Vaccinations
- From: Alex_S <alex_sbl2008@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2009 08:54:08 -0800 (PST)
Recently I stumbles to this article :
http://www.visainfo.org.au/pages/04_Vaccines_and_Disease/Peter%20Baratosy/Baratosy_Smallpox.pdf
In this article author claims the following :
There has been a lot of hype in the media lately about Smallpox
vaccination
and as usual, most of this is myth and/or dis-information. It is
timely that we explore the topic more closely.
Smallpox vaccination has a long history and it is interesting to point
out that the in-effectiveness of this procedure had been known for a
long time.
.............................................................................................
Compulsory vaccination
The vaccine was introduced in England in 1798. It was made compulsory
in 1853 and in 1867 the laws were made even more rigid.
Over 44,000 lives were lost in the 1870-72 epidemic. Hundreds of
thousands of people knew from their own experience, from family and
friends that vaccination had failed to work. In fact, they saw that
the vaccinated ones were those who were more likely to catch the
disease.
Despite the penalties of fines and imprisonment for not being
vaccinated,
more and more people risked the penalties and did not get vaccinated.
Synchronous with this decline in vaccination rates was the decline
in smallpox. Figures from the London Smallpox Hospital showed that the
majority of the patients were in fact vaccinated.
In 1898 a conscience clause was added to the legislation; this allowed
people to refuse vaccination on a conscientious objection basis.
Figures
showed that as the percentage of unvaccinated people rose, the
incidence
of smallpox fell. In 1879 the percentage of vaccinated was 86% and had
dropped to 61% in 1879. There was no increase in smallpox deaths.
After
1902 the percentage of vaccinees dropped even further to below
40%. There was no increase in smallpox. After 1905 there was virtualy
no
smallpox deaths.
It is well known that smallpox vaccine is dangerous. People die from
the vaccine. As the incidence of smallpox fell (and this was not due
to
vaccination) the incidence of death from smallpox became very close to
death from vaccination. In 1889 there were 23 per 100,000 deaths from
smallpox and 58 per 100,000 deaths from vaccination. 1890, smallpox
16,
vaccine 43, 1891 smallpox 49, vaccine 43. After 1905, a person was
more
likely to die from vaccination than from the disease itself.
Smallpox vaccination was suspended in the early 1980s because the
disease
was officially eradicated, but one of the main reasons for the
suspension
was that more people were dying from the vaccination than from
the disease. Official figures from the Registrar-General of England
record
109 children under 5 dying of smallpox in England and Wales in the
years
1910 to 1933. In the same period 270 died from vaccination. Between
1934
and 1961 there was not one recorded death from smallpox but there were
115 deaths from vaccination. A similar situation occurred in the USA:
between 1948 and 1969 there were no deaths from smallpox but there
were
300 deaths from vaccination. At the annual meeting of the American
Academy of Pediatrics in 1971 it was stated that on average 6 to 9
individuals
die per annum from smallpox vaccination. Military forces continued
to vaccinate their troops and this caused small local outbreaks
among civilian contacts such as family and friends.
The ineffectiveness of smallpox vaccine has been the subject of many
journal articles since early this century. In the British Medical
Journal,
14 January 1928, Dr R.P. Garrow discussed many facts about smallpox
vaccination. The death rate was higher in the vaccinated than in
the unvaccinated; this difference was nearly five times as great. The
number of cases was related to the number of vaccinees, i.e., as the
number of people vaccinated increased, so did the number of cases.
Conversely,
as the number of vaccinees dropped, so did the number of cases.
In some of the best vaccinated towns, the disease was rampant.
In Leicester vaccination was not practised to a great extent, the
disease
was almost unknown. The City of Leicester adopted a policy of
quarantine
and isolation; newly diagnosed cases were isolated and therefore
the disease was not spread. They adopted this policy in preference to
vaccination and their figures, compared against those of nearby towns
that did vaccinate, showed quarantine and isolation to be a much
better
method of control.
Countries like Germany, which was heavily vaccinated, had a very high
rate of smallpox. For example, in 1919 Germany had 707 deaths while in
England there were only 28; in 1920 Germany had 354 while in England
there were only 30.
In 1918 the US government initiated a smallpox vaccination campaign
in the Philippines. Approximately three million people were vaccinated
and then an epidemic erupted. Over 47,000 people caught smallpox;
over 16,000 died. The next year they doubled their efforts and
vaccinated 7 million people. Again an epidemic came and this time
over 65,000 people caught smallpox; over 44,000 died. The unfortunate
part was that the illness struck the more- or better-vaccinated areas.
Disease struck the vaccinated people more than the unvaccinated.
There is ample evidence that these epidemics were largely a direct
result of the vaccination programmes. So you can see that this is not
an isolated finding. Smallpox did affect the vaccinated population
more
than the unvaccinated.
Whenever the question of immunisation is discussed, the triumph of
the eradication of smallpox is always mentioned. This is, in the eyes
of the general public, the great achievement of modern medicine. Or is
it?
There is really no evidence that the World Health Organisation (WHO)
vaccination programme did what it is claimed to have done. In 1967,
the year the WHO started the smallpox eradication programme, there
were 131,000 cases reported from 42 countries. This figure is greatly
underestimated; some have claimed that this represented only 5% of
the total number of cases. The last official case was in Somalia in
1977 and the disease was officially pronounced eradicated in 1980.
You did notice that I said officially. Smallpox is still around and I
will go into that later. Now the big question is Did the vaccination
programme eradicate smallpox or, as in all the other diseases, was
smallpox already on the way out? At the same time, improvements in
hygiene,
sanitation and living standards were introduced.
Dr Thomas McKeown, past Chairman of the World Health Organisation
Advisory
Group on Research Strategy, concluded
“...All the countries that advanced rapidly achieved a substantial
improvement in nutrition, which led to increased resistance. Indeed
in some countries this was the only important direct influence. It is
perhaps surprising that immunisations appears to have contributed
relatively
little to the advances....the reduction in mortality occurred
during a period when vaccine coverage was still low. To anyone who
has travelled extensively in the rural areas of the Third World, the
common causes of ill health may seem self-evident.
Many children are visibly malnourished, sanitary conditions are
primitive,
drinking water is unclean, the food...is contaminated, and the
number of people competing for the means of life is clearly
excessive.”
(http://www.whale.to/v/obosawin.html)
My question is : Is this true ?
Why vaccination in Victorian England failed ?
Thanks .
.
- Prev by Date: Play safe Holi
- Next by Date: Re: Peter Bowditch can buy herion on a whim
- Previous by thread: Play safe Holi
- Next by thread: Re: Naturopathy vs pharmacology? (Dr. Peter Moran, MD: Liar, liar, pants on fire?)
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
Loading
