Vaccination: give me your evidence.

From what I've seen, the process of altering controversial beliefs (religious, political, moral, etc.) tends to follow a pattern: kids fervently uphold their parents' views when they're young, then start to listen to enough of the counterarguments to become agnostic on the issue, then pay no attention to it for a while, and then finally decide to actually focus on the question and make a decision about it. I've seen this happen with the change from conservative to liberal, the change from religious to atheist, the change from atheist to religious, the change from omnivorous to vegetarian or vegan, and a host of others. The final perspective isn't always in opposition to the original--my opinion on abortion followed these steps from knee-jerk blind acceptance of one side (of course abortion should be legal, and you're just wrong if you think otherwise) to ambiguity and active ignorance (I'm not sure what I think, and I'd really rather not talk about it) to a period of careful consideration, after which I settled on my original opinion, but with actual reasons and a new capability of discussing it on a rational level. That period of indecision and not thinking about it is, I think, important to the process, and I've discovered through interactions with a lot of people that pressing the issue when someone's in that stage is about as pointless and frustrating as trying to argue with someone who's knee-jerk convinced that they're right.

My mother is--surprisingly, for someone normally so adamantly in favor of scientific progress--against vaccination. None of her kids, including me, were vaccinated when she had control over the decision. I believe Clayton and Lincoln have still never been vaccinated; Cordell had to get his shots before he could go to Japan, and I had to get mine before I could come to Clark. I've been in the "ignoring the decision" stage for a few years on this. I thought about it a little when I got jabbed for Clark, but I think I was still not quite ready to attack the issue.

I just read an article about it in Wired, and now I'm ready to take a look at the science and make a decision. So: tell me what you think, and back up your position with links and names and studies that I can look into. I suspect most of my flist is pro-vaccination; if you aren't, and you're afraid of getting jumped on, feel free to contact me privately or delete your comment immediately (I'll get it e-mailed to me).

EDIT: Please be civil.