Vaccines: should you be afraid?

There is a lot of misinformation in popular culture about vaccine safety, and it's got consequences that I believe include tragic deaths. For example, whooping cough (pertussis) was nearly eradicated in this country by vaccination. Due to declining vaccine rates largely fueled by the discredited and retracted vaccine-autism study, ten babies have already died from the resurgence of this disease, when last I heard.

The guy who did the study was found to have a serious conflict--he was paid for the study by attorneys preparing to sue the vaccine industry. The study only involved twelve patients, a woefully inadequate sample size for a scientific study. It later came to light that about half the data was actually faked. Subsequent studies have not backed up its conclusions.

Modern vaccines are so much safer than the diseases they protect against.

I recently saw an article someone posted to Facebook that left the impression that there is a large concern in the medical community about vaccinating pregnant women against the flu. Considering the very real and countable deaths that occur every year from the flu, and the special susceptibility of pregnant women and their newborns, Centers for Disease Control recommends flu shots for pregnant women (see this CDC page, and also this video).

Here is an article I liked that you might find interesting, discussing that vaccine/autism study I mentioned above.