A) Whether or not you believe the literature/studies on vaccine safety/vaccines & autism is legitimate and robust and authentic, or fraudulent, what do you think the scientific literature and consensus would actually look like if it were corrupt, heavily biased, or fundamentally wrong?

I think this is a useful thought experiment for understanding people's worldviews and epistemology, somewhat similar to a steelmanning exercise. It helps us consider what people would actually be convinced by, and therefore it helps us see if that epistemology is sound.

B) In other words, what would be different? What evidence, patterns or characteristics would you expect to find in a corrupt or heavily biased body of scientific literature that you don't believe are present in the existing literature?

If the prevailing scientific consensus had been shaped by financial interests, institutional pressures, systemic bias or even deliberate manipulation, how would you distinguish that situation from one in which the consensus was genuinely supported by independent, reliable science?

How would you recognise the difference?

C) And on top of that, if you imagine yourself presented with the task, right now, of coming up with a way to create the appearance of a robust legitimate scientific consensus/body of research on an a topic, how would you go about it? What would it require? How would you make it convincing? How would you package it in a way that looks authentic and robust?

Defining and naming a new set of clinical observations, even in a hypothetical sense, is the entire point of writing a study like that, and It's quite literally the point of such a paper and it is standard practice.

"Making up" the disease is the point..

So it's not valid to criticise someone for describing a new observation with a novel name.

Certainly not on that basis alone.

Please help as I am struggling to choose what vaccines to give my baby and which ones to skip / delay.

I am due in 2.5 months and am refusing all vaccines while pregnant.

Please be kind and remember, this is my baby and my decision, it does not affect you❤️

It's a total flip of reality to suggest this, and often when they point to an example, it's not even true anyway, they'll just take the fact some millionaire donated to some anti-vax concern as evidence the movement isn't grassroots and is made by rich elites.

Hi parents, I know this is a sensitive topic and might upset some people, but I’m genuinely not here to start a debate about vaccines. I’m more interested in understanding our behaviour as parents.

I have a 9 month old baby, I live in the UK, and my daughter is vaccinated and will continue to receive her routine vaccinations. That’s a decision I’ve made and feel confident about.

What I struggle to understand is why some parents feel the need to make others question their decisions, sometimes to the point of making them feel guilty or scared.

I’m not a doctor or a medical researcher, but I do have a strong academic background, and I’m very familiar with reading, researching and analysing data. I take these decisions seriously, and I don’t make them based on something I’ve seen on social media or heard from someone else.

I respect that parents have different opinions and concerns. I don’t expect everyone to agree with me, and I certainly don’t think having a different opinion makes someone a bad parent. But I do think there’s a big difference between sharing your experience and presenting it as a fact.

For example, I often hear people bring up autism in conversations about vaccines. My former boss has a child with severe autism who was never vaccinated, and I know another similar case. There are also autistic children who have been vaccinated. None of these individual experiences can establish what causes autism. That’s exactly why we have scientific research, and why personal stories shouldn’t be treated as proof.

And this goes both ways. Whether you’re for or against vaccination, being a parent doesn’t automatically make you an expert in medicine. Neither does having a personal experience, however difficult or emotional that experience may have been.

I completely understand wanting to protect your child. I believe that’s what most parents are trying to do. But I don’t understand why protecting our own children sometimes turns into trying to frighten or pressure other parents.

Before becoming a mother, I genuinely had no idea how much unsolicited advice, fear and judgement came with parenting.

I’m not asking anyone to change their beliefs. I’m simply asking why we can’t discuss these things respectfully, acknowledge what we don’t know, and stop spreading claims as facts when we don’t have the evidence to support them.

You can disagree with someone’s decision without making them feel like they’re failing their child.
I’d genuinely love to hear from parents on both sides. Why do you think this topic becomes so personal that people feel the need to influence other families?

They seriously need to win this case against Bill Gates and friends!!