All sources · Interactive

Vaccine vs. Disease, one Texas 6-month-old

The ledger

Every number, both schedules, side by side

The Net column is a 0–100 score of the disease side only: 40% disease probability + 30% disease severity + 25% exposure gap + 5% study depth. The vaccine side lives in the Disease comp / Vaccine comp / D/V ratio columns and the pentagons. Trump carries the full study-depth term (0–100 scale); the old-standard column has no study-depth term, so it sits on a 0–95 scale and is not normalized to 100. The D/V ratio is how many times the disease composite outweighs the vaccine composite. N/A-at-6-months rows are scored on their target age and labeled as such.

The planner

Your risk tolerance → a live vaccine schedule

How the five sliders decide what stays in the plan

Five sliders, one schedule: orange sets how much vaccine risk you'll accept (per 1,000 doses), teal sets how much unprotected disease risk you'll accept (per 1,000 kids), age moves "now" along the timeline (doses before the baby's age show as assumed-given), and the two violet sliders are the evidence floor — the smallest trial cohort and shortest post-dose watch window you'll accept, read from each product's §6.1 insert (section 07). A product stays in the plan only while it clears all five, and nothing disappears silently — every exclusion is shown below with its reason: orange = demoted by the active scenario, red = vaccine harm over your tolerance, teal = disease risk below your tolerance, violet = trial evidence below your floor, amber = a study marked Possibly Fraudulent that you chose not to apply.

Risk tolerance & schedule controls
1M (all)100K10K1K1001
0 (all)0.00030.0050.081.320 (none)
0 (birth)24487296120144180 (15 yr)

Evidence floor — how thoroughly tested a product must be

off5001,0005,00010,00025,00050,000100,000
off7 d14 d30 d42 d90 d180 d360 d
Why the disease-risk slider is honest — read before trusting it

Each product's modeled death-or-permanent-disability rate per 1,000 kids (source on chip hover) is compared against your tolerance. If a disease's risk is below what you'll tolerate, the product drops out — you've decided it isn't worth a shot. At 0 (default) you protect against everything. This is the mirror of the vaccine slider: that one drops shots with high vaccine harm, this one drops shots with low disease risk. Rates are modeled from the Texas case counts in sections 01–03 (DSHS Table II 2024, outbreak alerts, national fallbacks where TX doesn't report), not a measured cohort. HPV is the exception: its 15/1,000 is a lifetime cancer risk at the target age (9–14 yr), not a per-year figure, so it's the last to drop.

481216 wks
1999 Verstraeten VSD Study Data (Simpsonwood 2000)

CDC Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) Phase 1 Internal Analysis (Verstraeten et al., 1999): Evaluated 110,000 children born 1992–1998 (Northern California Kaiser, Group Health Puget Sound, Northwest Kaiser) exposed to thimerosal-containing vaccines (TCVs: DTaP 25 µg, Hib 25 µg, HepB 12.5 µg, multi-dose Flu 25 µg). Presented to 51 experts at Simpsonwood Retreat Center (June 2000), prompting the joint AAP/PHS statement recommending thimerosal removal.

Neurologic / Developmental Condition Exposure Tier Relative Risk (95% CI) p-value Key Finding
Speech & Language Delays >50 µg at 3 mo 2.09 (1.19–3.68) p < 0.01 Dose-response: RR 1.13 per 12.5 µg Hg (p=0.009). At 1 mo (>25 µg): RR = 2.48.
Neurodevelopmental Disorders (NDD) >75 µg at 6 mo 1.80 (1.40–2.30) p < 0.001 Combined speech delay, attention deficit, tics. Basis for +1.80× chronic risk multiplier (+1.89%/shot).
Tics / Involuntary Movements >50 µg at 3 mo 5.65 (1.89–16.9) p < 0.002 Highest relative risk tier in NCKP cohort; persisted in Pediatrics 2003 (RR 2.19).
Nonorganic Sleep Disorders >50 µg at 3 mo 5.00 (1.60–15.9) p < 0.01 Dose-dependent behavioral and sleep disruption in early infancy.
Autism / ASD >25 µg at 1 mo 2.48 (1.00–6.15) p = 0.05 Initial unadjusted relative risk was 7.62 (95% CI 2.16–26.8) in earliest VSD run.

Historical vs. Modern Status: Modern routine childhood vaccines (DTaP, Hib, HepB, IPV, PCV, MMR) are thimerosal-free in the U.S. Multi-dose flu vials retain ~25 µg ethylmercury (the Trump package restricts flu to thimerosal-free single-dose vials only).

Interactive schedule simulator

Pixelated Baby Shot Simulator

Click on the baby (or the Administer Next Dose button) to give one shot at a time according to the currently active planner sequence. Watch both sides of the ledger update with every injection: cumulative chronic condition risk (+1.05% per shot) alongside disease risk reduction (protection conferred). Tap any disease name in the protection grid to open its full chart and the disease field-guide card.

👆 Click baby to give dose
0 / 34 shots
Adverse outcome metric

Cumulative Chronic Condition Risk

17.0%
+0.0% added from 0 shots
17% Baseline
57% Full Series
Tune by condition — show a share of the risk

Uncheck the conditions you don't want to count. Baseline, per-shot linear risk, and full-series recalculate from the enabled set. Splits are an illustrative allocation of the study's aggregate, not separately measured sub-totals.

Why only thimerosal is modeled: it's the only legacy agent with a published per-dose risk estimate. Sourcing effect sizes for the others returned null results — aluminum: Andersson 2025 (Ann Intern Med, Danish nationwide cohort, N=1,224,176, 1997–2018): cumulative vaccine Al not associated with any of 50 chronic conditions — per 1 mg: any autoimmune HR 0.98 (0.94–1.02), atopic/allergic 0.99 (0.98–1.01), neurodevelopmental 0.93 (0.90–0.97); formaldehyde: IARC Group 1 is chronic inhaled exposure only — per-dose residual ≤0.1 mg is transient and ~50–70× below endogenous; trace antibiotics (neomycin): trace residues, hypersensitivity cases only, no chronic-disease RR; SV40: historical contaminant, IOM 2002 — evidence inadequate to accept or reject. Full sourced rows: Ingredients ledger →

Cumulative Vaccinatable Disease Risk (10 yr) severe outcomes only 0.266%
Henry Ford Health System draft birth cohort (Zervos et al., 2020): Unvaccinated baseline 17.0% vs fully vaccinated 57.0% across ~38 routine doses (+1.05% linear risk per shot).
Benefit metric

Disease Risk Reduction & Protection

0 of 15 categories protected
Population view

A Million Lives — Outcome Mosaic

healthy: —

Each square is one of 1,000,000 simulated kids at the current shot count. Hot red / magenta pixels are a modeled severe/long-term disease outcome; hot yellow is asthma / allergy, bright orange is another chronic condition, and green is no modeled outcome. Give shots: the red/magenta disease specks recede as the yellow, orange, and green pixels spread. Hover a key to light up that group's pixels; click a key to pin the highlight. The ⇅ sort toggle regroups the pixels into contiguous blocks per outcome instead of leaving them scattered.

Shot 0
Now
Pixel counts are expected-value allocations of the dashboard's own figures — per-disease severe-outcome chances from the protection grid above, and the chronic base + 1.05%/shot split from the chronic card (thimerosal and condition toggles respected). The per-condition chronic split is the same illustrative allocation; the one-outcome-per-person walk means groups sum to exactly 1,000,000.
High-risk categories

Who qualifies when a vaccine is demoted from routine

Six of the demotions in the Trump package (assuming HHS wins) move a vaccine from "recommended for everyone" to "high-risk only / SCDM." That phrase usually points to published ACIP high-risk categories — the same chronic-condition lists clinicians already use. Five of the six do. One (rotavirus) does not — and this section says so instead of papering over it. For a healthy 6-month-old with no chronic conditions, none of these lists apply, which is precisely the point of the demotion: routine protection stops covering healthy kids.

Reading the two columns

  • "Published ACIP list" — the qualifying conditions are a real, pre-existing category (the same list used today for those patients). Demotion doesn't create new criteria; it just stops offering the product to everyone else.
  • "Package language — no formal list" — the 2025–26 package says "high-risk" but, as of the source documents, hasn't published a defined patient list. That's a meaningful difference, and it's flagged on the rotavirus card. I won't invent criteria the package didn't write.
  • Hep B is a different animal — it's a timing change (birth dose → 2 months for moms who test negative), not a high-risk restriction. A mom who is HBsAg-positive still gets the baby a birth dose within 12 hours.
Basis per card is labeled. ACIP high-risk categories are the standard U.S. clinical reference for each condition; the 2025–26 package's "high-risk only / SCDM" language is applied to those existing categories. This is research documentation, not a clinical eligibility determination — for a real patient, the pediatrician decides.
Fine print

Method, caveats, and where every number comes from

How the scores were built

  • Disease probability (TX) — chance of catching the disease, for an unvaccinated 6-month-old in Texas over ~1 year. From DSHS 2024–25 counts/rates (Table II 2015–2023 final, 2024 provisional, 2025 outbreak alerts), national fallbacks where Texas doesn't report (RSV, rotavirus), and attack rates (measles ~90% if exposed).
  • Disease severity — worst documented outcome for an infant (case-fatality, hospitalization, permanent sequelae), Texas-specific where published. It's a 0–100 judgment score from those documented outcomes, not a measured rate.
  • Vaccine risk probability / severity — documented causal serious-event rates per standard course (VSD, NEJM, Cochrane, IOM/NAM), not raw VAERS reports. Common reactions (fever, sore arm) excluded.
  • Exposure gap — unprotected window for this baby (mom negative on all diseases = no passive antibodies) × current transmission. The one axis that changes with the schedule scenario: Hep B's birth dose, universal RSV, universal flu, universal rotavirus, routine Hep A and MenACWY all close their gaps under the old standard.
  • Net risk — weighted index (see "How to read"). It ranks what the baby stands to face if a vaccine is declined; it is not a probability.

Caveats, stated plainly

  • Scenario assumption: "Trump — HHS wins all" assumes the March 16, 2026 court stay is lifted and the full 2025–26 package (17→11 "Core 11") takes effect. As of this writing the old standard remains legally in force — that's why the toggle exists. Check current status: CDC ACIP · HHS on the Federal Register.
  • DSHS finalized data run through 2023; 2024 is provisional; 2025 final counts aren't published for most diseases. Measles and pertussis use actual 2025 Texas numbers (outbreak alert + Nov 2025 health alert).
  • RSV "vaccine" for infants is a monoclonal antibody (nirsevimab/Abrysvo), not a vaccine — it's in the ledger because it's part of the schedule, and its demotion matters. RSV and rotavirus are not reportable in Texas, so those probabilities use labeled national fallbacks + Texas Children's testing data.
  • HPV and MenACWY have no 6-month-old exposure route — they're scored on their target ages (11–12 years) and flagged "N/A at 6 mo" so they don't distort the infant picture.
  • Mother "negative on all diseases" is modeled as no active infection; her vaccination history (the real driver of passive antibody protection, especially for measles) is unknown and flagged where it matters.
  • This is a research dashboard, not medical advice. For a real 6-month-old, the pediatrician wins.
  • Deaths/yr (section 08): the bright-red chip is Huber’s current-year comparison (VAERS death reports × 10 vs residual disease deaths), not a VSD causal finding. Reproduce VAERS at wonder.cdc.gov/vaers.html. Pre-vaccine lives-saved is the next column — measles still averted ~440 deaths/yr on that measure. Lazarus 2010 “<1% reported” counted mild expected reactions; it is not a death underreporting factor.
  • Thorsen-authored autism papers: Madsen 2002 (NEJM, MMR) and Madsen 2003 (Pediatrics, thimerosal) list Poul Thorsen as co-author. Hover or tap the flag. The 2011 indictment is CDC-grant theft, not a retraction of the papers; they still found no association, and they are still the studies most often cited as “vaccines don’t cause autism,” which is why the flag is on them. Hviid 2019 is a later Danish cohort that does not list Thorsen — it is not flagged.
SOURCES: DSHS Table II Reported Disease Rates 2015–2023 final / 2024 provisional · DSHS measles outbreak alert (Aug 2025) · DSHS pertussis health alert (Nov 2025) · DSHS condition pages · Texas Tribune (Nov 11, 2025) · CDC MMWR 74(14) · CDC VSD (MMRV febrile seizures; HPV 25M doses; DTaP neurologic events) · Cochrane 2021 (MMR ITP) · NEJM 2014 + WHO GACVS (rotavirus intussusception) · McNeil 2016 (anaphylaxis) · Omer 2010 (antigen load) · IOM/NAM 2004, Hviid 2019, Madsen 2002, Madsen 2003, Dever 2016, WHO 2025 (autism) · Companion reports: Before & After · Trump-List Risk · Core 11 Risk · Vaccine Risk Studies. Compiled Aug 24, 2026.
Trial sizes & watch windows

How many kids, watched for how long — straight from the inserts

Section 6.1 of each FDA vaccine insert (its post-marketing / clinical-trials section) lists the trial the manufacturer relied on to establish safety. This table shows, for every product in this dashboard, the sample size (N) and the post-dose monitoring window stated in that section of its current insert. One property of trial design, stated plainly: a trial can only "see" an event if it happens inside the monitoring window — a death on day six, or a condition that takes years to develop, is not captured by a 5-day observation. Shortest stated window first, because that's the axis the numbers are about. One caveat so the column isn't misread: N is the cohort the insert's §6.1 cites — not the product's whole evidence base; post-marketing surveillance (CDC VSD, VAERS) and real-world cohorts stand behind every product here and don't appear in this table.

Deaths this year

When VAERS-scaled vaccine deaths exceed residual disease deaths

Bright red on a card means this year’s residual disease deaths are lower than VAERS death reports × 10 — the comparison Colleen Huber posted for MMR (193 US MMR/MMRV death reports since 1995 ≈ 6.2/yr; ×10 for 10% reporting ≈ 62/yr vs 3 measles deaths in 2025). That is not “lives saved.” Lives saved is the pre-vaccine death rate minus now (measles ≈ 440/yr averted). A successful vaccine makes column 2 tiny, so column 4 can look larger — the post-elimination paradox. VAERS is an unverified reporting system: anyone can file, co-administered infant shots share a report, and SIDS is a common coded cause. Reproduce the vaccine column: CDC WONDER VAERS → Event Category includes Died, Location = United States, Group by Vaccine. Disease column: CDC MMWR / Roush JAMA 2007. Across all vaccines, Moro 2015 counted 2,149 death reports for 1997–2013 — roughly 1 report per 1 million doses distributed, with 86% of the infants having had more than one vaccine that day (PMC6771280). Huber’s ×10 is not the Harvard Pilgrim “1%” line — that 2010 report counted all possible reactions including sore arm; co-author Klompas said so. Rows marked age-mix are not like-for-like (adult VAERS vs pediatric disease, or a short licensure window).

Disease field guide

What each disease actually does

Plain-language profile of every disease the dashboard scores — how contagious it is, how you catch it, where it waits for you, and how bad it can get. The contagiousness meter is a 1–5 rating (5 = one person can infect a roomful); symptoms are color-coded mild / moderate / severe; worst case names the outcome that makes the row matter. Tap a disease to open its vaccine's full chart, with this card inside. Numbers are the same documented research the rest of the dashboard carries (DSHS 2024–25, CDC Pink Book, Roush 2007) — they are reference, not medical advice. Sort the grid the way you want to read it.

Ingredients & contaminants

What’s actually in the shot — the known-listed agents, and how much of each

This is the table behind the “carcinogen” question. Every row is an agent that actually appears — or historically appeared — in licensed US vaccines and carries a named listing or a published cap. Every number in the “in vaccines” and “vs threshold” columns is a published regulator or paper figure (CDC, IOM 2002, CHOP, ICH, WHO TRS 978, plus the 2025 Danish aluminum cohort check) — not a rounded-up or invented “unsafe level.” Rows carry explicit caveats: aluminum is here as the other frequently-cited metal, but it is not a listed carcinogen (the 2025 Danish cohort found no association with any of 50 chronic conditions); benzene is a Class 1 ICH solvent that is not a vaccine ingredient (the circulating “2.0 mg/day PDE” is a Class-2 figure and is not folded in); SV40 is a historical contaminant of 1955–1963 polio vaccine only — US vaccines have been SV40-free since 1963; trace antibiotics (neomycin et al.) are present at trace levels with hypersensitivity as the only documented reaction class.

Timing & age

At what age are vaccines safest? — Developmental windows & adverse event risks

A central question parents and clinicians face: is there an age when vaccines are safest to get without risking side effects? The short scientific answer is no biological age is zero-risk: every developmental window presents distinct biological vulnerabilities. Delaying vaccines allows the blood-brain barrier and developmental milestones to mature, but exposes the infant during the exact window when whooping cough, Hib meningitis, and pneumococcal sepsis carry their highest lethality. Furthermore, some side-effect risks actually increase if delayed: the Jacobsen 2014 study (Pediatrics) found that delaying the first MMR shot from 12–15 months to 16–23 months doubled the rate of post-vaccine febrile seizures (RR 1.9, 95% CI 1.3–2.8) because baseline seizure susceptibility peaks at 15–18 months. Rotavirus vaccine carries a strict safety window: dose 1 must be given before 15 weeks, because baseline intussusception risk surges later in infancy. This table maps each age window’s documented adverse events against countervailing disease risks.

Adult-specific risks

Postpartum psychosis, myocarditis, GBS, and risks specific to adults

While pediatric vaccine discussions focus on febrile seizures, intussusception, and developmental timing, adults face an entirely distinct spectrum of potential adverse events. Several severe reactions documented in post-marketing surveillance occur almost exclusively in adults or adolescents and are virtually absent in babies. This section reviews the documented evidence on postpartum psychosis and maternal psychiatric events (including anti-NMDAR autoimmune encephalitis mimicry), mRNA vaccine myocarditis in young adult males, Thrombosis with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome (TTS) from adenoviral vectors, Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS), and adult rubella arthralgia.

Clinical context on postpartum psychiatric safety

Postpartum psychosis is a recognized medical emergency occurring in ~1 to 2 per 1,000 births, primarily linked to drastic postpartum hormone collapse, extreme sleep deprivation, and bipolar disorder. Because new mothers are routinely offered Tdap, MMR, or COVID/flu shots in the maternity ward prior to hospital discharge, onset of psychosis within days of delivery has prompted questions regarding vaccine triggers. Emerging research (Bergink 2015, Pollak 2014) confirms that 2%–3% of clinical postpartum psychosis cases are actually anti-NMDAR autoimmune encephalitis. While large-scale controlled cohorts have not shown an excess of postpartum psychosis above the 1–2/1,000 baseline, medical guidelines mandate that any new mother presenting with atypical postpartum psychosis (fevers, abnormal movements, autonomic instability, or poor response to antipsychotics) undergo immediate screening for autoimmune encephalitis.

Vax vs unvax

Chronic health outcomes in a birth cohort of 18,468 children (Henry Ford / Senate hearing study)

On September 9, 2025, a landmark birth cohort study by researchers at the Henry Ford Health System (HFHS) in Detroit, MI (Lois Lamerato, PhD, Abigail Chatfield, MS, Amy Tang, PhD, and Marcus Zervos, MD) was entered into the public record of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations hearing conducted by Senator Ron Johnson. The study compared 1,957 completely unvaccinated children (0 doses of CDC schedule vaccines) against 16,511 vaccinated children (median 18 doses) born between 2000 and 2016 within an integrated health maintenance organization (Health Alliance Plan). Because vaccinated children received a median of 18 doses (IQR 2–28), the table below also includes an Approx. Risk / Shot column dividing excess risk across doses (Δ ÷ 18) alongside multivariate hazard ratios, as published in the Senate hearing record and peer-reviewed in the International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice, and Research (IJVTPR 2025, 4(1):1609–1646; Oller, Broudy, Hulscher).

Methodological analysis: Strengths, biases, and the full ledger

  • Study Strengths: Closed payer environment with continuous electronic medical records, emergency visits, hospitalizations, and cross-reference with the State of Michigan Care Improvement Registry (MCIR) to avoid unrecorded vaccine bias. Baseline exclusions removed children with congenital chromosomal, neurological, or anatomical defects to establish a healthy birth cohort. Multivariate Cox proportional hazards models adjusted for male sex (HR 1.33), African American race (HR 1.11), low birth weight (HR 1.20), very low birth weight (HR 1.48), and prematurity (HR 1.24).
  • Ascertainment / Healthcare-Seeking Bias: Unvaccinated children may visit doctors less often, leading to fewer diagnostic ICD codes. The authors addressed this by conducting a sensitivity analysis restricted only to children with at least 1 clinical encounter at HFHS; the independent association with chronic health conditions remained statistically significant (HR 2.37, 95% CI 2.01–2.79).
  • Enrollment Duration: Unvaccinated children had shorter median plan enrollment (461 days vs 970 days). Sensitivity analyses restricted to children enrolled for ≥1 year, ≥3 years, and ≥5 years confirmed that the elevated hazard ratios persisted across long-term follow-up.
  • Unmeasured Lifestyle Confounders: Families who completely decline vaccination often differ systematically in maternal diet, breastfeeding duration, organic food consumption, antibiotic avoidance, and socioeconomic factors that cannot be fully adjusted in insurance claims data.
  • The Missing Half of the Ledger (Acute Infectious Morbidity): The Henry Ford study evaluated chronic non-communicable conditions (asthma, allergies, neurodevelopment). It did not measure acute vaccine-preventable infections (pertussis, measles, Hib meningitis, invasive pneumococcal sepsis, rotavirus dehydration). In evaluating this study, parents must weigh the 2.54-fold chronic condition hazard against the acute infant hospitalization and mortality rates documented in sections 01–03 and 09 of this dashboard.
Sources: Lamerato L, Chatfield A, Tang A, Zervos M. Impact of Childhood Vaccination on Short and Long-Term Chronic Health Outcomes in Children: A Birth Cohort Study. Henry Ford Health System / U.S. Senate Hearing Record (Sept 9, 2025) · Oller JW, Broudy D, Hulscher N. A Peer-Review of the Vaccinated vs. Unvaccinated Study Discussed at the Senate Hearing on September 9, 2025. IJVTPR 2025, 4(1):1609–1646 · DOI: 10.56098/vse7qq65.