I am a vaxer, I'll be upfront about that. But what I would like to add is a little tidbit I saw on a program called The Vaccine War . When a group of parents were interviewed about vaccinating, they overwhelmingly saw it as a personal/parenting choice, not as a societal responsibility. That is, most parents don't want the government or doctors or society telling them what is or is not good for their child. So it's a personal/parenting call, akin to bedtimes, or whether you give your kids red food colouring, or send them to a public vs private school. From what I can gather, most public health officials would prefer we saw it as a "societal responsibility" - that we vaccinated our kids for the sake of the "greater good" in order to create herd immunity.

Startlingly, I found that I am therefore in the minority of parents - I vaccinate for societal "greater good" reasons. Every time I take my kids to be vaccinated, there is part of me that fears they will not be "normal" after it. I fear they will be the one in a zillion kid that has an adverse reaction. That they will succumb to something in a poorly tested vaccine. But I take them anyway, because on balance I support the reasons listed in RSAHD's article/post. I vaccinate my kids because I feel that it is important to contribute to herd immunity. (Plus my DH is a maths-head who now and then reminds me about statistical risks and what they mean in the context of day-to-day life - I therefore probably have more "faith" in science than many).

I am not posting this to inflame matters or take sides (though obviously I have one) but rather to add the "greater good" consideration to the mix...