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Speaking of that, I've seen the vax schedule for children these days and it does seem a bit... extreme.
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/imz-schedules/downloads/parent-ver-sch-0-6yrs.pdf
Like, does my kid really need 3 shots for Hep B? Can I just skip all the ones added after 1990 and call it good?
It's not like kids today are healthier than they were 35 years ago. If anything, the opposite is true. Given a messy, politicized epistemic environment, maybe it's best to revert to the last "known good state". There is knowledge encoded in survivorship.
In other words, I'm sure as hell not giving my infant a Covid vaccine.
From my research, they are all pretty clearly worth it in cost/benefit terms except the Covid vaccine (cause Covid hardly affects young kids). I have a baby and the pediatrician didn't even bring up the Covid vaccine - idk if she's tired of getting yelled at or also agrees with my analysis. But I'm happy to have given my baby all the other vaccines.
The main health difference between kids today and 35 years ago is obesity, and it's hard to imagine a mechanism where vaccines cause obesity. Especially when you look at the crap people feed their kids these days. So I'm just going to try to minimize that crap and I figure that'll probably prevent me from having a fat kid. Wish me luck! If your plan is to achieve the same thing just by not vaccinating, I wish you luck too, but you might need a lot more luck than me.
Even Hep B? My kid's not going to be engaging in sex tourism in Thailand (prior to age 18 at least).
On the potential negatives of vaccines, I won't pretend to be an expert. People are who very smart and know the science way better than I do say they are safe. But there are others who are just as smart (admittedly rarer) who say they aren't safe. The problem is that I can't trust the experts because I don't have Rube Goldberg amnesia. I see how full of shit experts are on all sorts of topics. So I can't trust them fully on any topic. If high quality anti-vax research was produced, it would be politically suppressed and careers would be destroyed. In that environment, truth seeking is impossible.
I'm not anti-vax. I think vaccines are one of the best inventions of all time. But I do see the large rise in childhood mental illness, autism, and yes, obesity, and I struggle to explain it. I don't see any harm in waiting to take the post-1990 vaccines when the benefit is not there and the risks (though probably low) are a hot button political topic.
Yeah, side effects from the Hep B vaccine are so low that the very low risk of Hep B itself (I know 99% of cases come from sex tourism in Thailand, but there's still that niggling 1% remaining) makes it worth it. But that probably is the closest one to not being worth it, after Covid.
Mental illness is social contagion and increased diagnosis. Autism is increased diagnosis. Obesity is eating more food and exercising less. Obviously there are other factors, but overall they don't seem too hard to explain. But even if they were hard to explain, idk why vaccines seem more plausible than 5g or chemtrails or whatever. It's all just vague gestures at stuff with no mechanism and no evidence.
How sure are you of this? It might be worth an effort post sometimes. I've seen some stats that suggest this is not the case at all, and that the real rates of autism have skyrocketed. I'll admit low confidence, so it might be worth it to hear from someone who knows better. Maybe you?
This is certainly the normie belief. But many serious people disagree with this hypothesis. I am one of them. A properly functioning human body will regulate hunger and activity levels to ensure homeostatis. In any case, this has been discussed ad nauseum in this forum, and is perhaps the hottest flame of the culture war. Probably best to just agree to disagree.
Yes, I mostly agree. Or, rather, the science is so bad and politicized that I certainly don't trust anti-vax research. If you listen to RFK talk, he does seem to propose some pretty solid reasons for why vaccines (as they are currently administered) could be harmful. But he's a lawyer, not a scientist.
In any case, if you are looking for someone to make the anti-vax case, it's not me. I will, however, not be giving my children Covid or Hep B vaccines. I will look into the benefits on the other ones, and probably stick to the rest of the schedule.
Yeah a lot of this has been debated to death. But I'm not sure if "eating more food and exercising less" is the normie belief. A lot of normies seem to believe in other stuff - some kind of poison in our food, some kind of environmental contaminant, some metabolic issue where 1000 calories/day doesn't result in weight loss, the belief that obesity is normal, etc. There may not be a majority belief about the cause of rising obesity, idk.
I don't mean to try to disparage your belief system, sorry if it came across that way. To me, "normie" isn't a bad thing. It's usually correct!
But I do believe that most regular people haven't read Slime Mold Time Mold or Gary Taubes. "Just eat less fatty" does seem to be the default belief. Although, yeah, Midwesterners do have an odd way of thinking that fat people are normal and skinny people need to eat more.
This is real: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/health/biggest-loser-weight-loss.html
Obviously these are extreme cases, but to a lesser extent I think it applies to most Americans. You have a set weight. It's unclear how to lower it (other than taking Ozempic).
I'd still like to hear from you about autism! I think an effort post would be great.
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From what I’ve seen, the majority of vaccines are very low risk. The concern I have is that the combined cocktail hasn’t really been studied.
My kids got most but not all of their vaccines.
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You need the Hep B vaccine in case some of the doctors and nurses giving all those shots have been engaging in sex tourism in Thailand.
And if they aren't, you're probably doing it wrong.
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