It is our responsibility as parents to look after our children, not the medical establishment or the state. The responsibility of officials, doctors, etc. is to look after public health as a whole. They realize that there will be collateral damage and that some number of adverse events is guaranteed to happen as the number of people inoculated grows, but they believe it's worth it for the public good. It may be a selfish perspective, but in this case I am solely looking at what's best for my child.
It's up to the parent to weigh the risk vs. benefit and make a decision for the child until they are old enough to do that for themselves, same way as you make that call for yourself. In this case, I have looked at the risk of getting the nasal spray/shot for my son and in his age group 4.2% were hospitalized from the vaccine. Also in his age group, 4.5% have been hospitalized from the flu, with the majority of those being children with underlying conditions. Looking at those statistics, along with other collective information about what's in the shots, adverse effects reported, etc. as well as current information on how prevalent flu is in our area, reports on cause of death, etc. I have decided that at this point the risk does not outweigh the benefit he would receive. (This is all based on information from the CDC and the manufacturers of the vaccines, not from any site like whale.to.) Now, this decision is not set in stone and could change at any time, as the situation evolves every day! I am not patently anti-vaccine; a different decision is made for each one available.
As to bias, the medical professionals have an obvious bias too and many of them are similarly ignorant on the subject matter. They may know that statistically vaccines are a net positive, but know little of this particular shot. Because they are busy with the day to day work, they don't have time to read up on the latest information available (or even read the package insert) and are pressured by outside influence such as their employers, the government, media, etc.
IMO health care professionals as a group often think that they know what's best and don't remember that they are in a service position. Some people see them as God, but they are really just trained professionals like those in other areas of the economy. Just as you would with other advice you are given, you get to determine whether you want to follow it.
Now granted, this may not be why most people are avoiding the shots for their kids...
