Vaccination Myth #3:

"Vaccines are the reason for low disease rates in the US today..."

..or are they?

According to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, childhood diseases decreased 90% between 1850 and 1940, paralleling improved sanitation and hygienic practices, well before mandatory vaccination programs.

The Medical Sentinel recently reported, "from 1911 to 1935, the four leading causes of childhood deaths from infectious diseases in the US were diphtheria, pertussis, scarlet fever, and measles. However, by 1945 the combined death rates from these causes had declined by 95 percent, before the implementation of mass immunization programs."

Thus, at best, vaccinations can only be examined only for their relationship to the small, remaining portion of disease declines that occurred after their introduction. Yet even this role is questionable, as pre-vaccine rates of disease mortality decline remained virtually the same after vaccines were introduced.

Furthermore, European countries that refused immunization for small pox and polio saw the epidemics end along with those countries that mandated it; vaccines were clearly not the sole determining factor. In fact, both small pox and polio immunization campaigns were followed by significant disease incidence increases.

After smallpox vaccination was being mandated, smallpox remained a prevalent disease with some substantial increases, while other infectious diseases simultaneously continued their declines in the absence of vaccines.

In England and Wales, smallpox disease and vaccination rates eventually declined simultaneously over a period of several decades between the 1870's and the beginning of World War II.

It is thus impossible to say whether or not vaccinations contributed to the continuing declines in disease death rates, or if the declines continued unabated simply due to the same forces which likely brought about the initial declines-improvements in sanitation, hygiene and diet; better housing, transportation and infrastructure; better food preservation techniques and technology; and natural disease cycles.

Underscoring this conclusion was a recent World Health Organization report which found that the disease and mortality rates in third world countries have no direct correlation with immunization procedures or medical treatment, but are closely related to the standard of hygiene and diet.

Credit given to vaccinations for our current disease incidence has simply been grossly exaggerated, if not outright misplaced.

Vaccine advocates point to incidence rather than mortality statistics as evidence of vaccine effectiveness. However, statisticians tell us that mortality statistics are a better measure of disease than incidence figures, for the simple reason that the quality of reporting and record keeping is much higher on fatalities.

For instance, a survey in New York City revealed that only 3.2% of pediatricians were actually reporting measles cases to the health department. In 1974, the CDC determined that there were 36 cases of measles in Georgia, while the Georgia State Surveillance System reported 660 cases.

In 1982, Maryland state health officials blamed a pertussis epidemic on a television program, "D.P.T.-Vaccine Roulette," which warned of the dangers of DPT; but when former top virologist for the US Division of Biological Standards, Dr. J. Anthony Morris, analyzed the 41 cases, he confirmed only 5, and all had been vaccinated. Such instances as these demonstrate the fallacy of incidence figures, yet vaccine advocates tend to rely on them indiscriminately.

Vaccination Truth #3

"It is unclear what impact, if any, that vaccines had on 19th and 20th century infectious disease declines."