It's fair to have a healthy skepticism of formal education in general. But the education of medical doctors is a lot better than that of most others.
That says nothing of sufficiency. If we are going to buy a house in partnership, you and I and become slum lords and you have 100x as much money than I, but I have only 100 dollars, the fact will avail us nothing in the purchase of a $250K property.
They start out as the very best students, who are capable scientists on their own right before they even get admitted into med school.
Perhaps a necessary condition, but again, not sufficient. The best students who at the time were "capable scientists" of the middle ages used to try things like sewing the legs of dead Moors to the amputated stumps of white men. The best was still not good enough. And so it remains along many, many lines of endeavor.
But I don't know any who, week-after-week, for the duration of their doctoral studies, worked as long and hard every week as those in med school did.
Perhaps, but that proves nothing.
But it's wrong to say that the level of knowledge a general practitioner has about vaccines is less than zero
Not if what they are taught is fundamentally flawed in some truly significant manner, and I submit that it is. The immune system of a human being is a biochemical labyrinth of which I suspect we know just enough to be dangerous. The body of knowledge grows to be sure, but we are still a very long way from understanding it in sufficient fashion, much less as gestalt. You may or may not understand the challenges posed by such complex systems, but I certainly do from several standpoints. Add to that the enormous difficulties in making observations at the molecular level and the precariousness of our body of knowledge becomes ever the more pronounced.
I have a friend who works at NIH in DC. Lets call him Ralph, mainly because that is his name. He, too, is a PhD scientist working on immunological research and he well on board with the state of research and so forth. Even he warns against getting too cozy and confident in our current state of knowledge. He points out that there are levels of understanding, a notion with which I completely agree and understand. You may have 90% of a mechanism's function figured out. That does not mean you understand it because what remains in the remaining 10%, once deciphered, could alter your current understanding in ways you cannot now imagine. Just look at the deal with so-called "junk" DNA, which makes up the great majority of your genetic code. It was pronounced with great knowing that this DNA had no purpose - that it was nothing more than evolutionary remnants of the billions of mutative dead-ends. I clearly recall when this bombastic and hubris laden announcement was made shaking my head and thinking how preposterous these people are who make such proclamations because the admitted truth was that they had absolutely no idea how the DNA got there and what, if any, purpose it might serve. It is not coming to light that the junk DNA appears to serve among other possible purposes that of enabling very rapid mutation in the face of environmental changes that threaten extinction.
So much for what we "know".
or even less than that of any given highly knowledgable non-medical doctor.
Ralph is not an MD so far as I know - never asked, actually - but I doubt there are more GP than you could count on your fingers and toes in the USA who know 10% of what he does. I could be wrong, but doubt it. I don't think Ralph is quite a true genius, but he is very close to it. I always feel stupid around him in a way.
Furthermore, when pediatricians and OB/GYN's vaccinate kids, the vaccines they give are limited to a small number about which they know a great deal
How do you know this to be true? That aside, I was referring specifically to GPs who vaccinate a whole shitload more children than do pediatricians. Pediatricians usually treat those who are already ill. Most parents take their children to a GP for routine examinations and procedures. My GP, for instance, a lovely woman and very capable, always has kids in for vaccines - nearly every time I'm there I strike up conversations with parents because I love kids and miss my own girls, so I make a horrible pest of myself and usually ask what's up and they often tell me they are in for vaccines. I strain to hold my tongue with universal success, but I admit my skin crawls and when I see a mashably cute little baby it is difficult to think of what the parent is risking. But it ain't my business, so I zip it.
Once again, I am not saying doctors are not good folks and dedicated and smart. I am saying that immunology is a VERY far from perfect science and the use of vaccines is based on that almost certainly flawed craft. The correlation between certain vaccines and subsequent health issues appears far too strong to me. Even if the vaccine itself is not a causative agent, it may be a cofactor. There could be biochemical circumstances in a give individual of which we are not even aware, much less understand, that play roles in whether a child who is vaccinated become autistic, for example. The combination of the vaccine and these factors, whether they be predispositions, biochemical transient states, or what have you. We just do not know. There could be chemicals that operate on such miniscule volumes that we may never discover them. What if a vaccine acts as a catalyst in come cases? That is not really a solid cause, but a cofactor. The possibilities are nearly endless and we seem to be only scratching the surface.
I have a lot of faith in science for many sorts of endeavors, but on many of the path of inquiry we really don't yet know shit.
