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Comment by dpnewman | Hacker News Reader

do you feel any concern about injecting these ingredients into your or your child's blood stream?

Formaldehyde, Beta-Propiolactone, Neomycin Sulfate, Polymyxin B, Potassium Chloride, Sodium Taurodeoxycholate, Thimerosal

I am not making a case for linking vaccines to autism, nor for the idea that vaccines are not often crucial factors in preventing disease spread or pandemic. However, I would say blanket statements that vaccines are simply "safe" ...end of story, seems too simplistic and potentially dangerous.

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I simply respond to these arguments with this:

Consider that every crackpot thing the wingnuts say about vaccines is true. They cause autism in some children, allow government mind control, make the windshield wipers on your car to fly off, and cause family pets to lose all their hair. You job isn't actually to prove that vaccines may cause these things, your job is to prove that these things are worse for your kids than a polio epidemic.

Nothing at all is safe. Everything is potentially dangerous. Only a good understanding of statistics can tell you how dangerous. Only a rational grasp of reality can tell you how to behave with the knowledge those statistics impart.

The fact that you have Potassium Chloride in your list only highlights your ignorance.

It's used in "pet friendly" road salt, and sometimes even as a substitute for table salt. Sure in large doses it's lethal, but so is regular salt.

No.

If you want to worry about your kids health make sure they eat right and get plenty of exercise. You'll do much more for their health than worrying about minuscule amounts of chemicals in vaccines.

Doesn't sound much worse than most of the "food" people eat and drink. Much less what you breathe in a city like NYC or LA.

I'm more worried about the dihydrogen monoxide they're inhaling every day.

In the tiny, inconsequential doses that they have been used, no, I have had no concern at all. My four-year-old son is fully immunized and am perfectly happy with what science is producing to protect him.

Remember: chemicals are everywhere in nature. Just because they have complex-looking names doesn't automatically mean they're dangerous in themselves. And just because thimerosal is chemically related to the kind of mercury that is dangerous in larger doses doesn't mean that thimerosal is itself dangerous, especially in the tiny quantity that was once used in vaccines.

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