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Comment by random4369 | Hacker News Reader

On what planet is the jury out about vaccines and autism? There's not a single research paper suggesting a link between those.

You are falsely conflating scientific consensus with public opinion.

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I think hueving just meant to say that not every institution is corrupt, and the medical industry is good when it comes to vaccines. The vested interests, in this case doctors, are doing great, and the anti-vaxxers are bad.

Again, the jury was never out about vaccines, there's no scientific research claiming they are harmful. This scenario is not analogous to the grandparent post where scientific consensus is being actively manipulated by vested interests to delay regulatory action

Doctors don't make vaccines. Pharmaceutical researchers do. And pharmaceutical manufacturers wouldn't blink twice before selling you drugs that they know are harmful, there's plenty of well covered precedent for that. It's not that the medical field is more or less moral, it's just that in the case of vaccines, they actually perform well with no significant side effects so there's no reason to engage in morally questionable business practices to sell them

I've also read that vaccination is not a big moneymaker.

I can't really even understand what this comment is trying to say. Vaccines aren't harmful. But doctors don't make vaccines, pharma companies do. And pharma companies would gladly hurt you. Conclusion: ???.

I think what is meant (from the post in question, not necessarily your summary): cui bono arguments are particularly ineffective for those claiming vaccines are harmful, because doctors, who generally consider vaccines to be very effective and mostly harmless, are not particularly financially vested in the continued use of vaccines (unlike the manufacturers, presumably.) If the use of vaccines was curtailed, doctors would arguably have more work.

>because doctors, who generally consider vaccines to be very effective and mostly harmless, are not particularly financially vested...

Interested does not always have to be financial. It is hard for a community to go back on its beliefs. So in all probability, it is possible that a doctor can ignore the negative effects of a vaccine they are seeing due to this and huge perceived peer pressure in talking against the current medical consensus (Which is, as stupid as it sounds, All vaccines are completely safe)

Lets not put all vaccines into a sigle category. There are many different types of vaccines, from how they work to how they are actually manufactured, and they all carry different levels of risks. Blanket statements are not helpful.

There are extensive, multi-stage, rational, mandated procedures for not putting every candidate vaccine into a single category. Categorizations based on anecdotal evidence and superstition are not helpful.

Actually there are public registries of known incidences of harm from vaccines (i.e. VAERS etc). This again goes to people arguing in Black and White and refusing to rationally engage the middle grounds:

I don't believe there is research (at least verified/mainstream) that has determined widespread harmful effects of vaccines. I.e. the risk of issue from vaccines is lower than the risk of disease being caught (sorry don't have exact odds here to verify this). There are also no (that I'm aware of) long term generational studies of the effects of vaccines other than obvious observation that disease incidence has reduced.

SO what about cell phone radiation and cancer, or maybe GMO food and cancer?

What about that fiction?

a pretty informative read re: cell phones and cancer: https://www.thenation.com/article/how-big-wireless-made-us-t...

(as usual, article headline is clickbait, not chosen by writer, please do not judge the content based on the title)

Could you do the TL;DR of that? I skimmed it, because it's the long-form type of read I hate (little meat, lots of unrelated stories). Is there anything there that stands up to the standard counterargument called "non-ionizing radiation"?

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