Article missing key information

I would like to respond to Dr. Gifford-Jones’ opinion piece in the Tuesday October 23 edition of the Guardian. “So, what is the risk of a vaccine, then?”

I am not an expert in immunology, nor an expert in health sciences or surgery, and I will not pretend to know the latest literature on the safety of immunizations, or how much mercury or aluminum are in vaccines. But I do know something about the difference between consequence and risk.

This article contains many examples of claimed harm (i.e., consequence) from vaccines without actually giving any information about their risk (i.e., combining harm with the chance of that harm occurring), and that is wrong. There are no hard numbers, there are no referenced studies, and no mention of dose, or frequency, or anything that would help a reader manage risk. Are some vaccines safer than others? Are mercury or aluminum present in high enough concentrations to be harmful? What is the rate of side effects for vaccines?

The public puts a lot of faith in people with credentials like MD and that is a good thing. But that also means their opinions are taken much more seriously than other public figures, particularly when they give their opinion on public health issues. So, I urge Dr. GiffordJones and others fortunate enough to have those credentials: take your credentials seriously, talk about the things you know something about, and leave the other things to the people who know the difference. Brian Bylhouwer, Charlottetown