The vaccine debate

I've not researched the vaccine debate, but note a lot of heated discussion of late, with threats of withdrawing welfare benefits from parents who refuse to vaccinate and ridicule of people who express doubts about safety and efficacy.

I take the middle ground, in that I object to sanctions against people who refuse medical treatment, especially sanctions specifically targeting poorer people - and I object to the demonisation of people who express doubts. That doesn't mean I'm against vaccination, it means I'm against profoundly authoritarian, anti-democratic approaches and against the trivialisation of genuine concerns.

It's reasonable to distrust big pharmaceutical companies, as this recent Guardian article by a doctor makes crystal clear.  Research results are routinely withheld and distorted and history is littered with tales of in-hindsight harms, which the medical establishment refused to acknowledge until the evidence was overwhelming.

So rather than sanctioning, mocking and abusing parents who refuse vaccines, those who wish to promote the treatment would do well to honestly address those facts and also lobby for timely, transparent and truly independent medical research, free of vested interests.  It would also earn them more respect and trust from those they appear to be denigrating at the moment.