Homoeopaths and chiropractors are sceptical about immunisation
BMJ 1995; 311 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.311.7008.811b (Published 23 September 1995) Cite this as: BMJ 1995;311:811
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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
Competing interests: No competing interests
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'.
Competing interests: No competing interests