zed66 said:
I think it is entirely justified. I do not hold any position on the causal relationship between vaccinations and disease, or child behaviour, considering the jury to still be out.
I respect that view.
However on the basis of an unproven conjecture you would willingly risk the life of 300, 000 infants from whooping cough, expose new born babies to the risk of incurable Congenital rubella syndrome and if you are consistent in your loopery presumably believe that 300-500,000 deaths a year from Tetanus doesn't merit an increase in the worldwide vaccination programme.
On this thread the question isn't 'should the state insist on vaccination or not?', I am stating my views on what I think is responsible for a trend in children's devlopment. I will not tell anyone whether to vaccinate or not. What I am for is informed consent. That means the question of whether or not to vaccinated should be freely discussed and decisions lie with parents who will hopefully research the issue fully until they are satisfied with their choice.
However allow me to point out that Sweden, despite 'risking' the lives of its infants by banning pertussis vaccination finds itself on top of the league. So I would personally do what they do. And with the other vaccines too, yes, because I think that's the best way to be healthy - have a well fed immune system that is not tainted by vaccination. Pasteur relented on his deathbed that the terrain, and not the germ, was the crucial factor.
What does the name Edward Jenner mean to you?
Good question. I post this off the top of my head, without reference. We can check afterwards.
Edward Jenner, the 'father of vaccination', was a quack. He never passed a medical exam in his life, and was admitted to the Royal Society on some piece of nonsense about bird-keeping. However, he had an idea about vaccination, and somehow was able to receive handsome funding for it. He decided that cow-pox was a protection against smallpox and started making injections which I believe were taken from the arms of someone who had contracted cow-pox. Results were no better than chance despite any spin he could put on it, and several vets started pointing out that plenty of people had had both cow-pox and smallpox.
So, Jenner changed his idea. He decided that he would inject children not with cowpox, but 'horse-grease' - a lovely concoction composed from the pus of diseased horses' hooves. He declared this was the 'life-preserving fluid'. This extremely unethical experiment resulted in the deaths of those he injected and he was advised to abandon the idea or the whole thing would never take off.
So, he went back to arm-to-arm vaccinations. Put simply, it didn't work, and of course had fantastic risks because of the blood-sharing. However, the authorities decided it did. Vaccination was made compulsory in Britain and the colonies. The result was devastation with a vaccine that was extremely dangerous and did nothing to prevent smallpox. In Britain, we had our worst ever smallpox outbreaks fully fifteen years after the vaccine was enforced by law and these outbreaks dwarfed those prior to vaccination. The experience was same elsewhere - everywhere that had Jenner's vaccine suffered horrendous smallpox. Millions in Germany, the Phillipines. In India the experience was tragic; it was announced in the House of Commons that upwards of three million Indians died from smallpox all of whom had been vaccinated as it was strictly enforced, but that whenever sanitation was introduced smallpox disappeared without exception. Meanwhile, during the same period Australia, which had no smallpox vaccination, saw something like three deaths from the disease.
Here in the UK opinion turned against the smallpox vaccine and the law requiring it. Led by some doctors who were standing up to it, notably Dr. Hadwen, Public campaigning eventually won and no longer could the state force the shots.
As good sanitation arrived, and levels of vaccination dropped considerably, smallpox eventually ceased.
Perhaps a good measure as to how scientific early smallpox vaccination was is revealed by the fact that the virus in the vaccine was not cowpox!
How did I do?
