The science shows that immunity from vaccination is often less comprehensive and doesn't last as long as that from exposure to live, wild viruses. I will accept that, and happily, in the case of tetanus, but not in the case of chicken pox. There are some vaccines where we opted out. In our judgement, after a review of the peer-reviewed literature, in some cases the risks outweighed the effectiveness-weighted benefits. In cases where eradication was in the cards (polio), we opted in regardless of risk.

I do think Big Pharma (not a weasel word – they call themselves that) does some evil shit. Lobbying against universal health care coverage; looting the treasury via lobbying in the recent Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act; spending orders of magnitude more on advertising than on research and development; retiring safe, effective drugs in favor of new ones whose sole advantage is unexpired patents; and so on. Most of the big ones have been caught keeping unsafe drugs on the market, and doctoring tests during the approval process.

This view of the industry has little to do with science, an approach to knowing shit we both follow. It has a lot to do with douches, some of whom are polluting what is really a crazy cool technology. “Here: this stuff cures you.”