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Originally Posted by Rathji
Correct, but you cannot find what you are are not looking for.
The point of what I was saying is that I could see, and I would totally agree with, them not wanting to find out if this was the case, since it is better for society as a whole if they don't.
I am not convinced it happening like that, by any stretch of the imagination, but I can see the logic behind it happening.
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But the results would reveal themselves. You don't need to go far back to see lucrative medicines that were pulled off shelves (and class action lawsuits). Vioxx is the one that springs to mind.
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Merck has reserved $970 million to pay for its Vioxx-related legal expenses through 2007, and have set aside $4.85bn for legal claims from US citizens.
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Can you imagine how much money would be involved if any of these early childhood immunizations were proven to be dangerous? There will always be side effects to any drug; but dangerous to the point that the immunization critics claim would ruin any company.
And that is the point of the OP.
The "Vaccine court" has a lower requirement than a full legal tribunal, and even with this "lowered bar" the correlation between the MMR vaccine and autism couldn't be proved. The "Wakefield controversy" occurred because a study was actually largely funded by lawyers looking for evidence they wanted to be able to sue. The wikipedia article list 23 followup studies, none of which found any correlation between immunizations and autism.
And yet there are chiropractors advising against immunizations (and why the heck would they be involved in that?), people like Jenny McCarthy using their fame to spread misinformation, and so on.
There are mountains of evidence that immunizations are beneficial to society. Evidence that when immunizations stop, the root diseases return. And yet still people are more fearful of the chance of an immunization side effect that they are of the disease.
I can understand people wanting to protect their children and fearing the side effects, but if that is your justification then you had better just put your kid in a bubble right now.