Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines, and The Forgotten History

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Starting in the mid-1800s, there was a steady drop in deaths from all infectious diseases, decreasing to relatively minor levels by the early 1900s. The history of that transformation involves famine, poverty, filth, lost cures, eugenicist doctrine, individual freedoms versus state might, protests and arrests over vaccine refusal, and much more. But the authors shows that vaccines, antibiotics, and other medical interventions are not responsible for the increase in lifespan and the decline in mortality from infectious diseases In May 2015, the journal Science, published a report in which researchers found that the measles infection can leave a population at increased risk for mortality from other diseases for two to three years. ( Wikipedia. Measles; see also: CDC. Pink Book. Measles; Cliff, 1993; Mina, 2015; Perry, 2004; Strebel, 2018) And, for example: “Today deaths resulting from malaria naturally acquired in the United States are probably considerably less than 10 per annum, as contrasted with nearly 5000 annually during the period 1933-1935 (Faust, 1951). Dr Humphries completely misrepresents the study. She concludes somewhat simplistically that an “absence of rash” after measles vaccination signifies an “absence of cellular immune responses” to the virus which in turn leads to degenerative disease later on in life. However, contrary to the 1980s, we do not need to speculate about whether the measles vaccine stimulates cellular immunity or not — we can measure it. The measles vaccine stimulates a full adaptive immune response, involving both antibody mediated and cell-mediated immunity: Most significant primary immunodeficiency states in children will be detected before the age of MMR vaccination, and for such children live virus vaccines should be avoided.

Measles outbreak in a vaccinated school population: epidemiology, chains of transmission and the role of vaccine failures. Aiming to confuse readers by quoting 30-year-old studies on the failures of the 1963 inactivated measles vaccine (and serum gamma globulin as a form of treatment) numerous times throughout the chapter, even though both are no longer in use.

Incidence, mortality, disability, suffering: Comparing apples to oranges

Today, we are told that medical interventions increased our lifespan and single-handedly prevented masses of deaths. But is this really true? Dr Humphries then offers these alternative theories for the dramatic decline in measles notifications in the 1960s:

Yes, there were more people who went into the field because Roosevelt was dramatizing his incapacities—not intentionally—but he was dramatizing in the sense that, whenever he got up to get to the podium to speak, it was quite an effort on his part. He was really handicapped. And this gave people some awareness of what the disease was all about [my emphasis] ( Hughes, 1982, p. 22).A disease originally considered mildly contagious is now regarded as very contagious—almost as much as measles …From an endemic disease it has tended to become epidemic and is now a common and periodic scourge and incidentally an item of great public interest. Poliomyelitis is one of the important emergent viral diseases of the twentieth century. From an apparently rare clinical condition—occurring only sporadically or in small outbreaks prior to the late nineteenth century— poliomyelitis had, by the 1940s and 1950s, emerged as an epidemic disease of global proportions. Table 5: Correlation of Laboratory Findings of Poliomyelitis with Muscle Examination Performed 60 Days from Onset of Illness (from Table 7 in Brown, 1960). Original diagnosis By 1894 an antitoxin with therapeutic qualities had been developed, and two decades later an effective means of immunizing children became available with the introduction of the toxin-antitoxin. Yet the precise role played by both in reducing mortality from diphtheria is ambiguous…There is some evidence that the emergence of a dominant strain of mitis [ Editor’s note: a variant of the bacterium that caused a relatively mild form of the disease] reduced the virulence of the disease. Antitoxin serum may therefore have merely assisted a natural decline of the disease already under way. During the 1920s …immunization campaigns probably led to the eventual disappearance of the disease by World War II (Grob, 2002, pp. 205-6). Rather than leading to “deranged immune systems”, as Dr Humphries claims, present day studies repeatedly hint at beneficial immuno-stimulating properties of the live measles vaccine above and beyond protection against measles infections: Not too long ago, lethal infections were feared in the Western world. Since that time, many countries have undergone a transformation from disease cesspools to much safer, healthier habitats. Starting in the mid-1800s, there was a steady drop in deaths from all infectious diseases, decreasing to relatively minor levels by the early 1900s.

Malaria has several serious complications. Among these is the development of respiratory distress, which occurs in up to 25% of adults and 40% of children with severe P. falciparum malaria. Although rare in young children with severe malaria, acute respiratory distress syndrome occurs in 5–25% of adults and up to 29% of pregnant women.Medical literature suggests that the lower risk of contracting clinical measles after being breastfed can last up to 10 years.

The history of that transformation involves famine, poverty, filth, lost cures, eugenicist doctrine, individual freedoms versus state might, protests and arrests over vaccine refusal, and much more. One by one, smallpox, diphtheria, whooping cough, measles, and polio are all reviewed, and the historical record carefully examined. In the polio chapter you will find the connection between polio and DDT and arsenic exposure. A graph of DDT industrial production superimposed over polio mortality bears a striking exact correlation. Also, you will read about the role of the courageous Sister Kenny who devised a successful treatment for the children with paralyzed limbs which was bitterly opposed by mainstream orthopedic surgeons. You will learn that polio was never really conquered. You may recall the terrifying images of heart lung machines of the 1950’s graphically displayed by the March of Dimes polio advertisements in magazines. These are gone. They have been replaced by modern respirators, and polio has been renamed acute flaccid paralysis. While Humphries, based on the introduction to Brown’s paper, stated, “An in-depth analysis of the diagnosed cases revealed that more than half of them were not poliovirus associated at all,” the introduction doesn’t separate the paralytic cases from the non-paralytic ones, while for the paralytic cases, the paper actually states that 77% were laboratory confirmed to be poliomyelitis and 84% of these had residual paralysis 60 days later. So, rather than “more than half of them were not poliovirus associated,” 77% were and 65% had paralysis 60 days later, based on criteria used by Greenberg. Didn’t Humphries read the entire paper? In addition, as Brown states: “Antibody determinations were possible on 185 of the 292 patients from whom poliovirus had been isolated,” so, for the cases that were not lab confirmed, this does not mean that they were not caused by poliomyelitis (Brown, 1960, p. 109). If you grew up and live in the US, then you have been indoctrinated to believe vaccination to be effective in the prevention of infectious disease, and to have minimal adverse side effects. Be prepared to have those illusions shattered by this unique book which is a monument of scholarly work on this topic, and deserves multiple re-readings. The care and detail of the documentation is intentional and overwhelming. My congratulations to the authors for a job well done. You might also find interesting, Confessions of a Medical Heretic by Robert S. Mendelsohn MD. He was an early pioneer in the anti-vaccination movement and also my medical school adviser. Medical qualifications: current American Board of Internal Medicine certifications in internal medicine and nephrology.

Poliomyelitis

Syphilis differs from the other diseases in Humphries comparison. It is the only one that depends on “intentional”, avoidable behaviors. Note that the Trevelyan article and especially the Smallman-Raynor book cover in detail the history and geography of polio epidemics in the United States] Swimming pools, chlorine, and polio These data suggest that cellular responses to measles virus may be better sustained than antibody titers after vaccination and revaccination in some subjects. ( Source ) The response to poliovirus infection is highly variable and has been categorized on the basis of the severity of clinical presentation.