Historical and Scientific Perspectives on Immunity, Infectious Disease and Vaccination, original article by Raymond Obomsawin (lightly edited by AD).

 

It’s commonly believed that Edward Jenner in 1796 was the first to experiment with vaccination but the procedure dates back to ancient times. The earliest form of vaccination or inoculation likely originated with Egyptian sorcerers and involved superstition and magic.

 

Variolation was an early, crude method of smallpox inoculation in practice before 200 BC in China and India. It wasn’t till the 1500s that Francis Xavier, the co-founder of the Jesuit Order, encountered the practice and brought it to southern Europe.

 

Lady Mary Montagu, wife of the British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire at the time, encountered the practice in Istanbul. She had been left badly scarred from smallpox in 1715 and her brother had died from the disease in 1713. In 1718, she had the variolation procedure done on her five-year old son. On her return to England, she had her four-year old daughter variolated. Both children survived.

 

The doctor who had variolated Lady Montagu’s daughter, conducted his own experiment on six condemned prisoners who were offered release if they survived. When news of this successful experiment spread, variolation caught on with the Royal household and subsequently established itself in mainstream medicine in England. In spite of some deaths due to the procedure, it was seen to be a safer alternative to contracting the disease naturally, as variolated patients generally experienced less severe symptoms and it was assumed that variolation offered lifetime immunity to smallpox.

 

The Variolation Business, Paving the Way for Big Pharma

In order to corner the market on the fast-growing popularity of the practice, British doctors began promoting severe bloodletting prior to the variolation procedure and insisting that deep incisions were necessary for injecting the disease-producing biological material. [Editor’s note: This propaganda made it more likely that people wanting the procedure would go to a doctor to have it done because of the increased risks associated with bloodletting and deep incisions. In this way, doctors brought in more patients and made more money for what once had been a simple procedure.]  In 1840, with the passing of the first Vaccination Act, variolation was outlawed while vaccination was made optional and offered free of charge.

 

In spite of widespread belief that smallpox vaccination offered protection against the disease, in 1871 in Bavaria out of 30 742 smallpox cases, 29 429 were in vaccinated persons (95.7%, that is, less than 5% efficacy). That same year in Prussia, a country with the highest rate of re-vaccination in Europe, 69 839 people died of smallpox. This was the highest smallpox death rate of any northern European country. About the same time, in Germany where all army recruits were re-vaccinated, the death rate due to smallpox was 60% higher among army personnel than in the civilian population.

 

In European smallpox epidemics of 1870-1871, in Cologne, the first unvaccinated person to get smallpox was the 174th case; at Bonn, the first unvaccinated person to contract smallpox was the 42nd case; and in Liegnitz, the first unvaccinated person to get sick was the 225th case. In other words, the first people to get sick were those who’d been vaccinated. Only after many vaccinated persons fell ill did unvaccinated people get sick.

 

In England in 1871, because of strict vaccination enforcement, 97.5% of the population were vaccinated. This coincided with England’s worst smallpox epidemic. In contrast, a Gloucester doctor, Walter Hadwen, fought the disease by recommending against vaccination, but practicing instead strict hygiene and the isolation of those who fell ill. Dr. Hadwen noted, “Since the passing of the (UK compulsory vaccination) Act of 1853 we have had no less than three distinct epidemics. In 1857-1859 we had more than 14 000 deaths from smallpox; in the 1863-1865 epidemic the deaths had increased to 20 000 and in 1871-1872, (the number of deaths increased to) 44 800.”

 

In 1907, England repealed its vaccination acts. By 1919, England and Wales, with a combined population of 37.8 million, were among the least vaccinated countries. Death from smallpox in 1919 totalled 28. In contrast, the Philippines, with a population of only 10 million, the majority of which were triple-vaccinated, reported 47 368 deaths due to smallpox that year.

 

In 1928, Dr. L. A. Perry had an article entitled “Challenges Raised and Unanswered” published in the British Medical Journal. His challenges were:

 

• Smallpox is five times as likely to be fatal in the vaccinated as in the unvaccinated;
• In highly vaccinated areas, e.g. Bombay and Calcutta, smallpox is rife, while in minimally vaccinated areas such as Leicester, it is almost unknown;
• 80% of the smallpox cases admitted into hospitals have been vaccinated, with 20% unvaccinated;
• Germany – the best-vaccinated country in the world – has more smallpox deaths proportional to the population than England. In 1919, there were 28 deaths in England compared with 707 in Germany.

 

Were results of vaccination campaigns in the United States any better? In 1936, Dr. William Howard May wrote:

 

One of the most insane . . . things we have advocated in medicine . . . was to insist on the vaccination of children, or anybody else, for the prevention of smallpox. We (were) never able to prove that vaccination saved one man from smallpox.

 

I know of one epidemic of smallpox comprising (more than) 900 cases, in which 95% of the infected had been vaccinated and most of them recently. (In 30 years of practicing medicine) I have run across so many histories of children who had never seen a sick day until they were vaccinated and who have never seen a well day since.

 

How Was Smallpox Eradicated?

In 1966, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched a smallpox eradication campaign and later attributed the decline of the disease to vaccination. However, 38 countries had already become free of smallpox in the 16 years prior to the WHO’s campaign, with several more countries reporting close to no cases. It’s important to note that 90% of children in developing countries were never reached with the vaccine.

 

If vaccination did not eliminate smallpox, what did? Smallpox was eradicated by three synergistic mechanisms: 

 

1. Isolation of those infected,
2. Attenuation of the virus associated with smallpox (that is, weakening of the virus),
3. Improved social determinants, particularly nutrition and sanitation.

 

The “pathogenicity” of a virus, its ability to cause severe illness, is primarily determined by the ability of the host to resist infection. Nutritional status is an obvious critical factor in strengthening natural immunity and resisting infections of all types.

 

Vaccination is based on the theory that the immune system can be “taught” to recognize and respond to intrusive pathogens. But the theory has not proven to be accurate. The Pasteur Institute observed that “98% of immune responses triggered at the early stages of infection are non-specific.” It is innate immunity that affords 98% of the early response, while the adaptive or memory-based response that vaccination seeks to stimulate represents only 2% of early response. Drugs and vaccines are like holding a candle to the sun in comparison to the body’s own immune response.

 

Ellen G. White, the most prolific non-fiction female American writer wrote:

 

Let physicians teach the people that restorative power is not in drugs, but in nature. Disease is an effort of nature to free the system from conditions that result from a violation of the laws of health. In case of sickness, the cause should be ascertained. Unhealthful conditions should be changed, wrong habits corrected. Then nature is to be assisted in her effort to expel impurities and to re-establish right conditions in the system. (MH, 127)

 

This is a distinctive understanding of disease processes from the medical establishment. Western medicine has the idea that what prevents disease is different from what cures disease. Reality is, whatever will most effectively prevent disease will also most effectively reverse disease.

 

In 1962, Bernard Greenberg, chair of the Committee on Evaluation and Standards of the American Public Health Association provided evidence for US congressional hearings on polio vaccination. He disputed the widespread publicizing of the Salk vaccine’s effectiveness.

 

In late 1955, major alterations to diagnostic criteria were established whereby all non-paralytic “polio” cases (many thousands) were re-diagnosed as Coxsackie virus infections and aseptic meningitis. This led to vastly exaggerated claims that the vaccine caused a “huge decline” in polio. Despite greatly increased vaccination rates, the number of paralytic cases increased by 50% in 1957-1958 and by 80% in 1958-1959.

 

Tuberculosis in First Nations Populations

Between the years 1997 and 2000, rates for tuberculosis on First Nations reserves and among the Inuit was estimated to be 25 times higher than that of Canadian-born, non-Aboriginals. Since the BCG vaccine for tuberculosis (TB) was widely administered to Aboriginal peoples since the mid-20th century, why are TB infection rates still excessively high 50 years later?  A recent study of First Nations people in western Canada shows that “Disseminated BCG infection increases mortality among children with immunodeficiency disorders.”ⁱ Disseminated BCG disease is a rare life-threatening complication of BCG vaccination that can mimic TB. An increase in Aboriginal childhood deaths is occurring due to the BCG vaccine.

 

In a Malawi study published in Lancet in 1996, researchers reported higher TB rates in those who’d received two vaccine doses compared to those who’d received a placebo.

 

Vaccination Effects on the Brain

Recent studies reveal that vaccine antigens and adjuvants which cross the blood brain barrier cause secretion of cytokines. Cytokines are signaling proteins that help the immune system respond to diseases, and drugs but they can be “bad” when their expression causes inflammatory diseases. The release of cytokines following vaccination can cause: confusion, language difficulties, disorientation, seizures, memory problems, somnolence, irritability and combativeness, mood alterations, difficulty concentrating, and varied behavioral problems.

 

Following vaccination for the 2009 H1N1 outbreak, some children developed sleeping sicknessⁱⁱ, triggered by adjuvants (aluminum, mercury, and other additives that increase the immune response to vaccines) getting into the brain. Previously healthy children were suddenly falling asleep without warning and sleeping 75% of the day. Some developed cataplexy, a kind of sudden-onset paralysis that could be triggered by laughing or strong emotion. A child with cataplexy will suddenly lose muscle control and drop.

 

Concerns Related to Administering Multiple Vaccines

Regarding the practice of administering numerous vaccines to infants and small children, Russell Blaylock, retired US neurosurgeon, warns that multiple “studies have shown conclusively that such a practice can lead to severe injury to the brain by numerous mechanisms . . . from the third trimester of pregnancy until age 2 years, (a child’s) brain is at considerable risk from this . . . policy.”

 

“Eradication” of Disease by Vaccination?

A large body of historical epidemiological data shows that major declines in virtually all of the major infectious diseases took place before the use of specific vaccines. Claims about the historical life-saving impact of artificial immunization programs are assumptive and not factual.

 

A review of data from 1850-1965 on measles mortality rates in children under 15 show that measles was 98% eradicated before vaccination began. Tuberculosis rates in Canada, the United States, and New Zealand show the same pattern of decline by 97 or 98% before TB vaccination programs were introduced. Similar patterns exist for pertussis, scarlet fever, and influenza. These diseases were all but eradicated before vaccinations were introduced. Interestingly, the rates of scurvy parallel the decline in infectious diseases, demonstrating that improved nutrition is to be credited for the decline--along with better health education and other societal factors—not vaccination.

 

Influenza Vaccines

The British Medical Journal, October 28, 2006, reported, “There is a big gap between policies promoting annual influenza vaccinations for most children and adults and supporting scientific evidence . . . there is urgent need for re-evaluation of these strategies.” Similarly, the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Fall 2006  edition reported, “The yearly US mass influenza vaccination campaign has been ineffective in preventing influenza in vaccine recipients.”ⁱⁱⁱ Again, an Ontario study to determine the effectiveness of a $200 million campaign to reduce influenza concluded, “Despite increased vaccine distribution and financial resources towards promotion, the incidence of influenza in Ontario has not decreased following the introduction of the UIIC (Universal Influenza Immunization Campaign).”^iv

 

Disease Outbreaks in Vaccinated Populations

If vaccination indeed establishes immunity and is responsible for elimination of infectious disease, how can outbreaks in vaccinated populations be explained? In 1985, there was a measles outbreak in a Texas school where more than 99% of students had been vaccinated.^v In 1993, The New England Journal of Medicine reported on a pertussis outbreak of 6 335 cases among highly immunized children in Cincinnati.^vi “Since the majority of patients with pertussis were appropriately immunized for their age, especially those who were seven months to five years old, the pertussis epidemic cannot be explained by waning immunity among older children.”^vii The journal Pediatrics, reported a chickenpox outbreak in 2001 “after public schools began phasing in a varicella vaccination requirement for enrollment.”^viii Of the 422 students who contracted the disease, 97% had been vaccinated. In 2006, the US experienced a mumps outbreak.[ix] Preliminary data showed that only 6% of the cases were in unvaccinated people.

 

Vaccination and Corollary Diseases

Vaccinations have been linked to the development of serious chronic illness. The Lancet reported an association between the measles vaccine and inflammatory bowel disease.^x Diabetes has been linked to the BCG vaccine for TB^xi. In addition, overall health is affected by vaccination.

 

In December 2020, lawyers filed documents with the US Federal Court in support of their request for a court order exempting all persons from mandatory vaccination. Based on studies comparing unvaccinated to vaccinated people of all ages, they contend that “unvaccinated adults enjoy 1,248% better health than vaccinated. And unvaccinated children enjoy 1,099% better health than vaccinated.”^xii They cite studies which show a high correlation between the rising number of vaccines and increases in rates of: chronic disease, Autism Spectrum Disorder, children with special healthcare needs, diabetes, and mental health conditions such as major depression, anxiety or depression in children, and attempted suicide in young adults. Contrary to the prevalent notion that vaccination strengthens the immune system, evidence exists for a pattern of general impairment of the immune system as a result of vaccination.

 

Gardasil and Sudden Death in Previously Healthy Women

Hundreds of Gardasil-linked deaths have been reported to the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). Since VAERS is a voluntary reporting system, numbers of actual adverse events associated with vaccination is grossly underreported with estimates falling between less than 1% and 10% accuracy. As a result, the number of Gardasil deaths could be in the thousands. Deaths in healthy young women after receiving a Gardasil shot are thought to be the result of heart arrhythmia produced by an autoimmune response to the drug.

 

In a similar fashion to the way in which Covid-19 vaccines were hurried to market, Gardasil was approved by the FDA in 2006 just six months after its application for approval. Side effects found in the trials but not disclosed on the package insert include: double the rate of miscarriage in women under 30, five babies born with congenital abnormalities compared with none in the control group, nine times the number of reproductive disorders within seven months of getting a Gardasil shot compared with the placebo group, and nearly twice the number of deaths as that of women in the general US population.^xiii

 

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and Shaken Baby Syndrome

At the Austin, Texas morgue, Dawn Richardson and Karin Schumacher examined autopsy reports of infants listed as SIDS and checked for a correlation between the timing of death with vaccination. They estimated that a highly disproportionate number of SIDS deaths clustered at 2, 4, and 6 months, the very times when infants are routinely vaccinated. If vaccines did not precipitate these deaths, then the infant mortality should have been randomly spread through the first six months of life. Medical examiners routinely missed asking about or even considering the observable relationship between deaths and timing of vaccinations.

 

Researcher Viera Scheibner offered vaccination as an alternative cause of death to Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS). She said, “The vast majority (of deaths attributed to SBS) occur after the administration of childhood vaccines. . . . Evidence that vaccines cause brain and retinal haemorrhages and increased fragility of bones, has been published in refereed medical journals.”^xiv

 

Flu Vaccines and Neural Degeneration in the Elderly

Russell Blaylock explains that the immune response triggered in the brain of elderly people who’ve received the flu shot can result in flu-like symptoms, and what he calls, “intense ‘sickness behavior.’” In response to flu vaccination, he says, the “chronic overstimulation of the brain's immune system (which) is triggered, will not only increase their risk of developing one of the neurodegenerative diseases, but will also substantially increase their risk of developing major depression.”^xv

 

Conclusion

We need to go back to basics, to understand nature and work with nature, and not think we can engage in a war against nature and win. There’s a fundamental flaw in the thinking of conventional medicine, thinking it can rise above the laws of life and of nature and create artificial immunity. The result of such thinking instead is havoc, death, and destruction on an unimaginable scale.

 

Bio: Raymond Obomsawin, PhD, is of Oneida and Abenaki ancestry. He is a member of the Odanak First Nation based in eastern Canada. He has previously served as: founding Chairman of the NIB/AFN‟s National Commission Inquiry on Indian Health (Ottawa, Ontario); Executive Director of the California Rural Indian Health Board (Ukiah Programme); Manager of Overseas Operations for CUSO, (Canada's largest international development NGO); and Senior Advisor on Indigenous Knowledge Systems to the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).