Personally, I find it reprehensible that there is all this fear-mongering about vaccinations. Vaccinations have saved untold millions of babies, children and adults from crippling or deadly diseases. The discussion, as always, should be turned inward toward the quality control and proper evaluation of vaccines by our federal agencies.
It is true that, just like any medication, there is some risk assessment involved. However, we live in a state of constant risk assessment. Think about it - every day people use their cars, ride bikes (with or without helmets), take over-the-counter medications, drink alcohol, go to smoke-filled bars and restaurants, breathe air with some level of pollutants, drink water that is impossible to brand as "pristine" no matter how much purification is done. All of these activities have some risk involved.
Seems to me that promise of health care and technology has our current society expecting no less than perfection - and that just isn't going to happen! I can promise that with minimal federal oversight, the quality of our health care will be severely hampered. We will go back to a culture like we had before the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906, with a plethora of snake oil salesmen that promise health but at the very least give us broken promises.
Oh, and for the record, despite Margot's claim that no one says "better living through chemistry" anymore, you are all experiencing better living through chemistry whether you care to acknowledge that fact or not. Chemistry is the backbone behind all technological developments whether medical, material, or physical. No field is perfect - chemistry included - but the problems tend to be generated by the poor decision making of executives and governments, not the science.