Are you in favor of eliminating vaccine mandates?

Woah, what are you trying to do Ed? Get all of the science-deniers to out themselves?

It might help to look at the issue in the context of why there are any “mandates” of any kind.

(Note in passing: It’s interesting how starting in 2020, everyone started using “mandate” to refer to “laws we don’t like” or “laws we think are overstepping,” rather than simply calling them laws.)

Why not remove all the stop signs and red lights from all the intersections?

The truth is that humans need “mandates” to keep them from harming one another. This applies to spreading disease as much as to anything else. Of course not all harm is worth trying to eliminate. The degree of potential harm and likely success relative to the degree of control/intrusiveness is a factor, for sure.

People violate traffic laws all the time, but they still ‘work’ to prevent quite a lot of harm. To me, the ratio of control vs. outcomes for vaccine mandates is even stronger. If we’re going to remove vaccine mandates from public schools, we might as well remove grades, curriculum, attendance requirements, and all the other ‘mandates’ also. They all have similar logic behind them and, in many cases, less research and factual basis (a.k.a, science).

But we have mandates because we need them. They are mostly developed by humans, so they’re going to have their weaknesses. But we should step back and ask whether removing a ‘mandate’ isn’t just politics someone is playing.

Woah, what are you trying to do Ed? Get all of the science-deniers to out themselves?

The problem with the field of science is that science does not prove which side is denying science. Science is all about interpreting results and thus science by nature is not exact. We have competent scientists on both sides of the debate looking at different data points and coming to different conclusions. That is the nature of science itself. When I hear someone accusing another of denying science when that person actually has scientific data to back up their hypothesis, I quickly realize that the person using the phrase "science denyer" really does not understand how science works.

When our boys were little we decided to have them vaccinated so that we would be less likely to spread a disease to others. It wasn't because we thought the diseases were all that dangerous for our kids, but because we cared about others. Others chose not to vaccinate because they thought that they were doing what was safest and most loving for their kids. I really hesitate to judge others for their decisions on this subject.

The mandates on an untested vaccine really pushed a lot of parents and others into much more vaccine skepticism than would have been there otherwise. Regardless of your opinion, it is obvious that the Covid mandates have set back vaccine programs for years.

Is it possible to affirm the science and still not want mandates?

>>Is it possible to affirm the science and still not want mandates?<<

Of course. You can be a firm believer in the general efficacy of vaccines and still not want to take the risk (no matter how small) that your children are in the percentage that can have serious reactions (though you should also educate yourself on what risks you are taking if you don’t take the vaccine).

Telling a parent that hardly any have that reaction is of no real comfort, because the doctors and the government are thinking about societal health overall, and not really your health or the health of your child. To them, it makes perfect sense that if the science says the vaccine is 99.5% safe and effective, they will think its a good idea to mandate, because the 0.5% is statistically insignificant. It’s easy to say everyone should be willing to take the risk for society’s general good, but I can’t fault those who think otherwise.

As JD mentioned above, putting Covid in the same category as things like polio, measles and whooping cough, being neither as dangerous a disease (particularly for children) and mandating a vaccine not nearly as effective as those others, and largely-experimental to boot, has done way more damage to the idea of vaccination than 20-30 years of preaching from “anti-vaxxers.”

A well-known tale about a boy and a wolf comes to mind. Tell enough lies, and then people won’t believe you when you do tell the truth.

>>Is it possible to affirm the science and still not want mandates?<<

Of course. You can be a firm believer in the general efficacy of vaccines and still not want to take the risk (no matter how small) that your children are in the percentage that can have serious reactions (though you should also educate yourself on what risks you are taking if you don’t take the vaccine).

This isn't answering the question. Is it possible to question the general efficacy of vaccines w/o being called anti-science?

This isn't answering the question. Is it possible to question the general efficacy of vaccines w/o being called anti-science?

It is not anti science to question vaccines and even the efficacy of some vaccines, but because vaccination has become a religion rather than a science to some, then I would say "no" to your question.

>>Is it possible to affirm the science and still not want mandates?<<

>>This isn’t answering the question. Is it possible to question the general efficacy of vaccines w/o being called anti-science?<<

I most certainly did answer the question of is it possible to affirm the science behind vaccines and still not want mandates. Your attempt at reframing of the question is a different one entirely. I mostly accept that vaccines have been a general good for society. Do I think it should be mandatory to take any of them to be a part of society? No. However, can any company, for example, make a mandate that employees have to take them? Sure. Publicly, it becomes a tougher question, but anytime you accept something for “free” like public education, it should be obvious that someone else makes the rules. But the possible need for mandates can be debated without being “anti-science.”

I would say it’s impossible to hold any position today without the risk of being called something derogatory. Get used to it. After looking at what data was available the general public, I made the determination that Covid vaccines were not, in fact, in the same category as previous vaccines for efficacy, nor was the disease anything like polio, smallpox, or rabies, all of which are dangerous enough, that it makes sense to me to risk a bad adverse vaccine reaction over the consequences of the disease itself. I heard plenty even here on this forum declaring that any opposition to the Covid vaccine was anti-science. That didn’t make it true.

Is it possible to question the general efficacy of particular vaccines without actually being anti-science? Yes, I’d say that it most certainly is possible. As others have pointed out here and elsewhere, science is itself the process of discovery, and the lack of evidence against a theory that by all evidence known appears true does not mean that there IS no counter-evidence that could be discovered or later come to light.

To your new question, honestly, I would say it’s pretty hard to deny that vaccines in general have really helped almost eliminate things like polio and smallpox. If you deny that, I’d say you’re at least living in a different reality than I am, if not anti-science. But some really big successes against dangerous diseases does not make all vaccines equally successful or valuable. If you think that because science has found some good weapons against some diseases, now anything called a vaccine, even if not subject to nearly the same amount of experience or testing must be accepted and even mandated, then I would ask who is actually against the science? As JD noted, at that point it’s a religion, not science.

There’s an old debate whether questioning anything is anti-science. I suppose that’s true from a point of view, but does anybody think it’s good science to question that copper conducts electricity or that hot air rises or that the volume of a gas decreases when you put it under pressure?

So, I’m not fond of the term “settled science,” because it’s too easy to abuse. But there are some things that deserve some equivalent description.

As for vaccine ‘general efficacy,’ we’ve been able to watch how vaccines work from start to finish for quite a lot of years now. There is not much mystery to the basics: find a thing that isn’t the pathogen but looks like it, put a lot of that in the bloodstream, the immune system gears up to fight it, the real pathogen—when it arrives—meets a prepared immune system.

We know that works.

But the details do get more complex, especially on the front end of the process, the “make a thing that looks like the pathogen and put a lot of it in the bloodstream” part. They’re not all made the same way, and aren’t all multiplied the same way. And of course some work better than others.

There’s also the question of tradeoffs. We can measure whether vaccines work or not. There’s a good bit of room for disciplined study (a.k.a. science) of how well this or that vaccine works. And there’s room for study of whether the negative outcomes of this or that vaccine might make their positive outcomes (which are usually pretty easy to verify) not worth it.

None of that is “general efficacy” of vaccines. The general efficacy of stimulating the immune system to fight a specific target is just as certain as the immune system itself. Because where the action happens, that’s all vaccination is.

Is it “anti-science” to question that? Well, is it anti-science to question that something is happening when you can watch it happen with your own eyes? It’s hard to say what “science” could be if not, at least believing what we observe (or lots people observe, over and over and over) is real.

It’s hard to say what “science” could be if not, at least believing what we observe (or lots people observe, over and over and over) is real.

What if a lot of people observe things that seem to call into question the things that others have observed over and over and over? How many must there be and how long must their observtions go on before they can claim the position of "science"?

The question of mandates probably wouldn't exist if it weren't for the fact that there's a substantial history of public health authorities using their power in service of purely political ends. As someone already pointed out, the story of the boy who cried wolf is a part of our collective consciousness for a reason.

A person would have to approach the Covid vaccine with the level of a religious fanatic to suggest that it had a level of efficacy even close to that of other vaccines.

Let me clarify my question. The way the questions and comments were being related there was an either/or that I was not agreeing with and I was pushing back on a false dichotomy. I affirm the scientific evidence for vaccines and yet do not want them to be required by law. I am vaccinated as is my wife. I see this as loving my neighbor. That being said, I don’t want it to be mandatory by law. I suspect most will not agree or understand my position. I agree with the effectiveness of helmets, seat belts and the harmful effects of alcohol and smoking but I do not want laws to dictate whether we can/must use or avoid them.

The problem with vaccines and science was shown quite clearly two days ago. Sen. Sanders was speaking and said the following - “At this unprecedented moment in American history, it is important to share the facts as clearly as we can. Vaccines work. Period.”

This goes right to the heart of the issue. While there is general agreement and scientific support for the idea of vaccines (i.e. train the immune system to fight off disease), the truth is that diseases are not all that alike. Not all vaccines work as well as others, and some viral diseases don’t have a vaccine. But here, a politician is intentionally muddying the waters. If the government later tells us the new treatment for a disease is a “vaccine” and should be mandated because “Vaccines work. Period,” then we are expected to kowtow or we are anti-science. This isn’t about science at all, and the sooner we understand that, the better.

There is a widespread politics-driven narrative that the Covid vaccines have been less effective than most others. This is not really true. I confess I don’t understand the politics. It was Trump’s vaccine.

Part of what keeps this false narrative going is that there are different ways to analyze “efficacy.”

First, though, there is even more fundamental confusion about terms like “infection” and “disease.” Infection means the pathogen is in your body and reproducing. “Disease” means you have gotten sick—you have symptoms.

“Severe disease” is often the preventative goal of vaccines. This means you got really sick. Depending on the report it might or might not include hospitalization, so often the data will break it down further into “hospitalization and death.”

Claude put the table below together for me, with a good bit of prompting. I did have it double check the references, which usually works, but sometimes it still gets details wrong.

Against “severe disease” the Covid vaccines did even better….

Pulled together by Claude:

Digging deeper, there’s another reason for the ‘Covid vaccines are ineffective’ narrative. It has to do with the timeline.

The first wave of them worked really well. Later (maybe due to variants in the pathogen itself?) less so.

This is compiled and analyzed by Claude…

Verified COVID Vaccine Effectiveness Data: Infection vs. Disease

Based on the most recent CDC data and peer-reviewed studies, here are the confirmed effectiveness rates with direct source links:

Current 2024-2025 COVID Vaccine Effectiveness

Against Emergency Department/Urgent Care Visits (proxy for milder infection):

• 33% effectiveness against COVID-19-associated emergency department or urgent care visits among adults aged ≥18 years during the first 7-119 days after vaccination Comparing the COVID-19 Vaccines: How Are They Different? > News > Yale Medicine

Against Hospitalization (severe disease):

• 45-46% effectiveness against hospitalizations among immunocompetent adults aged ≥65 years Comparing the COVID-19 Vaccines: How Are They Different? > News > Yale Medicine
• 40% effectiveness against hospitalizations in immunocompromised adults aged ≥65 years Comparing the COVID-19 Vaccines: How Are They Different? > News > Yale Medicine

Source Link: CDC MMWR - February 27, 2025

Historical Perspective from Meta-Analyses

Against Infection (from systematic reviews):

• First dose: 71% effectiveness, Second dose: 87% effectiveness Yale MedicineScienceDirect (pre-Omicron variants)
• Overall effectiveness against infection with any SARS-CoV-2 variant was 70.7%, but only 26.1% against Omicron variants Vaccine Effectiveness | COVID-19 | CDC

Against Severe Outcomes:

• Against COVID-19-related mortality: 68% effectiveness after first dose, 92% effectiveness after second dose Yale MedicineScienceDirect

Source Links:

• Frontiers Systematic Review
• European Meta-Analysis - PubMed

Key Findings

1. Clear Effectiveness Gradient: COVID-19-associated hospitalization rates during recent analysis were relatively low compared with previous years, precluding estimation of effectiveness against critical illness (intensive care unit admission, invasive mechanical ventilation, or death); effectiveness against these outcomes has historically been higher and more sustained than that against less severe outcomes CDCJohns Hopkins Medicine
2. Variant Impact: Effectiveness was lower for Omicron, at 26.1%, than for pre-Omicron strains, at 77.0% Vaccine Effectiveness | COVID-19 | CDC
3. Durability: Vaccination continues to be an effective measure over time to reduce COVID-19 hospitalisations and mortality, but less so for infections COVID-19 vaccination, all-cause mortality, and hospitalization for cancer: 30-month cohort study in an Italian province - PMC

Source Link: CDC Vaccine Effectiveness Program

Official CDC Position

The primary goal of the COVID-19 vaccination program is to prevent severe illness and death. However, monitoring effectiveness of vaccines against infection provided insights into the impact of vaccines against new variants and provided an early signal of waning immunity COVID-19 Vaccine: What You Need to Know | Johns Hopkins Medicine

Bottom Line: Current data confirms vaccines show moderate effectiveness (~33%) against symptomatic infection/ED visits but significantly higher effectiveness (40-46%) against hospitalization, with historically even higher protection against critical illness and death.

I guess the ‘bottom line’ for that is that we need the Trump magic again, to bring his vaccines back up to the level of effectiveness they once had. But that’s unlikely to happen since he put a—to put it nicely—passionate vaccine skeptic* in charge of HHS.

*Confession: I really, really wanted to use a different description there!

Edit to add: I think we get lost in the weeds sometimes on the Covid vaccine question. I mean, if we want to say “well, it’s a crummy vaccine unless it prevents infection at almost 100% rate” so what? It’s not fair to judge it that way, but let me ask this: Do we really want to take the position that a health measure is no good because it only keeps people from dying? So, if you like, insist it’s a sub-par vaccine. So what? It works great at keeping high risk people out of ICUs and morgues. Isn’t that worth doing?

If the government later tells us the new treatment for a disease is a “vaccine” and should be mandated because “Vaccines work. Period,” then we are expected to kowtow or we are anti-science.

Why don't you think the mandated vaccines work? Because they don't reach 100% efficacy?

Based on my interaction with the vaccine skeptics in the churches I've attended, I personally think they are uninformed people who are highly susceptible to internet conspiracy theories. Vaccine skepticism is just one of their many "interesting views" that they love to spread on social media and in the church.

On the other hand, when I speak to informed health care folks in my church (MDs, PAs, and RNs), they are usually generally supportive of vaccines because they know the medical history and efficacy and they've dealt with sad cases that could have been prevented by vaccines. At worst, some of these medical professionals are cautious about certain vaccines. Of course, to anti-vax folks, these medical professionals are "deceived" and operating out of a conflict of interest, and all that jazz.

BTW, I do think the government healthcare officials and the media gatekeepers shot themselves in the foot on the COVID vaccines and the unwillingness to consider alternative perspectives. So now, we have more people questioning vaccines in general. It's really sad, and Kennedy at the HHS is making it even worse.

Neither side of the vaccine discussion knows what to do with me. I’m not anti-all-vaccines, nor am I 100% pro-every-vaccine. As I mentioned 5 years ago during the height of Covid insanity, I do my best to evaluate risk vs. reward, and work from that. It’s really that simple.

As an example, I don’t typically get the flu vaccine every year as is always recommended and some of my friends do. In the last 30 years or so, I’ve gotten that vaccine twice. Once, when my wife was suffering with cancer and was in the middle of heavy chemo and had no immune system, the doctor strongly recommended that I get it to protect her. That was a no-brainer. Whatever risk to me was worth it for her sake. The other time was in 2018 when I went to Pyeongchang for the Olympic games, and I was going to be in masses of crowds from all over the world all the time, with a higher-level than usual of flu-like diseases being warned against. I decided I didn’t want to spend my 30th anniversary trip sick with the flu, so I got the vaccine and figured I’d deal with any side-effects.

Otherwise, with the typical flu vaccine being about 40-60% effective (since they are always trying to figure out which strains matter this year, etc.), I have decided that my risk is small enough I’m not interested in taking on any possible side-effects from the vaccines.

I do the same with other diseases that are not in the same category as polio, smallpox, or rabies, where contracting the disease is potentially life-altering. If I got bitten, I’d take the rabies vaccine. I’ve already had the polio and smallpox vaccines. But I’m not going to take every single new vaccine out there just because it’s “recommended.” I’m sure some will say that makes me anti-vax. I’m not, but if it makes you feel better to say so, go ahead.

Dave, you sound just like me and most of the people I know who are opposed to vaccine mandates. The reason that people don't know what to do with you is because too often our positions have been misrepresented due to vaccine advocacy extremism.

Before the COVID vaccine, the only vaccines I received were as a child. Now that I'm 50, I've received the shingles vaccine. But, I don't get the flu vaccine because I'm pretty healthy and don't think I need it.

>>But, I don’t get the flu vaccine because I’m pretty healthy and don’t think I need it.<<

I can’t completely tell if this last is tongue-in-cheek or serious, but assuming the latter, how dare you have the temerity to make such a determination? Doesn’t making that decision make you anti-science and anti-vax? After all, you’re not a virologist or epidemiologist. EXPERTS have told us we should be taking these! You don’t have the expertise to make a decision like that. Get in line and get your shot!

This is exactly the kind of thing that has only grown worse since 2020. We’re not allowed to use what intellect we do have and common sense to make any decisions any longer. We have (almost always unnamed) “experts” to do that for us. So when there is a reaction to this nonsense, the terms anti-vax and anti-science get trotted out.

It’s kind of like all the reaction from the left about Charlie Kirk. After all, according to them he was “far-right,” and what he said was “hate speech.” When normalcy starts getting labeled as “far-right” and logic and truth are labeled “hate speech,” at some point we just have to embrace being called such things (along with “anti-vax”) and wear our labels with determination, if not pride.

I'm being serious. I had my annual wellness visit with my doctor, and she asked if I wanted the flu shot. I responded, "Do I need it?" She responded that it was optional for someone like me in good health. She did recommend I receive the shingles vaccination because I got chicken pox as a youth and I'm 50. So, I went to CVS and got the shingles vaccine (shot 1 of 2). I need to get the second shot when I return from Albania.

Vaccines should not be a political or theological issue. It's about what's best for one's health and the health of those closest to the individual (as has been mentioned above). As I get older, I may start getting the flu shot; but, right now I'm in good health and usually don't get sick except for a minor cold once and a while.

But, my general attitude toward medication is I don't want to take it unless I need it. Even then, I want to take as little as necessary. It's not a political or religious conviction; I just don't want to be over-medicated.

>>But, my general attitude toward medication is I don’t want to take it unless I need it. Even then, I want to take as little as necessary. It’s not a political or religious conviction; I just don’t want to be over-medicated.<<

Agreed. Nothing to argue with here, though I might say “really need it.”

The desire to avoid being overmedicated resonates with me.

I’m not sure who is doing that. The view Dave described sounds to me like pretty much everybody before Covid and most people after.

It’s kind of like a continuum of “vaccine comfort” or maybe a bell curve. There are definitely extremes on both ends. Most people are probably in the middle.

I am probably not quite where Dave is on this, because I don’t really see vaccines as “medication” exactly. We are not talking about chemical compounds that that mitigate this or that problematic body process (while also breaking some other processes). Fundamentally, vaccines are just harnessing the body’s immune system.

Where that line gets blurrier is when there is a new method of replication or delivery, such as the mRNA vaccines. I am not worried about the mRNA vaccines at this point, but also wouldn’t be surprised if some long-term negative health outcome was eventually clearly identified. Newer techniques often turn out that way.

To me, the other risk factor with vaccines is unintended immune system casualties, so to speak. The “imitation pathogen” is never the actual pathogen, these days, so the immune response could start killing more than intended. Similarly, the antigens created by the mRNA mechanism could, themselves, end up doing something negative in addition to the positive outcome of teaching the immune system to identify an enemy, though these antigens don’t stay around very long.

I can also see this logic: If vaccines trigger an imprecise immune response, and we vaccinate a lot, could the margin of error accumulate? That is, could the amount of deviation from the actual pathogen accumulate so that the immune system becomes overly broad in its targeting? Like “immune system noise”? I’m just thinking out loud here. There may be some really solid reasons why that is not a realistic scenario, but I’m not a virologist.

Speaking of—I think we often forget in these kinds of controversies, that people who work in medical fields are likely like people in other fields. They are trying to help people. But like other fields, there will be some who are unethical or more motivated by fame and power. But there are so many people working in virology and immunology, and they are going to be average people with average motivations, mostly with no desire to harm anyone.

And this is a reality that the conspiracy theorists seem to consistently forget or dismiss.

It's not a political or religious conviction; I just don't want to be over-medicated.

Yep, that's were a lot of us are at, so I don't see what the problem is other than some people think we have a right to make that choice ourselves and other people do not.

But there are so many people working in virology and immunology, and they are going to be average people with average motivations, mostly with no desire to harm anyone.

And this is a reality that the conspiracy theorists seem to consistently forget or dismiss.

The problem is we do not know who is believing the conspiracy theory and who is believing the truth. I am a little annoyed about those who believe a lot of conspiracy theories and label those they disagree with as conspiracy theorists. I think they are in the same category as those who label others as anti-science simply for having a different interpretation of scientific data. I am not so concerned about the differences of opinion as I am about those who are so arrogant as to think they could not be wrong. It is as if they think those who have a different view are either conspiracy theorists or science deniers.

I think part of the issue is also the sheer number of recommended vaccines. According to the 2025 CDC schedule, children should receive some 25 vaccines by age 18mos, with an additional 4 coming in years 4-6. That's not counting annual vaccines for influenza and COVID-19 beginning at 6mos. Ages 11-18 only come with 4 additional vaccines (aside from keeping up with annual flu and COVID shots). Of course, if you're in certain higher risk groups, you might get another dozen or so vaccines. All told that's a lot of invasive medicine to be done on the basis of a government mandate.

I think part of the issue is also the sheer number of recommended vaccines. According to the 2025 CDC schedule, children should receive some 25 vaccines by age 18mos, with an additional 4 coming in years 4-6. That's not counting annual vaccines for influenza and COVID-19 beginning at 6mos. Ages 11-18 only come with 4 additional vaccines (aside from keeping up with annual flu and COVID shots). Of course, if you're in certain higher risk groups, you might get another dozen or so vaccines. All told that's a lot of invasive medicine to be done on the basis of a government mandate.

Yes, this is a huge contributor to my vaccine "skepticism." I am not opposed to vaccines, I am just a bit skeptical about the necessity of all of them. I also think that a lot the SI readers who do not have little kids have no idea about the sheer amount of vaccines that are being pushed on children today.

Our oldest son is 17, but we also have a 2 year old, so this is something we have to address. Things have changed a lot just between our oldest and youngest as far as what is recommended. We no longer live in the day where kids are given 3 or 4 vaccines and then are good for the rest of their lives.

I think a lot of people who want to vilify my skepticism think things were just like when they had kids 30 years ago.