To clarify:

Not, however, enough that I want to risk my (grand)childrens’ lives, brains, etc. to the chance if I can help it.

I.E.:

I am not about to gamble my (grand)childrens’ health etc. on a 90% effective vaccine if I have any reasonable chance of improving the odds with herd immunity or (ideally) disease eradication. On the other hand, relying exclusively on herd immunity is insane as well as immoral [1].

Both you and I have smallpox vaccination scars [2]. Not a nice vaccine, but well worth the chance we took. I remember taking the Sabin sugar cube when it first came out and everyone stood in line for it. I recently got an IPV booster prior to visiting India, but we don’t need the OPV in the USA any more.

Good riddance.

Someday soon nobody will need the OPV. Some time after that, we won’t need the IPV. That will be a great day. Maybe my great-grandchildren won’t need MMR either.

In the meantime, keeping vaccination rates high is the best protection any of us can have — and the categorical imperative applies even if one believes (as I don’t) that parasitic reliance on others’ keeping up herd immunity is the best of both worlds.

[1] Barring specific contraindications such as egg allergy or immunosuppression.
[2] Wear it proudly. One of the nastier vaccinations and well worth it.

How is this different from, say, deciding that your method of driving, which is decidedly dangerous for others, pays off for you some how (thus benefiting the grandchildren, of course) so you justify a few more traffic fatalities because some five to 15 percent of drivers do it your way?

If my child is such a threat to your vaccinated child, then how effective is your vaccine?If my child is such a threat to your vaccinated child, then how effective is your vaccine?

Oh, 90% or so. Enough to prevent self-sustaining propagation as long as most people are immunized.

Not, however, enough that I want to risk my (grand)childrens’ lives, brains, etc. to the chance if I can help it.

There is no true “Anti-vaccine” movement. The Pro safe vaccines and informed consent movement gets vilified.

Wrong:

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/06/the_jenny_mccarthy_rally_tomorrow_antivaccine.php

Be sure to check out the entire list of links at the end.

No, there is a definite antivaccine movement in the U.S. Its celebrity face is Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey, and its slogan “Green Our Vaccines” a phrase that ultimately means nothing but is useful to hide the true antivaccine agenda. So is “pro-safe vaccine.” When I ask parents who use the “pro-safe vaccine” line what, specifically, it would take for them to accept that vaccines are safe and to vaccinate their child, the can never tell me. They usually trot out some nonsense about removing “toxins” without being able to be specific about them, or they demand “100%” safety, which nothing in life is, even though by any measure vaccination is incredibly safe, with very few serious complications. When pushed, they sometimes even admit that there is no evidence that will persuade them that vaccines are sufficiently safe that they would ever vaccinate their children.

But perhaps you could be the first to prove me wrong: What evidence, specifically, would it take to convince you that vaccines are safe and that they do not cause autism?

In any case, the antivaccine movement is a threat. Vaccines’ efficacy at a population level depends upon herd immunity, and no vaccine is 100% efficacious (no preventative or therapeutic intervention in medicine is).

When I see an actual study of the occurrence of autism that compares vaccinated and unvaccinated children I will take that as evidence. Until then, Renske, keep up your ridiculous personal attacks, they make your position even more unsupportable than it is on it’s own merits.

TannersDad, how the hell can you know that the deadthreats are exaggerated? Did you do some ‘balanced research’ for that, or did you do the threats yourself, and you *know* that you only threatened him with a mercury-filled vaccine? Which, as we all know now, is not deadly.
Actually, you’re saying it in a cynical way, but yes, giving vaccines *is* the one-size-fits-all treatment. That’s what makes it so wonderful. It has saved millions and millions of lives the past centuries, thanks to caring doctors like Edward Jenner (the guy who studied the smallpox vaccine).

Families are not left out on the street, they are doing that themselves – I’m of course not speaking about all the millions of people in the US who cannot afford healthcare, which I would say is the biggest tragedy here. But people who have the means, and the education, and the IQ to teach themselves wise choices, but don’t make them… they are, like Amanda Peet said it in one of the linked articles, ‘parasites’. DaveJ, How can we ‘measure what you are saying’ when what you are saying is simply stupid?