Are Rabbis Correct That Halacha Follows the Majority in Medicine?

Pikuach Nefesh and “the Majority”

When Maryland rabbis ruled that yeshivas could keep out unvaccinated children, they relied on a single argument: we follow the majority of doctors. It sounded reasonable. It also turned out to be wrong, not just factually, but halachically as well. The rabbis were not following the majority according to halacha. They were adhering to accepted practice, which is a different thing entirely, and not something halacha requires us to follow blindly. Rabbi Rafael Szendro decided to ask the questions no one around him was asking.

In his three-part essay, The Accepted Practice vs the Majority Opinion, הלכה למעשה, Rabbi Szendro takes apart that one reasonable-sounding answer: we follow the majority. That’s usually where the conversation stops. But what if we ask: “majority of what?” Then the majority opinion turns out to be something other than what’s purported.

Rabbi Szendro writes:

. . . Just about every Rabbi and every board member I speak to refuses to have a discussion about vaccines. Rather, it is a campaign to force every human being to get vaccinated. Understandably, they refuse to discuss it because they know nothing about the topic. The president of the Baltimore Vaad Harabbonim, author of the recent חרם that was placed on anyone in the Baltimore community who doesn’t vaccinate, even told me straight out that he is “not educated”. Someone recently posted on baltimoregoyishlife.com a translation of an article written by a prominent Rabbi which included absurd statements like: “there are no known cases where death was caused by vaccination for certain”. Right, except for all the cases where it was proven in court, or where the government conceded that the vaccine killed the child, or where the child was perfectly healthy and died within minutes of being vaccinated.

. . .

How does a Rabbi justify making a decision which affects the lives of so many people medically and spiritually, when it would appear that they have no idea what they’re talking about? Usually, a Rabbi is expected to understand the facts of the case before giving a ruling or making a decision. The excuse they always give to this troublesome question is that we go with the majority. . . . (p.1)

He argues that a majority only counts when it is an informed majority opinion, meaning a position actually grounded in the science. When most doctors do what they were taught, parroting the CDC and HHS, it is not a majority opinion at all. It is accepted practice.

. . . First, we need to establish what it means to “follow the majority”. The only way we would ever do that is if you had the majority opinion. It isn’t enough to just have the majority, because then it simply becomes “the accepted practice.” (p.2)

in הלכה, when there’s a conflict between the accepted practice of doctors, and what it says in the medical literature, we follow the medical literature. (p5)

The accepted practice masquerading as majority opinion is not a new concept. In Parts I and II, Rabbi Szendro shows through history and science that accepted practices have been wrong before. He builds his case from history, science, and halacha, drawing on the actual scientific literature. His examples include ignoring Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis’s instruction to wash hands before delivering babies, doctors who smoked, and the dangers inherent in IV saline bags allowed to continue 20 years later.

The primary reference that the CDC gives on their website for the statement that vaccines do NOT cause autism, is none other than the 2011 IOM [Institute of Medicine] report [which stated: “the available literature is inadequate to determine whether or not DTaP causes autism. In other words, we have no idea. The Institute of Medicine is reporting to HHS that “we have no opinion on the matter.”]. . . .the CDC’s statement is no better than the doctors who smoked, or the doctors who ignored Dr. Semmelweis, or the hospitals who were too lazy to switch the IV bags. They don’t have ANY scientific basis for what they are saying. (p7)

In Part III, he shows us through halacha that we do not blindly follow the “majority opinion” or “accepted practice.”

. . . In reality, I believe that the expert opinion in favor of vaccination counts only as one. However, I’ll give you 15, since ACIP, the CDC committee who decides which vaccines will be included for recommendation, consists of 15 voting members. Even that’s a stretch, because often those members have conflicts of interest, will probably lose their job if they vote against a vaccine, and most probably went to medical school. So, really the ש”ך should apply to them as well. But the point is, you certainly don’t have thousands of independent, expert opinions in favor of vaccines. How many expert opinions do we have saying that vaccines are not safe, and not effective? I believe we have at least 200 physicians who have spent a minimum of 3 years researching vaccines. For argument’s sake, let’s say we have just 20. Each of these 20 doctors count as a separate opinion. Although they went to medical school, their opinion is going against what they were taught. If the טור would פסקין against the רא”ש, which he sometimes does, then his opinion would count according to the ש”ך. These doctors who are against vaccines, are they doing it for the money? As hilarious as that sounds, I have to address this since otherwise intelligent people have made this claim. As I said, any doctor who speaks out against vaccines will lose their job. The only reason there are some who haven’t yet, is because they have experienced some sort of divine intervention. You can’t say they are נוגע בדבר [nogea b’davar – involved in, or affected by, the matter] when they risk losing their entire career, just so they can sell some vitamins or a book that they wrote.

According to הלכה, the majority opinion is against vaccination.

Rabbi Szendro then goes a step further. Even if you reject that reasoning entirely and insist there really is a majority of doctors in favor, halacha still does not decide a question of danger to life by counting heads.

I’m not sure which Rabbi thinks they have the authority to disagree with the ש”ך. But let’s say you disagree with the ש”ך, and for some reason the fact that doctors are at risk of losing their job doesn’t make them נוגע בדבר for being in favor of vaccination. So now you have thousands of opinions who think vaccines are the best thing since sliced bread. But there are 200 opinions who say vaccines are dangerous. To be nice, I already reduced that number to 20. Now I’ll be even nicer and reduce that number to 2. There are only 2 doctors on planet Earth who say that vaccines are dangerous and toxic. Who do we listen to?

According to [או”ח ס’ תריח סע’ ד] שלחן ערוך, when you have 2 doctors who say that there’s a risk of death, even if 100 doctors say there’s no risk, we listen to the 2 doctors. The משנה ברורה explains:

“ולא אזלינן בתר רב דעות בסכנת נפשות”
[And we do not follow the majority opinion in matters of danger to life]

. . . We have a בפירוש שלחן ערוך telling us that when it comes to פיקוח נפש, we don’t follow the majority. . . . (p.11)

. . .

. . . Even when most doctors recommend something, if they have no science to back them up, and all the science indicates that they are incorrect, we follow the science and ignore the doctors. (p14)

Updated July 2026: In November 2025, the CDC revised the page to state plainly:

The claim “vaccines do not cause autism” is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism.
Studies supporting a link have been ignored by health authorities.

The agency acknowledged the claim had been historically disseminated to prevent vaccine hesitancy: