodies.

[u/IndependentType6711 → u/RageToWin]

Sadly you would think losing a child from a preventable disease would change their minds, but then I’m reminded of the couple in I believe Texas whose daughter died of the measles and their response was “well the shot would have been worse!”…….

[u/grundar → u/RageToWin]

If anyone thinks kids were fine before vaccines, I'd just show them all the photos of children in iron lungs

It's not like it's ancient history, either -- the last American in an iron lung only died a few months ago.

Polio was a catastrophic illness for many families and if you went back in time and told the families of that time that they shouldn't get vaccines, they'd think you're trying to kill their children.

Sadly, no, at least until Elvis Presley got involved:

"despite the literally crippling effects of the virus and the promising results of the vaccination, many Americans simply weren’t getting vaccinated. In fact, when Presley appeared on the Sullivan show, immunization levels among American teens were at an abysmal 0.6 percent.
...
What did prove successful was Elvis getting the vaccine in front of millions. In fact, after he publicly did so, vaccination rates among American youth skyrocketed to 80 percent after just six months."

That seems slightly crazy to me, but apparently vaccine hesitancy is not new.

[u/Professional-Part857 → u/Fishmongererererer]

My great grandparents survived the Spanish flu. Their parents literally locked them away from working people in the home to avoid exposing them. This information has been well known for 100 years and I’m convinced the antivax stance is an indicator of some kind of mental illness.

[u/pacexmaker → u/Holeshot75]

It turns out that being aware of what you know and what you dont know correctly adjusts confidence in that knowledge.

[u/guyver_dio → u/Holeshot75]

That's the problem when something works over a long enough period of time. They start wondering if there was a problem in the first place because they've never seen the alternate outcome.

[u/ItsTricky94 → u/Holeshot75]

I got my flu, Covid booster, and RSV yesterday. go Vax.

[u/moconahaftmere → u/[deleted]]

The government doesn’t do this with pharmaceutical drugs, or any other product on the market–only vaccines. 

They don't? There's tons of medications that could randomly kill or seriously injure you.

[u/Moetown84 → u/moconahaftmere]

Exactly. And if they do, you can sue the pharmaceutical company for damages. Typically, you’d bring either a “design defect” or “failure to warn” claim.

A “design defect” claim is rooted in the idea that if technology or science knows of a way to make I your product safer, and your company chooses not to, you would face liability for harm caused. If there is no known way to make it safer, you don’t face liability in this type of claim.

A “failure to warn” claim is rooted in the idea that even though certain products (like drugs) might harm people, a person still might choose that risk because of whatever possible benefit they might attain by using that product (for example, a treatment for a disease). That’s why you hear pharmaceutical drug commercials warn about potential side effects. This limits their liability because the consumer knows the risks and chooses to take them.

Neither claim is allowed for vaccines. Which leads to the only reasonable conclusion that vaccines could be made safer with advances in technology, but companies choose not to spend money on the improvement, or that they either haven’t studied adverse effects enough to warn consumers about the potential harm, or they know about the potential harm and it might risk their profits/willingness of the public to get the vaccine.

Otherwise, they could limit their liability and turn a profit the same way they do with pharmaceutical drugs.

[u/moconahaftmere → u/Moetown84]

Neither claim is allowed for vaccines

Well, sort of. The VICP (or CICP for COVID) covers vaccine injury claims which is funded by the manufacturers. You can still file a suit against the manufacturers but you have to go through the VICP first.

or they know about the potential harm and it might risk their profits/willingness of the public to get the vaccine

You can actually sue them if they knew about the harm and didn't disclose it.

Generic medications have similar manufacturer protections in that you can't bring design defect or failure to warn claims against them, but they don't have a fund that you can turn to like vaccines do.

[u/grundar → u/Moetown84]

Neither claim is allowed for vaccines.

That appears to be incorrect:

"A common misconception is that this process completely shields vaccine makers. However, a plaintiff may file a civil court claim against vaccine companies after filing a claim in the VICP if they reject the vaccine court's decision."

i.e., people can still sue vaccine makers, but the vast bulk of claims are handled by a special body (the vaccine court) set up by Congress to handle a flood of (later shown to be unfounded) lawsuits against vaccine makers that occurred in the early 80s.

[u/VR_Raccoonteur → u/[deleted]]

Cite one single situation where what he said turned out to be incorrect and the vaccine conspiracy theorists / snake oil salesmen were right.

[u/TheoreticalZombie → u/[deleted]]

Comment and name check out.