Well, your characterization of my approach to the practice of medicine is spectacularly uninformed, and your contempt for the standards of medical and ethical education in Canada are equally ignorant, I must say. But let's not dwell on that.
You said that "it's a mistake to apply the doctrine of competing harms to procedures performed across populations". I told you that was a very bold assertion, and asked you to explain yourself. You have replied with more assertions, but no arguments, no references to the biomedical literature to support your claim, only a repeated but reworded assertion to the same effect.
It sounds like pure rhetoric, actually.
As I'm sure you're as unfamiliar with the literature of medical ethics as you are with the educational standards of Canada, you may want to peruse this paragraph from a commonly cited ethics paper by Salzano, readily available at NCBI:
"Though very safe, vaccines are not completely without risk [70]. Because they are usually administered to healthy children and are only potentially beneficial to them, any adverse event has a negative impact on the risk:benefit ratio [71,72]. The most of adverse events are mild (i.e., pain and swelling at the injection site, mild fever, rash or syncope) [71]. Anaphylactic reaction happens in approximately one per 1 million doses [70]. Some other rare severe adverse events are febrile seizures, immune thrombocytopenic purpura, disseminated varicella infection in varicella vaccine and intussusception in rotavirus vaccine [70,71,73]. Rarer adverse effects are mostly observed only after vaccine licensure, with continuous monitoring [71]. There are several independent bodies entitled for pursuance of this sensitive task; GACVS (Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety) is based in Geneva and gives advice on vaccine safety to WHO, while two main programs in the U.S. are VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System), run by CDC and FDA, and Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) [71,74]. Because incorrect associations between certain vaccines and adverse effects were made in the past, a couple of myths have developed, which have fostered mistrust about vaccines [70]. A widely prevalent one is association between MMR vaccine and autism, which was rejected with strong evidence [70,75]. A solution to misconceptions about vaccines is providing reliable data on any possible adverse event and counselling parents about their concerns [71]."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4524827/Here Salzano makes the clear implication that there must inevitably be a weighing of the risk: benefit ratio. This, my friend, is simply a rewording of the doctrine of competing harms.
If you want to argue that the ethics I have outlined are not accepted or acceptable, I suggest you offer some other source that supports your position and refutes mine.
In the meantime you're blowing smoke, amigo.
But let me be clear: if you have sources with cogent arguments that argue contrary to this position, I want to be aware of them to inform myself by them. I am truly interested in learning more.
