Mrs. Lemon - that's called an immune system. Your kid's obviously got a pretty good one, which is lucky for him. Some kids aren't so lucky and would be dead or damaged by now, which is the reason for vaccinations.

Little Hawk, re your "personal experience only" theories, I suggest you check out the Flat Earth Society for a laugh. Its basic tenet was that the Earth is flat and Antarctica is actually the rim. They based this on the fact that no-one had demonstrated Antarctica is a single continent by walking from one side to the other. All space research is therefore a massive conspiracy theory. Obviously they're wackos, but it shows what depths you can get to when you say "if I've not seen it, it ain't so".

I guess you have to differentiate between faith based on the existence of scientific structures, heavy research, years of clinical tests and the like, as against faith without basis; and the relative benefits brought to the human race by both sides. Too many ppl aren't rational on this. To take an analogy, aviation has had some really bad crashes, but it doesn't alter the fact that it's safer to be flying than to be walking along the street! But ppl still say "I'm scared of flying bcos planes aren't safe". Similarly, medicine has cocked up very badly in the past (thalidomide would be an example of that), but it's still doing a damn sight better at keeping ppl alive than ANY traditional medicine system (AKA "folk remedies") has ever done. For proof of that, you only have to look at the population figures for any country before and after the adoption of vaccinations!

Since this is the case, I'd be more inclined to trust the opinion of a modern medical doctor than someone who only knows folk remedies. I know that the medical doctor has the better part of a decade of training, that the treatments he provides have been through numerous clinical trials to find the nasty side-effects, that a system is in place to report any other side-effects which haven't been found during testing, that this system will also track all treatments to find which gives the best result for my illness, and that there is oversight of the doctor's actions in case what he does causes me harm. I do NOT know that any of this exists for any alternative medicine practitioners. Therefore my greater faith in the medical doctor than the alternative medicine guy would seem to have a pretty sound basis, at least for the moment until alternative medicine gets itself organised.

I guess to some extent I'm also trusting the person to be competent - that they'll tell me all the facts about a treatment, and that they won't recommend a treatment that'll harm me or actively try to kill me for their own personal benefit. I don't know that there's any defense against this, bcos you have to accept that you're not an expert in the field and they are.

Re specialists disagreeing with each other, that's bound to happen. As you yourself say, they have vested interests. But the emphasis is on each of them to prove their cases - usually the one going against the majority verdict has the tougher time. Which is as it should be - some revolutionary claims are true (eg. Pasteur's discovery of bacteria), but some are just bunkum (eg. Breatharianism), so you'd better have some decent evidence ready for your claim. And if you do come up with something revolutionary and have the evidence to hand (eg. pennicillin) then you can be sure that it will be accepted pretty damn quick.

JohnInKansas's approach may be a bit OTT, but it's perfectly justified and rational. That's the same approach that an oversight/epidemiology check would be taking.

Graham.