I disagree. Most of what you would categorize as our "wins," I see as nature winning. We have language because language is beneficial to survival. We are social creatures because cooperation is beneficial to survival. Our successes occur when we harness and cooperate with nature, not try to defy it.

The key difference between us and animals is that we can learn from our mistakes. The question is, do we really?

Yes, we learned that a door on the cave kept the wolves away from our babies.
But even if a few of our friends have an unsubstantiated fear of doors,
we don't let them prop the doors open at night.

We learned, but Jenny McCarthy did not, that MMR is not related to autism,
and it is more important (and possible) to protect children
and pregnant women from measles, rubella, and mumps.
Men are sort of pleased about the mumps thing too.

So we do.
.

Except apparently, according to your article, you don't.

If your solution can be nullified by a few noncompliant individuals, you'd better come up with a new solution, because there will always be noncompliant individuals.

Except, we're not talking about a few non-compliant individuals. The vaccination process was robust enough to accommodate a low level of non-compliance. There was never a 100% take-up. Alongside those who did not comply were those whose family medical history suggested the risks of vaccination outweighed the need for vaccination.

The model was working. It didn't fall apart because a few parents decided to exercise their right not to comply. It started to collapse because a large number of parents were frightened off vaccines by a study which has since been discredited (yes, I know you dispute some of that). Large numbers of parents chose not to vaccinate in the years since that study, and the result is that the number of measles cases have begun to rise rapidly, and we're now hearing of the possible return of mumps and whooping cough as common childhood illnesses.

The outbreak in Swansea is of ordinary, common or garden measles of the sort that we had made a rarity.

This has nothing to do with the unintended consequences of messing with disease evolution and the balance between different factors; it has everything to do with a scandal that was big enough and loud enough to push just enough parents away from vaccination as to render the process ineffective - it's a numbers game.

I know of very few things in life that are perfect.
But that doesn't stop society, or individuals, from using best judgment
and doing what can be done to benefit as many as possible.

The article, and the effect of non-compliant individuals,
does not "nullify the solution", as you wish to suggest.

With respect to the MMR vaccinations, such non-compliant individuals benefit too.
But unfortunately, they put their children and grand-children at risk, not themselves,
of carrying the avoidable burden of consequences of their decisions.
.

If it is as you say, then the numbers should have already begun reversing themselves following the loud and continued discrediting of that study, and all should return to normal in a few years. That would make the NYTimes article little more than gloating. "Ha ha, those fools got what's coming to them."

On the other hand, if vaccination uptake rates continue dropping, one has to ask why. There's only so many times they can say the study has been discredited, and only so long they can point to one "scare" from 15 years ago as being the sole impetus for people's decisions today.

Or worse yet, what if vaccination uptake does return to previous levels, but the disease rate continues rising? At some point in the next couple of decades the narrative will be updated, and we all have our guesses about which way it will go. It's my personal belief that this particular medical policy aims to circumvent biology in the name of a disease-free utopia that can never be achieved, that's all.

It may have been one study 15 years ago, but the press here and over there have played their part in making sure it remained current in people's minds for much longer. There was a broad consensus on vaccination. The last 15 years of fear mongering press reports have played their part in breaking that consensus.

Anyway: I don't necessarily disagree with your last point. I get where you're coming from on that now. But..I don't think it's a diseasefree utopia they're aiming for. I think they just wanted to cut the high numbers of infant deaths to a handful of common childhood diseases,

But then why vaccinate for diseases that have never killed anyone in the Western world, like rotavirus, strep throat, etc.? I can see the purpose of the rotavirus vaccine in Africa, where babies do die from dehydration because there really isn't any clean water to give them, but to my knowledge rotavirus has never killed a single child in the developed world. It just gives you a little diarrhea, and then you're fine. But once they developed it, it's as if they decided, well, why the hell not? Just add it to the growing list of infant shots (I don't know what the schedule is in the UK, but in the US it is now 36 shots before the age of 2. Far more than a handful of diseases.) Sometimes they give a shot even when there's no risk to the baby at all, just because it's easy. All babies in the US get a Hepatitis B shot on the day they're born. It's a sexually-transmitted disease, and the only way a baby could get it is if the mother is currently infected, and breastfeeds. They could just as easily test the mothers and ferret out the .01% who have the disease, but instead they give a preventative shot to 100% of babies just hours after birth, when all experts agree that their immune system hasn't even begun to fully function yet.

The program began as a way to reduce death/crippling from a small number of horrible childhood diseases, I agree. But the evidence says to me that in its current incarnation, it's spiraled out of control.

I'll state the obvious:
Follow the money.

Preventative immunizations are now free (ObamaCare)

That just means someone else is paying for them, they're not free.

Ummm... are you sure ?
I'm not, but maybe we're talking about two different viruses

emedicinehealth.com
Rotavirus Infection Overview

Rotavirus infection is the number one cause of severe viral
gastroenteritis (vomiting and diarrhea) in the world.
Primary rotavirus infection is particularly common in children 6 months to 2 years of age.
Annual estimates indicate that, worldwide, approximately 130 million infants and children
develop this infection, resulting in 600,000-800,000 deaths per year.

The most recent data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicate
that the burden of morbidity (illness) and mortality in the United States is not trivial.
Each year, approximately 2.7 million American children sustain a rotavirus infection,
resulting in 500,000 office visits.
Between 300-400 American children die annually, while approximately 200,000 hospitalizations
occur each year due to rotavirus infection.
The federal government estimates the direct medical cost of rotavirus disease to be $1 billion annually.
This direct cost does not take into consideration the broader financial impact (loss of productivity and wages, etc.).

Ah, 300-400 per year. I stand corrected. Important followup questions that are now needed: How many annual American rotavirus deaths were occurring before introduction of the vaccine? How many of the 300-400 who died in America last year had had the vaccine, but got the disease anyway? How many had complicating conditions, like when your bedridden 90 year old granny is finally pushed over the edge by a small infection?

You can't eliminate every death from everything. "Falling out of bed" kills 450 people annually.

International Journal of Epidemiology 39:56-162
The effect of rotavirus vaccine on diarrhoea mortality
Again, I know of few things in life that is perfect.
I suspect answers to all of your questions are available, and they
overwhelmingly support the safety and efficacy of CDC-recommended
vaccines in use today.

OTOH while death is an easy endpoint to measure,
it is certainly not the be-all, end-all justification for public health.
There are always trade-offs to be made, sometimes they are
balanced to achieve the most good for the most people.

strep throat is just the most common result of streptococcus infection, more severe are rheumatic fever, necrotizing fasciitis or flesh-eating bacteria, toxic shock syndrome and PANDAS