Vaccinations are more beneficial than harmful

Your welcome for welcoming you back."if deaths decline in the category of those infected by a particular disease, then that would be relevant to the discussion."It is somewhat relevant, but making the conclusion that the diseases are going away completely based on the mortality rates is incorrect. "death is traceable specifically to a particular pathology and those deaths due to that pathology" "So, in these instances where death is traceable specifically to a particular pathology and those deaths due to that pathology are declining before the immunizations are introduced historically, then the obvious question is as follows: Are vaccines doing any good that was not already being ameliorated beforehand?"Con mistakenly thinks that death is the only bad outcome of a disease. There's a reason why we want the diseases to be eradicated, not just the mortality rate. For example, measles can cause permanently damaging encephalitis and pneumonia [1]. Polio (as you may know already) can cause lifelong paralysis (hopefully I don't need a source for this. Everyone should know this already). Shingles can cause post-herpetic neuralgia [2]. If you need more, feel free to research terrible symptoms caused by diseases. So, to answer your question, yes! Vaccines are pulling down infection rates, not just the mortality rates you cling on to. As I've said before, those mortality rates are dropping most likely due to health and hygiene advances. "If we cannot document that or the improvement is attributable to healthy living environments, better exercise, more vitamins in food, etc., then we cannot know that the vaccines are not creating more harm than benefit. That is, after all, the resolution before us."We do know that vaccines are creating more benefit than harm. I've described how the vaccine works in normal biological terms. Since you like to talk about how the mortality rates are decreasing before vaccination, take a look at the graph I've shown you. It actually has two graphs, one about cases/year, and the other about deaths/year. As you can see, your claim is correct; mortality rates have gone down. However, the incidence rate has not shown any signs of steady dropping until the vaccine was introduced. After that, incidence rates fell to the floor."What about the other pathologies"I think you mean "pathogens," not "the sciences of the causes and effects of diseases." In any case, here are graphs of the other pathogens. Here is a nice graph of the exact same diseases you mentioned, minus typhoid. As you can see, these are deaths per 100,000, not cases per 100,000.Wow, I actually can't find any graphs about scarlet fever cases per year. I genuinely apologize for this. Here is possibly the only (good) graph I could find about pertussis cases/year. As you can see, when the vaccine was introduced in the 1940's, cases went down. Picture source: http://holisticsquid.com... s://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net...*Qucy4QoZhb_CBQjTdNrtSw.png" alt="" />Here is the diphtheria cases/year graph. The trend follows the other graphs well. After the vaccine was introduced, incidence rates went down.Hopefully, I've proven my point that looking at mortality rates only is not a good argument.Did that satisfy your curiosity? ;)NOTE: If you do find a scarlet fever case/year graph, go ahead and show us, because every single graph that I could find was about mortality rates."Using the rabies vaccine as a counter-example to the case when the infected can become better is not quite valid since that vaccine is not recommended for the general public, unless there is specific reason to believe that rabies contamination may be imminent and it does have enough risks to the point that it is not even recommended for pregnant women. "How is it not quite valid? You asked for a vaccine that could allow someone to be better, and I gave you an example. A vaccine that is recommended to the general public would be a preventative vaccine. You asked for a vaccine-related cure, and I delivered. Don't just sweep it away because it's "not recommended for the general public." I found your original argument about herd immunity: "This is an attempt to rescue belief in vaccines because it is acknowledged that vaccines do not really accomplish anything except to keep the same number of people uninfected in society." My (second) reply to this would be: Isn't that what preventative measures are supposed to do?"it [the rabies vaccination] does have enough risks to the point that it is not even recommended for pregnant women."You and your source do not specify whether the "rabies vaccination" in question is a pre-exposure or post-exposure. According to sources [2] and [3], being pregnant is not a contraindication to rabies postexposure prophylaxis. Also, rabies poses a 100% risk of death to the mother, as well an indeterminate risk to the fetus. [3]"People actually start to believe that if 80% or 90% of the population has gotten this "quick fix" then the rest of the population can become infected and they will be fine. "If you think about it, it makes sense. But for it to make sense to you, you must accept that vaccines have a high success rate in preventing diseases. According to [5], 90-95% of the population must be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity. If this many people have a high percentage chance of being immune to a disease, than the disease in question can only infect so many people before running out of options. Think of it like a biological buffer zone."That's totally absurd!"Here, Con uses an example of the "personal incredulity" fallacy. [6]"In fact, unless the immune system is healthy, no immunization can perform the theoretical function that it is supposed to."It is generally accepted that your immune system has to be strong enough to defeat a nearly harmless virus inside your body for your vaccine to work."With regard to the problems inherent in the varicella (chicken pox) vaccine, you seemed to have missed the argument presented. Getting vaccinated to prevent natural chicken pox infection in childhood leads to greater complications, including death, in adulthood."You seem to have missed the refutation I presented. If you didn't understand, allow me to clarify. The link I showed you in my refutation from last round showed that mortality rates were going down. You, on the other hand, suggest that getting vaccinated would cause death in adulthood. According to your logic, that means the mortality rates should be going up. But they're not, which means (to put it bluntly) you're wrong. Also, your source recommends getting children infected with chicken pox. Don't believe me? Look at this line I took from your source. "vaccination renders the elderly more apt to shingles infections, because the herd has now lost the continued and benign re-exposures to children with chicken pox." Here's some more fun quotes from your source. " Vaccinators miss the point that the body defends most efficiently as a result of ongoing re-exposure." Basically, Suzanne Humphries, M.D. wishes for diseases to stay. The statement seems harmless, until you consider the fact that she is indirectly campaigning against the eradication of certain diseases. Here's more. "Vaccinated mothers may have vaccine immunity, which is not the same immunologically, as natural immunity. One of the major differences in the vaccine-induced immunity is that it cannot be passed from mother to infant." Mrs. Humphrey forgets that to get natural immunity, you first have to be infected, which is what we're trying to stop. I could probably go on, but I have about 2000 characters left and I want to address your other points.About Andrew Wakefield's study, take a look at source [7]. You can just skim over it, but it shows details about how Wakefield's study was proven wrong. This source is free from ad hominem attacks (at least I hope so, I skimmed over it too).Now, about the study that showed there may have been a link, the percentages were so close together it could have been some other factor that caused the unvaccinated to have a higher percentage. If I compare the two ratios, the two numbers were off by only 0.00005! That number is so small that it's too early to jump to conclusions and say "the vaccinated has a higher rate. Therefore, the vaccine caused autism." In fact, I would say that, since the numbers were so close together that there was no real difference at all! Also, since the amount of unvaccinated children was relatively small, I could say that, according to the law of large numbers, it was not accurate enough to be completely sure.Oh geez, 900 characters left. I better make this quick.I have done further research on the SV40 virus, and have found out the evidence on SV40 does not suggest a link to cancer in humans. [8]About the government lying to us, people have been using vaccines before the government started turning corrupt. If the government has been lying to us about vaccine effectiveness, we could see it in the graphs. I agree, nothing justifies a government lying to it's citizens, and part of me wonders if this conversation would have existed if the government kept a clean profile. I have refuted most, if not all of your arguments, and hopefully I have done a good enough job. Please don't vote solely on forfeiture. Good luck to Con and vote Pro![1]http://www.cdc.gov... [2]http://www.nhs.uk... [3]http://www.cdc.gov...[4]http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...[5]http://www.iflscience.com...[6]https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com...[7]http://www.csicop.org... [8]http://www.cancer.org...