Anytime there is a debate about vaccinations the very first thing that devout followers of the vaccination religion will argue is that “Vaccines saved us from terrible diseases, and therefore, they are our unquestionable god.” After that, it matters not what your argument is, since gods cannot be questioned.

But did vaccines really save us? The answer is no. If they played any part at all, it was minor, and in fact – they may have actually increased the quantity and severity of outbreaks of diseases by acting as a vector for spreading the disease. This article serves to highlight the historical failure of vaccines, specifically with small pox, and highlight what was the likely reason we were able to defeat this as well as countless other non-vaccinated diseases at the same time.

Debunking the Savior myth for Small Pox

The concept of vaccinations was popularized by Edward Jenner, whom was not a doctor, after he heard that milkmaids seemed immune to small pox after getting cow pox. It’s worth noting that cow pox and small pox are not the same virus, and for the entire 19th century (and much longer in some places) vaccinations did not use actual small pox. Everyone understands flu vaccines have very poor efficacy due to the changing flu virus, vaccinating against one virus does NOT confer immunity against another.

In 1796, believing these stories, Edward Jenner subjected an eight-year-old boy named James Phipps to an experiment. He took disease matter that he believed to be cowpox from lesions on the hands of dairymaid Sarah Nelmes and vaccinated James with it. The child was later deliberately exposed to smallpox in order to test the protective property of the cowpox inoculation. When the boy did not contract clinical smallpox, it was assumed that the cowpox vaccination was successful and that it would also provide lifelong protection against smallpox. Immunology was so crude that knowledge of preexisting immunity or sub-clinical infection was not part of Jenner’s experimental design. Even though his claims were based on a sample of one and no scientific method, it fueled the belief that once a person was exposed to cowpox, lifelong protection from smallpox was possible.

Since the late 1700s, the medical profession has supported vaccination, even though there was never a trial where one group was vaccinated and compared to another group of the same size that was not vaccinated. (Also known as a placebo controlled study)

The standardization and purity of smallpox vaccines was lackluster even after the eradication of smallpox from the United States. Dr. Beddow Bayly’s 1952 statements should leave everyone wondering how such a vaccine could have possibly been responsible for eradication of any disease:

"When we recall that vaccine lymph is derived, in the first place, either from a smallpox corpse, the ulcerated udder of a cow, or the running sores of a sick horse’s heels, the choice depending upon the country of its origin and the firm which manufactures it, it is hardly to be wondered at that it has far-reaching ill effects on the human constitution. Years ago, the Lancet declared that “no practitioner knows whether the lymph he employs is derived from smallpox, rabbit-pox, ass-pox, or mule-pox.” [1]

Small Pox vaccination failures

The Medical Observer for 1810 contains particulars of 535 cases of small-pox after vaccination, 97 fatal cases, 150 cases of vaccine injuries, with the addresses of ten medical men, including two professors of anatomy, who had suffered in their own families from vaccination. [2]

An article in the 1817 London Medical Repository Monthly Journal and Review stated,

”Variola, above all, continues and spreads a devastating contagion. However painful, yet it is a duty we owe to the public and the profession, to apprize them, that the number of all ranks suffering under Small Pox, who have previously undergone Vaccination by the most skilful practitioners, is at present alarmingly great.” [3]

Numerous Journals at the time sang the same tune,

”…during the years 1820, 1, and, 2 [1820– 1822] there was a great hubbub about the small-pox. It broke out with the great epidemic to the north… It pressed close to home to Dr. Jenner himself… It attacked many who had had small-pox before, and often severely; almost to death; and of those who had been vaccinated, it left some alone, but fell upon great numbers.” [4]

Mandatory Vaccinations Failed

With more and more evidence mounting against the effectiveness of vaccinations, the early 19th century brought about a lot of people refusing to be vaccinated. To combat this, vaccinations were made mandatory in 1853 in England, with even stricter laws passed in 1867. Boston took the toughest stance in the United States passing comprehensive laws in 1855 which mandated all children be vaccinated before two years of age.

In 1898 Dr. Wilder noted that during the 1871– 1872 pandemic, the vaccinated often contracted severe smallpox more rapidly than the non-vaccinated.

”Never, however, did the faith in vaccination receive so rude a shock as in the Great Small-Pox Epidemic of 1871 and 1872. Every country in Europe was invaded with a severity greater than had ever been witnessed during the three preceding centuries.”[5]

Following the 1855 mandates [in Boston], there were smallpox epidemics in 1859– 1860, 1864– 1865, and 1867, culminating with the infamous epidemic in 1872– 1873. These repeat smallpox epidemics showed that the strict vaccination laws [>95% of people vaccinated] instituted by Massachusetts had no beneficial effect.

The failure of vaccinations wasn’t only occurring in Boston,

”…Bavaria [Germany] in 1871 of 30,742 cases 29,429 were in vaccinated persons, or 95.7 per cent, and 1313 in the un-vaccinated, or 4.3 per cent. In some of the small local outbreaks of recent years the victims have been nearly all vaccinated (e.g., at Bromley [England] in 1881, a total of 43 cases, including sixteen confluent, all vaccinated).” [6]

The desecration of the vaccinated people in France, Germany, and England was graphically illustrated in a 1900 medical article:

”Every recruit that enters the French army is vaccinated. During the Franco-Prussian war there were twenty-three thousand four hundred and sixty-nine cases of small-pox in that army.

The London Lancet of July 15, 1871, said: Of nine thousand three hundred and ninety-two small-pox patients in London hospitals, six thousand eight hundred and fifty-four had been vaccinated. [73%] Seventeen and one-half per cent of those attacked died.

In the whole country more than one hundred and twenty-two thousand vaccinated persons have suffered from small-pox…” [7]

These stories continued the world over, with nearly fully vaccinated populations suffering massive epidemics. What’s not often discussed is the fact that the unsanitary methods of vaccination, as while as the nature of the vaccines themselves caused many people to get sick and die from other diseases following vaccination. Erysipelas, gangrene, cow pox, scarlet fever, Streptococcus pyogenes, as well as other diseases were recorded immediately following vaccinations.

From 1906 to 1922, the number of deaths recorded from vaccination and from smallpox were approximately the same. In 1948, there were an estimated 200 to 300 deaths [8] as the result of smallpox vaccination, while during the same time there had only been 1 smallpox death. [9]

The Leicester Method Completely Debunks Small Pox Vaccination

Following the rampant failures of mandatory vaccination programs across the world, the city of Leicester, in 1885-1887, decided to completely abandon vaccinations and instead opted for what became known as the Leicester method. The method involved quarantining patients and then thoroughly disinfecting their homes.

“Sir Duminie Corrigan, M.D. when acting as one of the committee in 1871, on the Vaccination Act, said: “An unvaccinated child is like a bag of gunpowder which might blow up the whole school, and ought not, therefore to be admitted to a school unless he is vaccinated.” [Doesn’t this sound familiar?]

The opponents of Leicester were all certain that they would soon be swept away and massacred by an unrivaled small pox outbreak for failing to vaccinate. The epidemic never came.

In the 1893 smallpox outbreak, the well-vaccinated district of Mold in Flintshire, England, had a death rate about 32 times higher than Leicester.

”Leicester, with a population under ten years of age practically unvaccinated, had a small-pox death-rate of 144 per million; whereas Mold, with all the births vaccinated for eighteen years previous to the epidemic, had one of 3,614 per million.” [10]

In the 1891– 1894 smallpox outbreak described by Dr. J. W. Hodge, the highly vaccinated town of Birmingham had 63 smallpox cases and 5 deaths per 10,000 of population, compared with Leicester at 19 cases and 1 death per 10,000.

In 1893, Professor E. M. Crookshank, author of History and Pathology of Vaccination and Professor of Comparative Pathology in King’s College, London, expressed his views on vaccination:

”Unfortunately, a belief in the efficacy of vaccination has been so enforced in the education of the medical practitioner that it is hardly probable that the futility of the practice will be generally acknowledged in our generation, though nothing would more redound [contribute] to the credit of the profession and give evidence of the advance in pathology and sanitary science. It is more probable that when, by means of notification and isolation, small-pox is kept under control, vaccination will disappear from practice, and will retain only an historical interest.” [11]

Dr. Millard, who had been the minister of health in Leicester from 1901 to 1935, explained why he believed medical experts of the day were wrong:

”At the core was a set of self-reinforcing beliefs in vaccination. Looking back it is interesting to consider why medical experts were so mistaken in their prophecies of disaster to come if universal vaccination of infants was abandoned. It was probably due to the belief, then so strongly held, that it was infant vaccination, and that alone, which had brought about the great diminution of smallpox mortality that followed upon an introduction of vaccination. That this was clearly a case of cause and effect was reiterated in every textbook and in every course of lectures on public health. It was hailed, indeed, as the outstanding triumph of preventative medicine. No wonder that medical students accepted it as an incontrovertible scientific fact.”[12]

Summary:

The savior myth of vaccination is just that, a myth. Small Pox is touted as the number one success of vaccinations and unfortunately history does not reflect that. Not only did almost complete vaccination of entire towns and cities fail to prevent outbreaks, but it some cases may have actually increased the spread of the disease as well as caused other diseases through contamination and unsanitary practices.

Thankfully for the world, Leicester operated as our placebo controlled study to debunk the Savior Myth of vaccinations. Despite extremely low levels of vaccinations, they experienced fewer and less severe outbreaks than almost fully vaccinated populations, proving beyond any shadow of a doubt, that vaccination was a huge failure.

This post was compiled from an incredible book called “Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines, and the Forgotten History” and it’s available on Kindle. The book covers living conditions and disease rates spanning three centuries, and follows the path of failure of vaccinations throughout.

What the book proves beyond a shadow of a doubt, is that vaccinations played a minor role if any in the elimination of diseases. Scores of diseases that we never developed vaccinations for used to ravage our nations, and all faced a steep decline from 1850-1950, at the exact same rate as the diseases we did vaccinate for. So what was the cause of this across the board decline? Sanitation, hygiene, and nutrition.

The religion of vaccinations has no leg to stand on, absent the savior myth. Thanks for reading, and if you have even a tiny interest in vaccinations please check out the book, you will not regret it.

Addendum:

If vaccines were a product of an industry with a flawless record of purity and good science, I as well as anyone else, would be foolish to question them. Unfortunately, vaccinations are produced by one of the most corrupt industries to ever exist.

Between 2000-2012, the 20 largest criminal and civil fines against pharmaceutical companies amounted to a combined $19.3 BILLION! [13]

These fines are handed out for what amounts to criminal conspiracy, and absolutely no one goes to jail. The fines, while large to peasants such as ourselves, are just a tiny fraction of profits. This means it is actually cheaper for these firms to act criminally than it is to act responsibly. History is replete with pharmaceutical companies knowingly marketing drugs that they know are dangerous and killing people, as well as, marketing drugs that they know are not effective.

The largest penalty of $3.2 billion dollars was handed out to GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), which admitted criminal wrong-doing for failing to report drug safety information to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

A Time Magazine article about the GSK fines noted that the fines paled in comparison to the profits:

"Avandia, for example, racked up $10.4 billion in sales, Paxil brought in $11.6 billion, and Wellbutrin sales were $5.9 billion during the years covered by the settlement, according to IMS Health, a data group that consults for drugmakers."

“So a $3 billion settlement for half a dozen drugs over 10 years can be rationalized as the cost of doing business,” [Patrick Burns, spokesman for the whistle-blower advocacy group Taxpayers Against Fraud] said.

More than 100 drugs that were approved by the FDA as "Safe and Effective" have been recalled. In many cases the companies knew that they were dangerous, especially as in the case of Vioxx. [14]

Ben Goldacre gave an incredible Ted Talk called "What doctors don't know about the drugs they prescribe" in which he describes the nature by which negative studies are not published. In this manner, the medical literature appears to show an overwhelming bias towards a drug being safe and effective, because the negative studies don't get published. This causes doctors to be fooled into a false sense that the drugs they are prescribing have been scientifically proven to be safe and effective, when they may have not been.

Here's a graphic showing just part of the "revolving door" that exists between the Pharmaceutical industry, and the Government. These are blatant conflicts of interest, and they're not isolated. Routinely people go from pharma to the FDA, and the FDA to pharma. It's not possible for people to serve two masters. It's a literal case of the fox guarding the hen house.

And lastly, When published results are systematically tracked for drug trials registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, those from industry-funded trials are the likeliest to be favorable to the drug in question, report researchers at Children's Hospital Boston.

Notations:

[1] “Studies in Vaccinia,” The Lancet, vol. 199, no. 5150, May 13, 1922, pp. 957– 958.

[2] “Vaccination by Act of Parliament,” Westminster Review, vol. 131, 1889, p. 101.

[3] “Observations on Prevailing Diseases,” The London Medical Repository Monthly Journal and Review, vol. VIII, July– December 1817, p. 95.

[4] “Observations by Mr. Fosbroke,” The Lancet, vol. II, 1829, p. 583.

[5] Alexander Wilder, MD, “The Fallacy of Vaccination,” The Metaphysical Magazine, vol. III, no. 2, May 1898, p. 88.

[6] “Small-Pox and Revaccination,” Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. CIV, no. 6, February 10, 1881, p. 137.

[7] G. W. Harman, MD, “A Physician’s Argument Against the Efficacy of Virus Inoculation,” Medical Brief: A Monthly Journal of Scientific Medicine and Surgery, vol. 28, no. 1, 1900, p. 84.

[8] The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, vol. 41, 1968, p. 10.

[9] David Koplow, Smallpox: The Right to Eradicate a Global Scourge, University of California Press, 2004, p. 21.

[10] William Scott Tebb, MD, A Century of Vaccination and What It Teaches, Swan Sonnenschein & Co., London, 1898, pp. 93, 94.

[11] Edgar March Crookshank, History and Pathology of Vaccination Volume 1: A Critical Inquiry.

[12] C. Killick Millard, MD, DSc, “The End of Compulsory Vaccination,” British Medical Journal, December 18, 1948, p. 1074.

[13] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_pharmaceutical_settlements

[14] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_withdrawn_drugs