<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><div>The Rav states:</div><blockquote id="MAC_OUTLOOK_ATTRIBUTION_BLOCKQUOTE" style="BORDER-LEFT: #b5c4df 5 solid; PADDING:0 0 0 5; MARGIN:0 0 0 5;"><div><br></div><div>However, in my humble opinion, this claim is completely and totally</div><div>devoid of substance, because all studies that were done responsibly</div><div>establish beyond the shadow of a doubt that, with the exception of</div><div>mild side-effects, it is not at all common for vaccines to have severe</div><div>ramifications, and there are no known cases where death was caused by</div><div>vaccination for certain, even though hundreds of millions of children</div><div>have been routinely vaccinated. On the other hand, as the number of people</div><div>who do not vaccinate increases, danger increases as well; if many people</div><div>refuse vaccination, there is a risk that epidemics will break out and</div><div>cause mass fatalities, as happened before these vaccines were developed.</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>It would appear that his entire argument hinges on the factual claim that “all studies that were done responsibly establish beyond the shadow of a doubt that, with the exception of mild side-effects, it is not at all common for vaccines to have severe ramifications, and there are no known cases where death was caused by vaccination for certain”. He repeats this claim later in the article:</div><div><br></div><div><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px; border:none; padding:0px;"><div style="font-family: -webkit-standard;">In any event, it is clear and obvious that nowadays it is not only</div><div style="font-family: -webkit-standard;">permissible to vaccinate, but there is even an obligation, on order to</div><div style="font-family: -webkit-standard;">prevent danger to the individual and the public. Even if in their time,</div><div style="font-family: -webkit-standard;">hundreds of years ago, they vacillated, it was only because there were</div><div style="font-family: -webkit-standard;">indeed children who died from the vaccine, as is evident from their</div><div style="font-family: -webkit-standard;">words. This is not true of today's vaccines, so there is a bona fide</div><div style="font-family: -webkit-standard;">obligation to vaccinate.</div></blockquote></div><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px; border:none; padding:0px;"><div><br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>But… this is exactly the point of fact in dispute by the anti-vexers. According to the NIH, <u>there have indeed been cases</u> - roughly 1 in a million - where the death can be attributed to the vaccination. See: <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4599698">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4599698</a>/ </div><div><br></div><div>Now, even if you argue that the risk of death from the vaccine is tiny in comparison to the risk of death from the disease, is that true?</div><div><br></div><div>1, Try telling that to the parents of those 5 kids who died from vaccination-induced anaphylaxis. I’m not sure they would agree with this cheshbone. It’s like playing Russian roulette - only instead of 6 bullets, there are a million. Someone’s going to get that bullet, hope it’s not my kid. </div><div><br></div><div>2, How effective is the MMR? According to the CDC, about 98%. That means that 1 in 50 kids are getting the shots with the small but real risk thereof, and not being protected. Moreover, the immunity appears to wane over time (again, according to the CDC - <a href="https://www.nvic.org/vaccines-and-diseases/measles/measles-vaccine-effectiveness.aspx">https://www.nvic.org/vaccines-and-diseases/measles/measles-vaccine-effectiveness.aspx</a> )</div><div><br></div><div>3, Now that most kids are vaccinated, how risky is it really not to vaccinate? His argument that “if many people refuse vaccination, there is a risk that epidemics will break out” doesn’t seem strong enough to compel parents to impose this risk of death on their child which does not even have a 100% effectiveness rate.</div><div><br></div><div>He uses the example of a makaa (fence around a place where one could fall). How effective is this fence, assuming it is built and used correctly? Can we agree that it is 100% effective at its job of preventing falls? (Excluding building errors or misuse such as climbing over it)? The vaccination is not like that – even when made and used correctly, we still expect about 1 in 1,000,000 children to die from it. That’s pretty scary, and the ma'aka mitzvah does not readily and obviously apply here. The essence of a ma’aka is that it is a 100% protection against a possible danger (nobody knows the level of danger without a ma’aka, I propose 1 in a thousand (.1% percent as a good-faith estimate). To repeat, a 100% protection against a 0.1% risk. But as I’ve already shown, a vaccination is not a 100% protection and the risk is low but not zero. </div><div><br></div><div>His main argument:</div><div><br></div><div><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px; border:none; padding:0px;"><div style="font-family: -webkit-standard;">if we allow these parents not</div><div style="font-family: -webkit-standard;">to vaccinate their children, the results would be entirely predictable:</div><div style="font-family: -webkit-standard;">many would refrain from vaccinating their children, motivated by maternal</div><div style="font-family: -webkit-standard;">compassion and paternal love, and then the great danger of outbreaks of</div><div style="font-family: -webkit-standard;">diseases would emerge once again. Therefore, refraining from vaccination</div><div style="font-family: -webkit-standard;">is not permitted in any way. </div><div style="font-family: -webkit-standard;"><br></div></blockquote></div><div>The way I understand community-immunity is that there are some people whom vaccines won’t protect (such as the 2 percent mentioned above). Therefore, if everyone in the community is vaccinated, those 2 percent will be less likely to be exposed to someone with the disease. So if my child is one of the 98% who is protected, it’s a chesed toward those 2%. However, if I decide not to vaccinate, I’m exposing my own child to possible risk, and by extension, those 2% who might be exposed to my child. But I’m not putting the 90% at risk – they have immunity from the disease.Yet he doesn’t seem concerned merely about the 2%, he seems to think that the 98% are also somehow at risk, which I don’t think is true. Therefore, his argument needs to be narrowed to the idea that we could theoretically allow a small number of anti-vaxers, but not too many because then there’s a chance their kids will get sick. The problem with this argument is that the parents know the risk when they decide not to vax, it’s a risk they are willing to take for their own kids, compared to the risk of vaccinating. </div><div><br></div><div>Based on his reasoning, I would assume that Rav Weiss shlita requires all available vaccinations (flu, chicken pox, cholera, hepatitis, etc)? If not, how does he determine which ones to require? </div><div><br></div><div>(There are 26 currently available and another 24 in the pipeline - <a href="https://www.who.int/immunization/diseases/en">https://www.who.int/immunization/diseases/en</a>/ )</div><div> </div><div><br></div><div><br></div></body></html>