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Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 23, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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To my mind, the idea of worrying about vaccine risks seems akin to worrying about the risk of your child falling and breaking their neck from being allowed to play outside on a playground.

Wouldn't the analogy be reversed?

But yeah, I get it. We're balancing a low chance of disease vs. a (presumably) low chance of vaccine injury. The stakes are low.

variety of byzantine bureaucratic difficulties for your child down the line,

Then we can cross that bridge when we come to it. I don't like state coercion and I'll willing to fight it to some point. I don't think they are checking for Hep-A/Hep-B. I mean I'm not vaccinated for Hep-B and I only got Hep-A from the travel doc. Most people on this board aren't vaccinated for a lot of the stuff in the US schedule these days.

Not that I have any issues with skipping the COVID vaccine,

I'd go further. Giving your kid an annual Covid vaccine is madness. They are almost certainly at greater risk from the vaccine than they are from Covid. And it's poor at stopping the spread.

Most people on this board aren't vaccinated for a lot of the stuff in the US schedule these days.

Do you have specific examples? The US schedule is mostly met with the standard childhood vaccines. I got all the recommended ones when I was a child, and it looks at a quick glance that HPV and chickenpox are the only new additions there. Beyond childhood, I think tetanus and the flu are the only ones recommended regularly. I've had to get some fun bonus ones for international travel, too. I'm pretty sure I'm up to date on most everything (except the COVID boosters), although I didn't ever really set out to get a bunch of shots for fun. If I were much older (or made certain, um, "lifestyle choices") I'd be missing a few.

I'm a little older than you maybe. At a minimum, I never got these as a kid.

Hep A / Hep B / RV / Meningitis / HPV / Hib / PCV / Chicken pox

Here's a full list. I'm not exactly sure when everything was added but chances are you don't have a lot of this stuff. PCV, for example, was introduced in 2000.

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/imz-schedules/child-adolescent-age.html

I had to look it up a while back, but my (urban) school district required Hep A/B (and it was at least generally recommended at the time) and I recall many universities required meningitis vaccination when I was applying. Both of those may have been fairly recent at the time. I think you're right about PCV.