Paul,

"Issy, Smallpox is a devastating disease caused by the variola virus. In 1980, following an historic global campaign of surveillance and vaccination, the World Health Assembly declared smallpox eradicated – the only infectious disease to achieve this distinction."

I know, I did say "Just for fun...."; and it's caused by viruses not just one virus, although they are related.

A good article this week on the psychology of anti-vaxxers:

http://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/2017/09/02/the-psychology-anti-vaccination/15042744005135

S87 (2) omittion from the act removes the of provisions for informed consent, so if you think informed consent will still be able to be given, it wont. Its removal implies that there are no risks associated with vaccinations.
Totally incorrect.
For those of you who have been led to believe that vaccines are "completely safe" Below are excerpts from one product information sheet from vaccine manufacturers.

"It is good clinical practice that immunisation should be preceded by a review of the medical history (especially with regard to previous immunisation and possible occurrence of undesirable events) and a clinical examination."
"As with all injectable vaccines, appropriate medical treatment and supervision should always be readily available in case of a rare anaphylactic reaction following the administration of the vaccine"
"The potential risk of apnoea and the need for respiratory monitoring for 48-72h"
"There are no data on the potential of Menitorix to impair fertility
The carcinogenic potential of Menitorix has not been established"
"Menitorix has not been evaluated for genotoxicity"

Perked your interest? Check out others

Another misleading belief which has been encouraged by media and governments, is the belief that anyone who questions the safety of vaccines are "anti-vaxxers" let's consider the many doctors and scientists out there who are questioning vaccine safety

//For those of you who have been led to believe that vaccines are "completely safe"//

Who is claiming that vaccines are completely safe? I've seen a lot of anti-vaxxers claiming that the public health authorities claim vaccines to be 100% safe, but I've never actually seen any public health authorities making that claim. And when you ask anti-vaxxers to provide evidence to back up such claims (or any of their other claims), they tend to clam up. Funny that...

Of course they aren't completely safe. For one thing, they all contain high concentrations of DHMO, and we all know toxic DHMO is:

http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html

You don't seem to understand the scientific method very well - it's more about quantifying the level of uncertainty than it is about guaranteeing certainty, or at least it is in chemistry and physics. I assume it's the same in biology.

The question isn't whether or not they are completely safe, because that is impossible to guarantee. The question is whether or not they are safer than the diseases they prevent. And if you really, truly believe that, say, a polio epidemic would be safer than polio vaccination, then by all means share your compelling data with us and public health officials.

//let's consider the many doctors and scientists out there who are questioning vaccine safety//

Sure, why not? Although I do hope you're not referring to Andrew Wakefield; he is a con man who has been struck off the register for cooking the books, so he has no right to use those titles anymore.

As regards your 'many': I don't accept as 'many' valid quantitative data. How many, exactly? Preferably expressed as a percentage or ratio.

The freedom of choice argument, is more a freedom to impose onto others. I have no problem if simply people that do not wish to choose vaccination were "cocooned in a vacuum" with no possibility of adversely affecting others. It is not the case, their free choice impinges on my freedom not to be adversly affected in some way by their choice, something I cannot tolerate.

A similar "freedom of choice" argument is put forward by the tobacco industry with their smokers rights rubbish. All the diseases associated with smoking are non communicable, lung cancer, emphysema, heart disease etc. On the surface the right to smoke seems a reasonable free choice, but is it? Its not a free choice when it is imposed on others through passive smoking. As non smoker I strongly object to being subjected to passive smoke. Not long ago I had the experience at a bus stop where a smoker sat beside me with a fag and allowed his crap to go all over me. I objected, it led to an argument, the bloke through out the free choice argument, and a whole lot more rubbish as well, what an A hole was he, when the bus arrived he stamped his fag out on the ground, for someone else to clean up, just like all good smokers do. He didn't care that he was well within four meters of the stop, and breaking the law anyway.

Dear Paul,

From someone like you who suffered such a disgusting experience, I would expect even more sensitivity.

Placing unacceptable substances into the air that you breath is bad enough - how more so puncturing your skin and inserting unacceptable substances directly into your bloodstream!

On the scale of abusing one's intimacy and integrity, I find this even one notch worse than inserting unacceptable objects into another's anus or vagina.

Note that by "unacceptable" I don't necessary mean unhealthy: the only relevant point is that, for whatever reason, the substance is unacceptable to the person upon whom it is forced, just as a woman does not have to provide an explanation for her refusal to have sex.

Unlike the case of the smoker, nobody can hurt you by not vaccinating themselves because inaction is the default. Germs and viruses are part of the environment - you can blame them if you like, but not other people who have done nothing to hurt you.