GUEST:
The point mack/misophist was making was about whether or not smallpox vaccine has any efficacy, and I'll explain that since you don't seem to know what the word 'analogy' means. Europeans were less susceptible to smallpox than Native Americans because Europe had lost millions of people due to smallpox epidemics in earlier times. Thus by the brute forces of nature, those who survived passed on their greater resistance to their descendants, the Europeans who met the Native Americans. The Native Americans had no previous exposure to smallpox, hence died in droves.
So to an unprotected population, the smallpox vaccine would save a large proportion of exposed souls. Assuming that vaccines have done their job and protected our children from disease, those who do not use them are getting a 'free ride' based on the low incidence of those disease BECAUSE of the use of vaccines by the majority of people. The free ride is without a protective rail because in the event of an epidemic, unvaccinated people will be victims and carriers.

If GUEST you are the GUEST who claimed to be an 'educator' then I tremble for your students. You correctly mention the importance of distinguishing between legitimate and 'poor quality' information, then launch into your version of 'facts' which are, in FACT, your opinions. I don't trust every doctor I meet, but I question your assertion that "Doctors aren't taught a lot of things in medical school". Based apparently on your one visit for arthroscopy.

I agree with you that 'no system is perfect', but after reading your note, I'm more worried about our educational system.

And as for flawed logic, you opine that if it weren't for vaccination, our pediatricians might not see our kids at all. Gee, what if our kids get sick more often because they haven't been immunized? Think they'd go to a doctor THEN?

Would you rather see a doctor to get a shot, or because you're coughing up blood?

Your logic precisely matches that of the miser who fed his mule less and less, and after it died he cursed his bad luck: "I had that mule trained to eat almost nothin' and then it had to go and die on me!"