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Notes -
Once again, I ask people to actually read my post instead of assuming vaccine hostility. Grok 3 was incredibly PRO vaccine. In fact, it made better pro-vaccine arguments than this forum. But that's why I'm posting here, because I don't trust chatbots.
I don't assume that at all. But I do believe, with low confidence, that vaccine risk is higher than the official numbers. Still, I'm not going to self own just because the CDC was wrong about Covid.
This is probably where we differ. I don't think vaccine risk is zero. Especially the cumulative effect of taking 35 shots (containing many more dosages).
Whoops. The original version of that sentence was
I understand that you’re suspicious that Grok fell back on PR-speak. I’d suggest that AI is unusually likely to give PR-speak even when there are compelling underlying reasons.
Right, but if you’re scaling based off the COVID vaccine risk, I think you’re going to get an overestimate. At the same time, you’re definitely rounding the benefits down because you don’t see how your kid might be exposed. So I guess I’m arguing both ends. 40+ years of clinical data across a lot of the planet means the Hep B shots are safer than most medicine. But it’s not eradicated, and having the immunity gives your child more options regarding the medical profession and even foreign travel. I think a similar logic holds for the other differences from Denmark’s schedule.
For what it’s worth, my personal opinion is more about the categorical imperative. If everyone refused on free-rider grounds, the world would be a much worse place. Even if it was only your particular social stratum, you could do serious damage to our herd immunity. Vaccine risks are linear with number of people. Epidemics, though, are exponential.
I must point out that for Hep B, if you're advocating for shots on the grounds it's a good idea for a medical provider to have, then you need to keep in mind it can be given at pretty much any point in life.
You don't need it to be a med student. I don't think it's mandatory for doctors in most places, legally or otherwise. I remember when I came to the UK, I put "unknown" as my Hep B vaccination status, because I genuinely couldn't recall, and if I had it, it must have been well after my paediatric vaccinations. This wasn't flagged or followed up on, though I think it's a good idea for a medical professional to get the shot.
I assume the argument for infant Hep B vaccination is that infection during childbirth is a major transmission method; I think around 5-10% of the population in many Asian countries are carriers, most infected this way by their mothers. IIRC the liver damage cuts life expectancy by a couple years in women and by a decade or so in men, and it's incurable.
But it's also a sexually-transmitted disease (though not much of one in places where we're all vaccinated) for whatever stigma that holds, and it's a disease that can be asymptomatic, so I guess the thinking is that it's better to have 100% of babies vaccinated immediately (the vaccine response can "outrun" the disease!) than to rely on 100% of mothers to know and admit if they're carriers.
Additionally vaccine authorities will also try and bundle vaccines because it's easier for everyone to get them all done while people are thinking about it instead of catching up later when it becomes more of a risk factor.
Their may also be an immunologic argument but I'm not an expert on that.
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