How is that a healthy skepticism of scientific claims does not seem to apply to

vaccines? Why is the pro-vax crowd so dogmatic about them? The strength of their

claim that vaccines are safe is not warranted by the existing evidence. The sci

entific literature that has conclusively established a causal link between vacci

nation and unintended injury has been reviewed by the National Academy of Scienc

es Institute of Medicine (IOM) on numerous occasions, and their findings have be

en used by the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) (http://www.h

rsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/index.html) to compensate those who have been injure

d or died. In 2012 the IOM published a report, “Adverse Effects of Vaccines: Evide

nce and Causality,” that “concluded the evidence convincingly supports 14 specific v

accine–adverse event relationships. Since the first VICP claims were filed in 1989

, the US Court of Federal Claims has issued compensation awards for 3,540 of the

13,274 claims filed (26.7%). Approximately 7.4% of the awards were for deaths,

or 265 people. Over $2.7 billion in compensation awards have been paid to petiti

oners, and over $109.3 million have been paid to cover attorneys' fees and other

legal costs. As these data show, people are injured and killed by vaccines ever

y year. Furthermore, IOM reviews have found that little is known about which pop

ulations may have adverse reactions to vaccines or the adverse effects of the en

tire vaccine schedule. In its 2013 report on The Childhood Immunization Schedule

and Safety, the IOM stated, “The committee found that evidence from assessments o

f health outcomes in potentially susceptible populations of children who may hav

e an increased risk of adverse reactions to vaccines (such as children with a fa

mily history of autoimmune disease or allergies or children born prematurely) wa

s limited and is characterized by uncertainty about the definition of population

s of interest and definitions of exposures and outcomes. Most children who exper

ience an adverse reaction to immunization have a preexisting susceptibility. Som

e predispositions may be detectable prior to vaccination; others, at least with

current technology and practice, are not . . .” Plenty of studies have already lin

ked vaccination with brain damage and disorders, of which autism is one, and the

VICP has awarded a number of claims that include autism among the alleged injur

ies. In addition, as the 2013 IOM report pointed out, “Most vaccine-related resear

ch focuses on the outcomes of single immunizations or combinations of vaccines a

dministered at a single visit. Although each new vaccine is evaluated in the con

text of the overall immunization schedule that existed at the time of review of

that vaccine, elements of the schedule are not evaluated once it is adjusted to

accommodate a new vaccine. Thus, key elements of the entire schedule – the number,

frequency, timing, order and age at administration of vaccines – have not been sy

stematically examined in research studies . . .” Scientific facts are revised all

the time based on new research. For example, the CDC has revised the amount of l

ead considered to be safe five times since 1970, from 60 micrograms per decilite

r of blood to 5. It is the very nature of scientific knowledge to change; as Sam

uel Arbesman points out in his book, almost all scientific facts have a half-lif

e. Furthermore, the nature of scientific knowledge is probabilistic, because mos

t scientific conclusions are based on probabilities, with p < .05 being the gold

standard. That still leaves room for false positives and false negatives. And e

ven though medical researchers try to base their conclusions on statistical evid

ence, the researchers are inherently biased by their background, training, exper

ience, and affiliations. The peer review process is an attempt to eliminate bias

, but reviewers and editors themselves are biased. Wakefield’s MMR-bowel disease s

tudy in autistic children was peer reviewed and published—-until it was retracted.

As the UK House of Common pointed out, there is “little solid evidence on the eff

icacy of pre-publication editorial peer review,” and John P. A. Ioannidis went so

far as to say, “It can be proven that most claimed research findings are false.”