- Question
Are vaccines safe?
Immunisation is the process whereby a person is made immune or resistant to an infectious disease, typically by the administration of a vaccine. "Anti-vaxxers” have firm convictions about vaccines’ harmful effects and many people believe their children have been harmed by vaccines. Others have ‘vaccine hesistancy’: they are not inherently anti-vaccine, but are concerned or confused by the mixed messages they are exposed to and want to do the best for their children.
Vaccines are safe
Until the beginning of the 20th Century, infectious diseases were the most common cause of death. This is no longer the case because of the development of vaccines. The reality is that vaccines have saved countless lives.
Vaccines are unsafe
Big Pharma puts profit above safety, and promotes misinformation about the dangers of disease that our bodies are perfectly capable of fighting off without vaccinations.
- Vaccines contain known neurotoxins
- Vaccines aggravate existing illnesses
- The link between vaccines and sudden death syndrome
- Vaccines have side-effects
- Vaccines overwhelm the immune system
- The claim of a link between vaccines and autism
- The passing of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act suggests that vaccines are inherently unsafe
We cannot say whether vaccines are safe
This position frames vaccine safety as uncertain and a matter of parental choice. It argues that parents have a fundamental right to decide their child's welfare, that vaccine-hesitant families are unfairly stigmatised, and that withholding vaccines from some in a trial raises ethical questions.