NatPhilosopher is also underhandedly manipulating quotations by lifting words out of context.
Take a look at NatPhilosopher's first quotation and citation in their pièce de résistance arguing against the safety of pediatric vaccination:
In 2002 the National Vaccine Program Office (NVPO) convened an expert group to study safety issues with adjuvants in vaccines. Among their conclusions:
“pervasive uncertainty [from] missing data on pharmocokinetics and toxicities of aluminum injected into humans… There seems to be abundant data concerning risk levels for ingested aluminum, but scant data about risk levels for injected aluminum. The oral minimum risk level, for example, appears to be in the range of 2–60 mg/kg of aluminum per day but there are no comparable data for injected aluminum.”[1]
This does sound worrying. But let's take a look at the actual report. Here are the quotations in context (emphases mine, italics are NatPhilosopher's lifted words):
From the Metal Ions in Biology and Medicine International Symposium held immediately prior to the aluminum workshop, we learned about “pervasive uncertainty”, a phrase used in this workshop to denote missing data on pharmocokinetics and toxicities of aluminum injected into humans. Even with identification of areas needing further study, it was apparent that aluminum which has been used as a vaccine adjuvant for more than 70 years, has an established safety record with low incidence of reported adverse events.
[...]
There seems to be abundant data concerning risk levels for ingested aluminum, but scant data about risk levels for injected aluminum. The oral minimum risk level, for example, appears to be in the range of 2–60 mg/kg of aluminum per day but there are no comparable data for injected aluminum. The uncertainties notwithstanding, there appeared to be a large margin of safety for aluminum adjuvants.
Not so worrying with context, is it?
The actual conclusion of the report (emphases mine):
In summary, a variety of aluminum salts have useful physicochemical and immunogenic properties that lend these minerals to use in vaccines. Based on 70 years of experience, the use of salts of aluminum as adjuvants in vaccines has proven to be safe and effective. Aluminum as an adjuvant enhances antigen presentation and stimulates a type II immune response. It has been possible, using aluminum adjuvants, to reduce the number of injections and the amount of antigen per dose, and thereby decrease the toxicity of some antigens. Without extensive research, it is impossible to know how removal of aluminum from vaccines would affect the known benefits of vaccines in which it is contained. More pharmacokinetic data are needed but there is an apparent wide margin of safety with the use of aluminum adjuvants and reported adverse events have been mostly minor and of low incidence. MMF histologic lesions may be a consequence of the normal immune response and may, in fact, be a wholly serendipitous finding in patients with ascending myalgias and fatigue. Some identified areas of research include: expanding the aluminum pharmacokinetic database, especially following IM injection in young children, conducting bimetal (mercury and aluminum) toxicological studies in animals, identifying biomarkers of toxicity, defining the frequency and duration of MMF in normal controls, determining the role of aluminum in the pathophysiology of the MMF lesion, developing new adjuvants, and establishing new methods for administering immunizations.
I am not in any way an anti-vaxxer, my own child has been vaccinated according to the standard protocols in my country, and I agree that NatPhilosopher should have mentioned that alongside the scary-sounding stuff s/he quoted the quoted sources contain statements that aluminium-based vaccines appear to be safe, and that not doing so is dishonest.
BUT it seems to me (as far as the material you've quoted goes; of course there may be more that points the other way) that NatPhilosopher is correct to say that this report suggests that the safety of injected alum...
For example, what would be inappropriately off topic to post to LessWrong discussion about?
I couldn't find an answer in the FAQ. (Perhaps it'd be worth adding one.) The closest I could find was this:
However "rationality" can be interpreted broadly enough that rational discussion of anything would count, and my experience reading LW is compatible with this interpretation being applied by posters. Indeed my experience seems to suggest that practically everything is on topic; political discussion of certain sorts is frowned upon, but not due to being off topic. People often post about things far removed from the topics of interest. And some of these topics are very broad: it seems that a lot of material about self-improvement is acceptable, for instance.