I'm posting in response to this diary:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
I understand that you have concerns about vaccinations. I'm going to take you seriously and give you a serious response. Here is the crux of the above diary:
Since 1988, they have paid out claims for over 1,500 deaths attributable to vaccines. There have been 14,500 additional claims paid out to injury, but not death.
Here's the problem with that. Those numbers are tiny. 1,500 over a 32 year period. To prove it, here is data from Measles:
During 1971-75, an average of 35.4 measles-related deaths were recorded each year; one death for every 1,000 measles cases reported.
35.4*32 = 1,133 US deaths from Measles alone (drastically under represented because population has increased and become more concentrated in urban areas) and my napkin math is about the rosiest number you'll find anywhere:
According to the WHO, the measles vaccine prevented about 15.6 million deaths from 2000 to 2013. Childhood measles remains a leading cause of blindness in developing countries. In places like Haiti, Bangladesh and sub-Saharan Africa, the measles vaccine led to an overall mortality reduction of between 30 and 86 percent from 1970 onward, according to a paper published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases by Drs. Robert Perry and Neal Halsey.
http://www.newsweek.com/...
So 1 disease almost meets (or completely blows away) your total. I could look up mumps and rubella but let's be honest, these aren't the bad ones:
http://www.cdc.gov/...
The Polio vaccines showed up around 1952-1957. We went from an average of about (5 year napkin math) 1883 dead in the US per year to 0. That's more than your 32 year total every single year. In the 32 years you measured the polio vaccine saved 60,275 US lives. All of the diseases we are vaccinating against kill people. We know this because they are killing people right now who aren't getting vaccinated.
None of this information was hard to find or figure out. The problem with saying that you want to have a conversation about this is that the conversation has already been had. It's been had over and over. The jury is out, has been for years now, you just haven't read the verdict. Just because you don't know the answer doesn't mean there isn't one or that there's doubt about it or that we need to keep going over it again and again. Especially not when the answer is so easy to just go find. Willful ignorance is not an excuse to put other people in mortal danger.