No medical intervention is risk-free, INCLUDING watchful waiting. I find 'opportunity cost' a useful phrase.
"Speaking at the opening session on Tuesday, Hugo Keith KC, counsel to the inquiry, said expert evidence commissioned by the inquiry suggested “overwhelmingly” that the UK operated “a robust and sophisticated system” for ensuring the highest levels of safety. “The evidence suggests overwhelmingly that the UK Covid vaccines successfully protected the people of the UK against a virus that was killing and liable to kill hundreds of thousands of people,” he said.
“Side-effects may be encountered in any medicine, but serious side-effects, whilst very rare, are nevertheless significant and debilitating,” he added. “For those who did suffer serious side-effects, and even worse, for the very small number of people whose loved ones died as a result, it was, of course, a complete tragedy, and nothing that is said about the rarity of those terrible consequences can be taken, or should be taken, to diminish that loss,” he said.
Keith added that references to the “obvious and well-known fact” that in very rare cases, vaccination has serious side-effects, “must not be used as a platform to seek to undermine the vital public health role that vaccination plays in keeping people safe from disease, or to try to seek to argue that at a population level, vaccination is not overwhelmingly beneficial.” "
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jan/15/people-with-covid-vaccine-injuries-not-getting-help-they-need-inquiry-hears
"You may have heard that these conditions are rare in the UK.
They’re rare because of vaccination."
https://www.pethealthclub.com/uk/pet-advice/common-questions-about-kitten-vaccinations
We can only limit harm by learning the risks *and adapt our behaviours to reduce their impacts*.
#vaccine #vaccines #vaccination #vaccinations #antivax #ILoveYourDamnPet #QualityOfLife #disease #Infection #InfectionPrevention #epidemiology #PublicHealth #health #prevention #InSicknessAndInWealth #medicine