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LETTERS: E Ernst Homoeopaths and chiropractors are sceptical about immunisation BMJ 1995; 311: 811b [Full text]

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Who do vaccines protect?

Peter Morrell   (11 January 2000)

and some TCM Practitioners...

John P Heptonstall   (13 January 2000)

Who do vaccines protect? 11 January 2000
Peter Morrell, Research Associate, History of Medicine Staffordshire University Send response to journal: Re: Who do vaccines protect?	Sir, There are several reasons why complementary [CAM] practitioners abhor the use of all immunisations. It is disappointing that Professor Ernst does not mention any reason at all. It is little use pointing to patterns if you cannot muster some meanings as well. Perhaps it is a hole in his knowledge? We need to ask some very fundamental questions. Immunisation aims to protect people from bacteria and viruses. Who are the people it wishes to protect? If we also ask ‘who are the people who succumb?’ The answer is usually ‘the weak’, often the very old, the infirm and the very young. Thus epidemics of all types tend to cull from the population the weakest members of the race at any point in time. Therefore, we might say either that there is little point in protecting the rest of us, as we are ‘the strong’; or we might say we should focus vaccination programmes upon the most vulnerable. That seems prudent and sensible. Yet, what one finds in modern medicine is an adherence to immunisation as a dogma which is blindly invoked as conferring protection upon everyone – which it clearly doesn’t. Anyone who questions or denies this is castigated with great force. But, fundamentally, what is the point in protecting ‘the strong’, who are probably not vulnerable anyway? Moving to complementary therapists, we can say that the above arguments all apply, supplemented by others For example, most such therapies have today a set of beliefs and ideas, which were formulated in the last century, and which have changed very little since. With their current re-emergence from a wasted ten decades of being cast out into the cold, it is clear they have so-far failed to integrate into their belief systems some modern notions about physiology and biochemistry. In the last century anti-contagionism [disbelief in the Germ Theory] was rife, along with anti-vaccinationism. These movements were opposed, often on religious grounds, to the introduction of ‘noxious germs’ into the human bloodstream. There was certainly a puritan ethic involved here, combined, it must be said, with a disbelief that bacteria cause disease. All this applies to the time before the Germ Theory became universally embraced within medicine. Thus, we can say, that vaccination is rejected by many CAM practitioners, largely because they do not accept the basis upon which these substances are introduced into the human system. They either do not believe bacteria cause disease; or that they cause disease only in the weak, who cannot be protected, even by vaccines. Thus they often reject this practice on these grounds alone. A further argument that is often used, is that the bacteria doctrine, though useful, should not be applied so universally, as it ignores the vagaries of individual susceptibility to disease. They also generally contend that this susceptibility is dependent upon a host of lifestyle factors which vaccination cannot possibly improve. I hope this gives a brief account of the main underlying reasons for the patterns Professor Ernst has pointed out. Peter Morrell
and some TCM Practitioners... 13 January 2000
John P Heptonstall, Director of Morley Acupuncture Clinic and Complementary Therapy Centre West Yorkshire Send response to journal: Re: and some TCM Practitioners...	Sir I would add that there are quite a few TCM Practitioners I know who are also sceptical of immunisation; along with many parents (who have good reason since their children have been seriously adversely affected by vaccinations) there are also a number of medical practitioners who have voiced strong opinions against vaccination and the related 'science'. When people involved in healing others, and parents (one of whose greatest instincts is protection of their offspring) voice concern about medical procedures any reasonable person would suspect their concerns may be a timely warning. I know veterinary homeopaths and medical homeopaths who are also anti -immunisation. When vets turn against a 'medical intervention', and considering they see more rapid turnover of 'life' in animals who invariably have shorter/faster life spans, one has to respect their point of view. One commented recently that there is a belief amongst some vets in the USA that the obsession with vaccinating dogs (for which the financial inducements are great), and now even recommended at 6 monthly intervals, has led to a shortened lifespan, on average to 5 or 6 years of age, for dogs in general over there. The warning is that our children may realise similar early mortality in, what in dogs may be 6 years, perhaps 40 to 45 of their years if the obsession with evermore immunisation persists. How does one explain the apparent conflict that until the advent of the 'AIDS' and 'M.E.' phenomena we were assured by 'vaccination scientists', whose words are regurgitated by general practitioners and other front-line medical staff, that the presence of antibodies to pathogens in our blood tended to mean we had been conferred immunity to them. Now we are told that AIDS and M.E. are probably a result of having been infected with HIV, or Coxsackie, or E barr as antibodies to HIV etc. have been found in one's blood? I realise that 'antibodies' is a concept that even immunologists find difficulty understanding - hence the long- running international AIDS debate - but I also know that part of the argument put forward by some very eminent scientists in that debatede is that vaccinations may be the source of serious immune-dysfunction in modern man. There is also strong evidence that the introduction of certain vaccines coincided (conveniently?) with a natural drop in the incidence of the disease supposedly prevented by the vaccine. a. Diptheria in Britain - Fell from over 1400 deaths per year in 1860 to about 200 per year in the 1930s just before mass vaccination was introduced.(1) The Medical Officer for Wath-on-Dearne commented "Where they have done the most immunising they are getting the most diptheria" as it had been recognised by then that many cases of diptheria seemed to be occurring in vaccinated individuals.(2) b. Whooping cough in England and Wales - death rate fell heavily between 1850 and the 1950s, then vaccination became generally available. Sweden stopped whooping cough vaccine in 1979, Germany stopped routine vacciation in 1982, the decline of the diseases continued. Prof. Gordon Stewart, WHO adviser, said in 1980 of the vaccine "There is no doubt in my mind that, in the UK alone, some hundreds if not thousands of well infants have suffered irreparable brain damage needlessly, and that their lives and those of their parents have been wrecked". (in 'The Truth Campaign' Winter 1999 p15) In 1986 in Kansas 1300 cases of whooping cough were reported; of those whose vaccination status was known 90% were believed to have been 'adequately vaccinated'.(3) c. A study (ref. Dr. W Torch, University of Nevada) is said to have found that of 103 cases of cot death, 6.5% died within 12 hours of vaccination, 13% within 24 hours, 26% within 72 hours, 37% within one week, 61% within 2 weeks, 70% within 3 weeks. d. The Salk polio vaccine of the '50s is now known to have introduced SV-40 into millions of humans with incalculable risk to health; the virus is said to be turning up in lung cancers and brain tumours. Some researchers believe that the eradication of polio is responsible for the increase in MS and/or ME either by elimination of competing viruses or by attenuation of vaccine viruses to create new, but similar, diseases. e. The mean annual death rate for respiratory TB fell from about 4000 in the 1830s to a couple of hundred in the mid 1950s just before vaccination was introduced. "The world's biggest trial (conducted in Southern India) to assess the value of the BCG tuberculosis vaccine has made the startling revellation that the vaccine 'does not give any protection against the bacillary forms of tuberculosis" - (New Scientist Nov. 1979 in The Truth Campaign, Winter 1999) Interestingly The Lancet (March 14 1992) carried a study of 83,000 individuals in Malawi who had been vaccinated and it was found that about half were protected against leprosy but there was "no statistically significant protection offerred by BCG against TB". "there was not one leper in the whole of the Hawaiian Islands before the noble work of Jenner reached them; by the nineties 10% of the natives were lepers"('The Blood Poisoners' Dole L. in The Truth Campaign, Winter 1999, p13) f. Hepatitis B - in 1988 New Zealand announced the most extensive national immunisation programme against Hep B in the world, within 3 months of it starting reports of serious side-effect were piling up and the project was stopped. According to Dr. Robert Mendelson, two thirds of doctors eligible for the Hep B jab reject it.(4) Between 1990 and 1994 the US body monitoring the vaccine reported 12,000 ADRs including death.(5) g. "Besides causing dangerous mutations like atypical measles, the measles portion of the MMR vaccine has been associated with numerous side- effects, including nerve deafness, encephalitis, epilepsy, febrile convulsions, Guillain-barre Syndrome and SSPE" What Doctors Don't Tell You (WDDTY) Vol 5, No 6, September 1994. Between July 1990 to April 1994, 5799 ADRs following MMR vaccination have been reported to the US Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS), including 3063 cases requiring emergency medical treatment, 616 hospitalisations, 309 who didn't recover, 54 children left disabled and 30 deaths. According to the National vaccine Information Centre, due to massive under-reporting, these are considered only 10-15% of the total number os ADRs, the true figfure could be as high as 60,000 ADRs over the 4 years since the record-keeping began.(WDDTY Vol5, No 6, Sept 1994). Need I go on. Is it any wonder professionals and parents find great difficulty accepting the assurances of vaccinators when such a litany of disasters lies in the wake of a couple of centuries of 'vaccination science'. The final word should go to smallpox - after all it was Jenner and his cow that got us into this apparent mess - which is usually referred to as the 'proof of the pudding'. What is conveniently forgotten is that Jenner's solitary experiment inoculating James Phillips with lymph from a cowpox vesicle off a dairymaid, then inoculating him later with smallpox, led to rapid acceptance of his 'preventive measure'. By 1840 there had been so many outbreaks said to have been caused by the now widespread inoculations that the authorities banned the practice under threat of imprisonment. Strangely it was later reinstated with alleged government protection from enquiry and criticism. After rejecting vaccination due to a belief that the vaccinations were worse than useless, Leicester relied on hygiene and sanitation and in 1892-3 had only 19.3 cases of smallpox per 10,000 population; Warrington, with 99.2% vaccination uptake, had 123.3 cases per 10,000 with a death rate 8 times that of Leicester. (Wallace: The Wonderful Century, 1898). In 1903 the USA seized the Phillipines and set up a military dictatorship, it enforced a countrywide vaccination drive, smallpox had been virtually unknown; the first great epidemic struck in 1905...and was continuous to...1923. After 15 years of intensive vaccination 47,000 cases and 16,000 deaths occurred in 1918 alone.(Phillipines Health Service, 1918). Nothing changes... One has to wonder about the role annual flu-jabs are playing in recent 'epidemics'! I think that any concerned practitioners must look into the vaccination situation and decide for themselves how to respond to patients' questions. I usually tell them to locate as much informationl as possible for all sides of the argument, speak to their GP and other professionals to try to make an informed choice, after all that is what parents usually want to do - not accept a commandment. Most patients return to tell me their GP merely regurgitated what the latest government pamphlet stated and had little idea of any other argument or point of view when asked to comment on other scientists' conflicting views. Are physicians really serving their patients well? Most statistics are totally dependent on ADR reporting by physicians. A recent French study suggested that GPs may be underreporting ADRs by as much as 24,000 times - correcting the statistics for serious vaccination ADRs by that amount would make a serious hole in any argument that immunisation is safe!(6) Doesn't this mean that it may be our governments and professional health providers, GPs etc., who are accepting unreconcilable statistics whilst ignoring public pleas for more information and better research, who are actually putting their patients at risk through their rather blase attitude towards immunisation? Regards John H. Refs. 1. The Role of Medicine; Prof. T McKeown, Oxford University Press, 1976; in The Truth Campaign, Winter 1999 2. South Yorkshire Times 11th March 1938 3. Vaccine Bulletin, Feb 1987 4. 'Drive to Immunise Adults is On'; Mendelson; Hol. Health News Sept. 1985 5. Vaccine News, Summer 1995 6. Br. J. Clin. Pharm. 1997 Feb;43(2):177-81, Moride Y et al. 'Underreporting of ADRs in General Practice'.