Vaccination: A Controversial History

by Roman Bystrianyk and Suzanne Humphries MD, August 27, 2013
Sourced: www.vaccinationcouncil.org

With the approaching flu season and the enthusiastic calls to use the flu vaccine, you might be wondering where the idea of vaccination got its start. Where did the idea of injecting whole or bits of microbes and other substances into people in an attempt to provide protection against contagious disease begin?

Many medical and history books present a simple tale of the origin of vaccination. Most present the same basic tale of the brilliant observation of a simple country doctor and his courage in attempting to thwart a deadly and frightening disease of that time – smallpox, or as it was often called the speckled monster. In a recent and popular book, The Panic Virus, the author reiterates this classic tale.

In 1796, Jenner enlisted a milkmaid named Sarah Nelmes and an eight-year old boy named James Phipps to test his theory. Jenner transferred pus from Nelmes's cowpox blisters onto incisions he'd made in Phipps's hands. The boy came down with a slight fever, but nothing more. Later, Jenner gave Phipps a standard smallpox inoculation – which should have resulted in a full-blown, albeit mild, case of the disease. Nothing happened. Jenner tried inoculating Phipps with smallpox once more; again, nothing. [1]

Edward Jenner's idea eventually became known as vaccination, which is derived from the Latin word for cow – vacca. It was originally referred to as cowpoxing, but eventually the term vaccination was adopted. As the story goes, with this invention in place, smallpox would be tamed and the world would be freed from the terror of the disease.

Such is the stuff of legends. The story is not unlike the classic Greek legends of Theseus defeating the child-devouring Minotaur, or Perseus beheading the deadly snake-headed Medusa, or many other classic stories of the brave hero defeating a deadly enemy. The Jenner legend has been reduced to a simple and memorable story of a hero defeating the deadly enemy, smallpox. Authors claim that with vaccination in place, "billions of lives" have been saved.[2]

But legendary heroes, particularly those that are used to support a belief, achieve an iconic status while any unsavory aspects about the hero and the story are ignored or forgotten. Mythical tales are designed to evoke a positive emotional response to influence societal thinking.

The tale of defeating smallpox begins well before the story of our hero. It begins with the concept of using small amounts of smallpox pus and scratching it into the arms of healthy people. This idea was introduced to the Western world by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in 1717. She had returned from the Ottoman Empire with knowledge of the practice of inoculation against smallpox, known as variolation. This type of inoculation was simply a matter of infecting a person with smallpox at a time and in a setting of his choosing. The idea behind inoculation was that, in a controlled setting, people would do better against the disease than if they contracted it at some possibly less desirable time and place in the future.

The idea was embraced by the medical profession and enthusiastically practiced. But because of the complexity and danger involved, inoculation remained an operation that could only be afforded by the wealthy.[3] The procedure did often help protect the individual that was inoculated, but there was still an estimated 2-5% that died as a result.[4,5] Still, this was an improvement compared to a 20-25% mortality rate in those that had naturally contracted smallpox during an epidemic.[6] But, was the difference in mortality due to inoculation alone? Or could it have had something to do with the fact that the wealthy had better access to more nutritious food and a cleaner environment than the majority of society? Download full article

Louis Pasteur & Antoine Béchamp
The Germ Theory of Disease Causation

Misconceptions about health are ingrained in our culture. The road to understanding the process of maintaining and restoring health has been a long and twisted one. From ancient and intuitive knowledge, science has taken over, made colossal errors, and clings to them for dear life. There was a rejection of wisdom or scientific discovery in favor of a more popular, convenient, or politically desirable system. Just as Socrates was poisoned for his ideas, and Galileo was forced by a fanatic clergy to withdraw his statements about astronomy, ignorance and power can be a dangerous combination.

We do not catch diseases. We build them. We have to eat, drink, think, and feel them into existence. We work hard at developing our diseases. We must work just as hard at restoring health. The presence of germs does not constitute the presence of a disease. Bacteria are scavengers of nature...they reduce dead tissue to its smallest element. Germs or bacteria have no influence, whatsoever, on live cells. Germs or microbes flourish as scavengers at the site of disease. They are just living on the unprocessed metabolic waste and diseased, malnourished, nonresistant tissue in the first place. They are not the cause of the disease, any more than flies and maggots cause garbage. Flies, maggots, and rats do not cause garbage but rather feed on it. Mosquitoes do not cause a pond to become stagnant! You always see firemen at burning buildings, but that doesn't mean they caused the fire...

Traditional Western medicine teaches and practices the doctrines of French chemist Louis Pasteur (1822-1895). Pasteur's main theory is known as the Germ Theory Of Disease. It claims that fixed species of microbes from an external source invade the body and are the first cause of infectious disease. The concept of specific, unchanging types of bacteria causing specific diseases became officially accepted as the foundation of allopathic Western medicine and microbiology in late 19th century Europe. Also called monomorphism, (one-form), it was adopted by America's medical/industrial complex, which began to take shape near the turn of the century. This cartel became organized around the American Medical Association, formed by drug interests for the purpose of manipulating the legal system to destroy the homeopathic medical profession.

Rudolf Virchow, father of the germ theory, stated in his later years, "If I could live my life over again, I would devote it to proving that germs seek their natural habitat - diseased tissues - rather than causing disease." Pasteur (1822-1895) and Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915) jointly gave to the civilized world the disease theory doctrines of microbiology and immunology before vitamins, trace elements, and other nutrients had even been discovered. From their efforts and dubious discoveries, vaccines became vogue and were embraced by leading medical scientists - those longing for a sound and simple explanation for the inexplicable.

GERM THEORY	CELLULAR THEORY
Disease arises from micro-organisms outside the body.	Disease develops from micro-organisms within the cells of the body.
Micro-organisms are generally to be guarded and protected against.	These intracellular micro-organisms normally function to build and assist in the metabolic processes of the body - detoxification.
The function of micro-organisms is constant.	The function of these organisms changes to assist in the catabolic (disintegration) processes of the host organism when that organism dies or is injured, which may be chemical as well as mechanical.
The shapes and colours of micro-organisms are constant.	Micro-organisms change their shapes and colours to reflect the medium.
Every disease is associated with a particular micro-organism.	Every disease is associated with a particular condition.
Micro-organisms are primary causal agents.	Micro-organisms become "pathogenic" as the health of the host organism deteriorates. Hence, the condition of the host organism is the primary causal agent.
Disease can 'strike' anybody.	Disease is a chronic and eliminative response to toxic conditions.
To prevent disease we have to 'build defences' or administer reactive agents to 'attack' invading pathogens.	To prevent disease we sustain cellular health with nutrition, vitality, hydration and holistic living.

Antoine Béchamp, M.D., one of the world's foremost bacteriologists and Pasteur's contemporary, was making great scientific discoveries and some of the greatest minds of his day accepted his theories and findings as definitely established facts. Béchamp attained so many achievements that it took eight pages of a scientific journal to list them when he died. Among many other things, he saved the French silk industry from devastation by silkworms, under the nose of Pasteur, who had been commissioned to solve it. He clearly described the process of fermentation for what it is: a process of digestion by microscopic beings. He was the first to assert that the blood is not a liquid, but a flowing tissue. He developed; a cheap process for the production of aniline which was the foundation of the dye industry.

What makes the germ theory so dangerous is that it seems so obviously true. But it is true only secondarily. Béchamp said "There is no doctrine so false that it does not contain some particle of truth. It is thus with microbian doctrines." Béchamp discovered Microzyma (now known as micro-organisms) minute or small ferment bodies - the basic structure of cell life; and that germs definitely are the result, not the cause of disease. Through his experiments he showed that the vital characteristics of cells and germs are determined by the soil in which their microzyma feed, grow and multiply in the human body. Both the normal cell and germ have constructive work to do. The cells organize tissues and organs in the human body. Germs cleanse the human system and free it from accumulations of pathogenic and mucoid matter. We are constantly breathing in some 14,000 germs and bacteria per hour. If germs are so harmful, why aren't we all dead? Read full article...