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[Neonivek]

if we knew how many people were dying from vaccines or not

So then we have an unknown risk assessment on vaccines.

Versus a very tangible and measurable risk assessment on not taking them.

Do we at least have a estimate on the deaths from vaccines?

"you don't really ever have to quantify a human life in dollars or anything"

You have to in this case. All life is equal, so which life is more expensive.

[GavJ]

if we knew how many people were dying from vaccines or not

So then we have an unknown risk assessment on vaccines.

Versus a very tangible and measurable risk assessment on not taking them.

Yes, that is the long and short of it.

You have to in this case. All life is equal, so which life is more expensive.

Fair enough. But whatever. Adding even more complexity to the question is not exactly making the answer any less unknown.

Do we at least have a estimate on the deaths from vaccines?

(edit): Yes, we do know that the risk is probably less than about 1/10,000 I'd say, for vaccine death rates.
That's about it. No data on how much rarer or not than that.

So if the marginal death risk of a disease is higher than 1/10,000, then we can confidently say the vaccine is better with known information.
If the marginal death risk is much lower than that, like 1/60,000,000, then this information is pretty useless though.

[Neonivek]

Also remember that in terms of vaccination even a small change in percent can mean another month or year without an outbreak.

One of the reasons we started to get Polio outbreaks again is because vaccinations have been going down from near 100% to about 80 in small children,.

[GavJ]

Sure, but if an outbreak is like 20 people, and the death rate is 1/2,000 (or probably much less with modern care), then each outbreak kills on average 0.01 people or probably fewer.
So an outbreak isn't really that bad of a thing. To make it definitely worthwhile to prevent it, you'd have to guarantee that the measures taken to prevent it kill fewer then 0.01 people.

One of the reasons we started to get Polio outbreaks again is because vaccinations have been going down from near 100% to about 80 in small children,.

I posted more extensively about polio earlier, but again here is a relevant graph that definitely speaks to this whole thread:

AFP = "acute flaccid paralysis" which is a description of the actual damaging syndrome/set of symptoms from a wide variety of different diseases (including polio as one of maybe a dozen) that would have all been called "polio" back in the 50s and are just as bad as polio.

Notice in the graph:
1) Polio decreasing significantly worldwide without vaccine rates changing in the first part of the graph. Polio is oral-fecal route of transmission and it heavily influenced by sanitation etc. that has been improving steadily in places like Africa.
2) When vaccines shoot up in the graph, polio continues to go down, but AFP in general starts rising again.

Is this coincidental? Maybe.
Is this a side effect of the vaccine that it triggers the same types of symptoms but they just aren't classified as polio anymore? Maybe.
Is this partially an artifact of more observers being present? Maybe, though note the last part of the graph where observers remain constant and the AFP still rises very steadily.

This is the sort of horribly messy data we have to work with. It's a nightmare to try and draw any causal conclusions from this or make any solid policies. There is a strong chance here of the vaccines being related to major increases of AFP that simply offset the polio and make things not particularly better necessarily than before. At the same time, you have conflated issues of other things bringing down polio like more clean water and sanitation. And other confusing factors like reporting officers changing.

It's. A. MESS.

Anybody looking at this data and saying confidently that "oh yeah vaccine totally is eradicating the problem here, bing bang boom" is full of it.
AND anybody lookign at this data and saying conifdently that "oh yeah that vaccine is making it worse, obviously" is full of it.

We don't know. We need proper controlled studies or at least way less chaotic field conditions.

[Neonivek]

Sure, but if an outbreak is like 20 people, and the death rate is 1/2,000 (or probably much less with modern care), then each outbreak kills on average 0.01 people or probably fewer.
So an outbreak isn't really that bad of a thing. To make it definitely worthwhile to prevent it, you'd have to guarantee that the measures taken to prevent it kill fewer then 0.01 people.

The death rate is quite a bit higher because remember the people who tend to die in outbreaks are those with compromised immune system (with the exception being diseases that spread via the immune system. The only type of disease that strikes down healthy people harder).

So you cannot use healthy person survival rates.

As well Gavj when you have a outbreak, you have an increased chance of further outbreaks within the same area.

So if that outbreak is 20 people... with 95% vaccination rate. That means every single one of those people has a chance to cause an outbreak.

[Eagle_eye]

Plus, even if you do kill more people with vaccines in the short term (you don't), a 100% vaccination rate ensures that the disease will go extinct, which means no more deaths from the disease or our hypothetical vaccine for the rest of human history. Unless you expect us to wipe ourselves out pretty quickly, that adds up fast.

[Neonivek]

Plus, even if you do kill more people with vaccines in the short term (you don't), a 100% vaccination rate ensures that the disease will go extinct, which means no more deaths from the disease or our hypothetical vaccine.

It also means you no longer have to use the vaccine.

Polio would be extinct if it wasn't for geopolitical struggles.

[GavJ]

The death rate is quite a bit higher because remember the people who tend to die in outbreaks are those with compromised immune system (with the exception being diseases that spread via the immune system. The only type of disease that strikes down healthy people harder).

No the death rate is that.

People existed with compromised immune systems in the 1960s too, dude... and they also more often died then. These numbers take all that into account because that stuff hasn't changed. These are empirical numbers from populations already.

So if that outbreak is 20 people... with 95% vaccination rate. That means every single one of those people has a chance to cause an outbreak.

But they DONT. Again, not a hypothetical. This is the ACTUAL size of a typical outbreak in the United States, up to the point where it is contained.

Plus, even if you do kill more people with vaccines in the short term (you don't), a 100% vaccination rate ensures that the disease will go extinct

So does any other amount of vaccination significantly higher than the endemic rate. This has been addressed like a dozen times now.

Polio would be extinct if it wasn't for geopolitical struggles.

And what about the other 10 or 11 diseases that are almost exactly like polio, not classified as polio, and that have been significantly on the rise, in direct correspondence to rate of polio vaccinations?

[Neonivek]

And what about the other 10 or 11 diseases that are almost exactly like polio, not classified as polio, and that have been significantly on the rise, in direct correspondence to rate of polio vaccinations?

So... decreasing?

Or is it inversely proportional?

[LordBucket]

you can simply compare lives vs. lives

Except that a lot of things people are being vaccinated against aren't fatal in the first place. I suspect that most people who get annual flu shots, for example, aren't really doing that because they expect to die if they don't. They get vaccinated to avoid the inconvenience of possibly being moderately sick for several days.

Or consider the Gardasil fiasco, when Texas got the bright idea of requiring 7th grade schoolgirls to be vaccinated against a non fatal STD that according to the CDC "in most cases goes away on its own and does not cause any health problems."

[Neonivek]

I suspect that most people who get annual flu shots, for example, aren't really doing that because they expect to die if they don't. They get vaccinated to avoid the inconvenience of possibly being moderately sick for several days.

I did it for health reasons, the flu isn't really tepid for me like it was when I was a child...

But I think most people who did it do so because it is required.

[Reelya]

Oh great, Texas is pro cervical cancer. That's not a "controversy" it's people being retarded yokels, because the HPV virus which causes the cancer in girls is sexually transmitted, so they're sure "their daughters" won't be at risk because they're "good christian girls". Protecting them "just in case" clearly sends the wrong message.

This isn't any sane anti-vaccination thing, it's the same moronic shit that causes there only to be "abstinence training" at schools and no proper sex ed, leading to lots of little christian bastard spawn in trailer parks. It's Sarah Palin logic, and we see what that lead to - teen pregnancy in her own daughter. And, presumably, cervical cancer in a lot of little christian girls who are screwing without protection because condoms are evil, and HPV vaccines are not needed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_papillomavirus#Cancer

HPV leads to cervical cancer, estimated cases 11500 per year in the USA, or 18000 different cancers in women, ~8000 cancers in men. Are you saying that's not worth preventing 26000 cancers per year LordBucket? Because the risk factor for Gardasil whatever it is, is way less harmful than the value of preventing 26000 cancer cases per year. And much less costly than treating those 26000 cancers to give a shot to every girl.

Assuming Texas is just as likely as anywhere to get HPV, number of cancers per year attributable to HPV in Texas are 2150 (assuming Texas population of 26 million out of US population of 315 million). That is the human cost you need to weigh against the cost / side effects of HPV vaccination in Texas.

[Aerval]

you can simply compare lives vs. lives

Except that a lot of things people are being vaccinated against aren't fatal in the first place. I suspect that most people who get annual flu shots, for example, aren't really doing that because they expect to die if they don't. They get vaccinated to avoid the inconvenience of possibly being moderately sick for several days.

Or consider the Gardasil fiasco, when Texas got the bright idea of requiring 7th grade schoolgirls to be vaccinated against a non fatal STD that according to the CDC "in most cases goes away on its own and does not cause any health problems."

Just because it is not dangerous for you (as a young healty adult), this does not mean it is not dangerous for everyone. Especially flu kill many thousand people every year in the western world. Those are not the normal people from the middle of the society but eldery people or infants. Therefore you do not get vaccinated because the flu might be dangerous for you but for other people in danger (especially your loved ones). [I write this with the knowledge of having never been vaccinated against flu myself]

One thing that was overlooked in the initial statements by GavJ (I am not sure whether it was mentioned later, did not read the whole thread) is that immunization does not work in 100 percent of all cases. It is more likely to assume a vaccination succesrate of 95%. Under this aspect, Herd immunity is important not to protect those that do not want to (or can not) vaccinate them self but to protect those who had an unsuccessful vaccination.

[LordBucket]

I think most people who did it do so because it is required.

If so, do you see how some people might object to being required to receive possibly fatal, possibly debilitating treatments for diseases that "go away on their own and don't cause any health problems?"

This comes down to a cost benefits analysis, like GavJ is suggesting. If you're talking about killing a relatively small portion of your population with a vaccine that stops a disease that would otherwise have killed half of everbody and left half of the surviving half with missing limbs and deformities ...that's probably a good trade. But once you start talking about killing a relatively small portion of your population and inducing paralysls, seizures and brain inflammation in a relatively small portion of the survivors...in order to stop a disease that generally goes away on its own and doesn't cause any health problems...that doesn't seem like such a good trade.

But sometimes that is done. Why? Because a lot of people think "vaccines good" and don't give it any further thought than that. And there's a lot of money to be made from convincing people to vaccinate as regular health maintenance as casually as they would take vitamins and go for a jog.

This might be peculiarly american phenomenon. Somebody mentioned earlier that they don't see the things I'm talking about in their country. At my local grocery store the vaccine people set up in front of the store in the same place girl scouts sell cookies and advertise with pictures of cutesy little syringes with smiley faces on them. Personally I'm not about to let some random guy in a parking lot getting minimum wage inject me with something I don't even know what it is. Let alone pay him to do it.

But apparently there are enough people who do that it's a sustainable business.

And once it becomes a for-profit business rather than a for-public-welfare choice, that starts introducing all sorts of crazy stuff like this where you have politicians receiving large campaign contributions from vaccines manufacturers, and those politicians then issue executive orders requiring that people receive the vaccinations produced by those manufacturers.

Yeah, I'm not convinced that public welfare is always the goal.

[Reelya]

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/vaccines/HPV/index.html

Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD)

In 2011, the CDC studied the occurrence of specific adverse events following more than 600,000 doses of Gardasil.  Adverse events in the HPV vaccinated population were compared to another appropriate population (such as adolescents vaccinated with vaccines other than HPV) and included Guillain–Barré syndrome (GBS), stroke, venous thromboembolism (VTE), appendicitis, seizures, syncope (fainting), and allergic reactions.  None of these adverse events were found to be any more common after HPV vaccination than among their comparison groupsExternal Web Site Icon.  Anaphylaxis, a very severe allergic reaction, was also included in this study.  One confirmed case of anaphylaxis was identified out of 600,558 doses studied, a rate similar to what has been previously published for anaphylaxis following all childhood vaccines.

Ok, "stuff happened" after Gardasil vaccines were given. Purely chronological evidence. But the CDCs biggest study found that all those things were equally likely to happen to people who never got Gardasil.

A Closer Look at the HPV Vaccine Safety Data
Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS)

In the United States, post-licensure vaccine safety monitoring and evaluation are conducted independently by federal agencies and vaccine manufacturers.  From June 2006-March 2014, approximately 67 million doses of HPV vaccines were distributed  and VAERS received approximately 25,000 adverse event reports occurring in girls and women who received HPV vaccines; 92% were classified as “non-seriousExternal Web Site Icon.”

The most commonly reported symptoms were:

    injection-site reactions
    dizziness
    syncope (fainting)
    nausea
    headache

Ok, we have 67 million doses of Gardasil, and 25000 reported reactions. Only 8% were reported to be "serious". But remember, these include symptoms that also occurred equally likely in that time period with people who never had the vaccine at all.

To be conservative however, let's assume that all reaction were caused by Gardasil. 8% of 25000 = 2000 serious reactions. Let's also assume 50% effectiveness in preventing later cancers (it's actually nearly 100% effective, but lets say 50% since it lasts 8 years). 67 million is about 1/5 women in the USA. They would expect to get 18000/5 = 3600 cancers from HPV. Or 1800 cancers in women prevented assuming 50% effectiveness.

http://www.purdueexponent.org/features/article_209898d8-1f65-596d-8f12-8cfc6938bde4.html
What's the death rate form Gardasil, 44 cited cases as of 2014, out of 67 million+ recipients. Literally less than 1 in a million die from Gardasil at most. What's the survival rate from cancer? I read 72% survive for 5 years after diagnosis, so we are looking at about 500 lives saved per year, or over 10 times the lives saved as the number presumed killed by Gardasil, and another 1300 survivable cancers prevented.