The Vaccination=Autism Myth

I was afraid to vaccinate my baby when she turned two months old.  I'd heard rumours about vaccinations being bad for their developing brains to the point of mentally impairing them.  I guess that's one of a parent's worst fears, since the fear is made manifest in the latest trend of behavior.  More and more parents are refusing vaccinations for their children.
Since so many people were joining the anti-vaccination bandwagon, I assumed there must be some validity behind their concerns.
Turns out, there's not.  Or at least the chances are HIGHLY unlikely.  Multiple studies (at least 20 official) performed in multiple countries have all come to the same conclusion.  In sample groups, vaccinations didn't affect the percentage of autistic children later diagnosed, and vaccinations are only improving in efficacy.  There IS factually a chance children can have adverse reactions to their vaccinations, like an allergy, yet even the chance of that is extremely rare and typically treatable.

I think parents who choose not to vaccinate are approaching this subject from a completely irrational angle, motivated by the latest fear mongering or distrust of the government.  When vaccinations were introduced they were considered a miracle because they swiftly eliminated horrible and deadly diseases that ran previously unchecked: 
For the first time, polio no longer crippled and killed so many children. 
Hepatitis A and B no longer ruined children's livers and/or killed them. 
Diphtheria no longer caused asphyxiation and/or heart failure. 
Tetanus (lock jaw) no longer caused so many little children to writhe in muscle spasms until they died.
Pertussis (whooping cough) no longer killed so many infants from lack of oxygen due to very painful coughing, and pneumococcal pneumonia no longer infected their blood and brains or killed them from acute respiratory infections. 
Hib no longer left so many children mentally retarded, deaf, or dead. 
The rotavirus no longer killed so many infants from dehydration due to extreme diarrhea and vomiting. 
A reduction of measles resulted in less cases of encephalitis (brain inflammation causing vomiting, convulsions, coma, and death). 
Mumps no longer caused so many cases of deafness and brain inflammation. 
Rubella no longer infected so many pregnant women and caused fetal birth defects or fetal death.
Influenza (which is still the eigth leading cause of death in America) no longer drastically worsened other conditions like pneumonia.  It is prevented by yearly flu shots.

These are the worst-case scenarios for these diseases, but they are real. Much of the world's children still, ironically, become mentally impaired, and suffer and die regularly from lack of vaccinations.  We don't recognize these diseases in the United States because we almost never see them occur. Why don't we see them? Because most of us are vaccinated.  If we continue down this ignorant path of refusing to vaccinate based on unfounded assumptions, these diseases WILL creep back with a vengeance.  They are NOT irradicated permanently.  For those of you who choose not to vaccinate:  YOUR children are protected by those of us who do. 

We pack our kids in the car and drive them everywhere, even though car accidents are one of the leading causes of death for ANYONE.  We'll risk their safety so we can get somewhere on time, but we shudder at the thought of having to deal with a mentally challenged child.  Even if vaccinations really potentially caused autism,  I would still choose that possibility over maybe watching my sweet baby die a gruesome, painful death. 

Vaccinate your freakin kids.

Is there a moral priority when it comes to killing other organisms?

I found myself asking this question after doing some internet research on how to teach a dog to not kill chickens: my husband's malamute cross assasinated two of my mom's hens a month ago and buried them in the flower bed for hard times.
It was interesting to discover all these pages and pages of passionate commentary on the subject with a spectrum of opinions.  Some individuals expressed that it was absolutely cruel to punish a dog (spanking, yelling, hanging the dead chicken around its neck for a while), all the way to some stating the dog deserved to be put down; 'a life for a life', because chickens are pets too and those dogs murdered them.  The former opinion was too bleeding-heart, but the latter was blind hypocriticism.  If someone truly followed that principle, they'd have to be taken out back with the shotgun after a steak dinner.  I'm curious what different people define as moral when it comes to killing other living things, and those living things killing other living things.
In a book by Robert M. Pirsig ('Lila', as I remember) this issue is discussed.  The way I interpreted his philosophy was that it is more moral for a species of higher intelligence to kill a species of lower intelligence, since life is all about progression and it would be regressive to destroy the more evolved being.  When the higher intelligence had to choose between killing two organisms of lesser but varying intelligence, the more intelligent of the two would be the moral one to spare.
So, would killing a pig be more immoral than killing a cow?  Would a vegen be the most moral of all people, since they only eat plants?
Arguably, a dog that keeps killing livestock after continuous reprimanding might not be so intelligent anyway.  However, killing a dog for the sake of a chicken is silly, especially because a chicken would probably be the first farm animal to eat you if it could.  Killing a dog for killing a chicken because YOU wanted to eat the chicken...that makes more sense to me.