Do Vaccines Really Work?

Some do, some don’t. Some are “safe”; some are very dangerous. But quite a lot is claimed for vaccinations that is not supported by objective, scientific analysis (by which I mean: not the story peddled by somebody SELLING the stuff!)

Over the years I’ve made no bones over my feeling that Louis Pasteur’s rabies vaccine makes the world a far safer place. Rabies—or more exactly hydrophobia that results—is a truly horrible way to die. I wouldn’t wish it on anybody and I personally would RUN, not walk to the nearest ER, if I got bitten by a rabid animal. Gimme the shot!”

[As of 2016, only fourteen people have ever survived a rabies infection after showing symptoms. Rabies causes about 59,000 deaths worldwide per year, about 40% of which are in children under the age of 15. More than 95% of human deaths from rabies occur in Africa and Asia. Wikipedia].

We Used To Need Health Passes

There’s a good case for the smallpox vaccine, perhaps. Younger folks who are howling about having to show a health pass to prove they have been vaccinated probably never knew a world in which ALL travelers had to produce documentary proof that they had been vaccinated against a number of diseases…

Depending on where you were going, you might need a cholera shot, smallpox, yellow fever, etc. No certificate, you were not allowed to board a plane or ship!

We didn’t complain then! But the world was different. We (somewhat) trusted that the shot would protect us from the disease. There was nothing like the unethical criminal commercial free-for-all that exists today, which allows manufacturers to be careless, indeed negligent, without any penalties.

Nor was there the same mountain of accumulated lies and fake science that passes for “research”. Today no-one in their right mind trusts the “science” put out by those who stand to gain.

My Story (Well, One Of Them!)

Take cholera, for example. You had to have a repeat—or what we now call a “booster” shot—every six months. The protection just wore off. But it was not mandatory, unless you were travelling somewhere that cholera was endemic (endemic means it’s there all the time, as opposed to epidemic, which comes on top of background diseases).

I had cholera shots when I was younger (it made your arm feel achy and very heavy, do you remember?) Unfortunately, I forgot about it in the modern world. I went to Sri Lanka, to help after the 2006 tsunami. I only saw one case of cholera: it was me! I was deadly ill and nearly died.

Having torrential diarrhea for 23 hours on a plane is no joke! I kept downing half bottles of chardonnay, which kept me somewhat hydrated, and probably worked slightly as an antibiotic! The Department of Health I’m sure traced the other passengers and made sure they were safe or put on vancomycin.

Shortly after I got home to Pasadena, I threw the whole local hospital into a panic when I reported to ER. I doubt they had seen a case there for 50 years! The doctor on duty refused to accept my diagnosis (I knew what it was because I had started seeing what doctors call “rice water stools”, when the diarrhea is so intense and goes on so long, the patient starts shedding the lining of their colon and the tissue debris looks just like grains of floating white rice).

He wrote me up for “traveler’s diarrhea” and sent off a stool sample. What do they teach these young doctors today? The guy might have killed me, by not starting the correct treatment immediately. But I knew that death is caused by dehydration, due to the torrential diarrhea. I just kept drinking and drinking and drinking. Oh, and more chardonnay!

Next day my fears were confirmed and I was put on vancomycin.

Too much detail? My wife Vivien would say yes! So let’s go back to vaccination.

The True History Of Vaccines

As I said, we did trust them. The cholera shot worked really well but only if the patient got the booster after 6 months or so.

But what about TB, for example? This was brought rapidly under control with the introduction of the BCG vaccine, right?

Not so fast. Take a look at this graph for TB deaths in the USA (it’s an identical graph for all other Western nations):

It’s obvious that by 1947, when the antibiotic streptomycin was first used, TB deaths had already declined dramatically, by around 90%.

Look at the line from 1954, when BCG was first introduced. You can see TB was all but wiped out, not by antibiotics and certainly not by a vaccine. The recovery and improvement were brought about by social measures, like improved nutrition, better sewers and other hygiene measures, fresh air, and so on.

The BCG vaccination program had virtually no effect whatever.

Here’s A Different One: Smallpox.

That is poignant to me because my first mother-in-law had contracted it. She wasn’t badly scarred, as many are. But it brought it home to me we were still living with one foot in an earlier, deadlier era.

An exceptionally florid case in Bangladesh, 1973: Wikipedia entry

About 30% of cases ended in death, typically in the second week of infection. Most survivors had some degree of permanent scarring, which could be extensive.

Smallpox is estimated to have killed up to 300 million people in the 20th century and around 500 million people in the last 100 years of its existence. As recently as 1967, 15 million cases occurred a year and many died. The last known case of “wild” smallpox was in Somalia in 1977.

But look at the trend:

Not much change (maybe getting worse) till about 1750. The first smallpox vaccines were used in 1796 and there seems an obvious downward trend since then. But didn’t it start in 1750? You decide.

I believe—and I’m free to have an opinion—that the smallpox vaccine did have some life-saving benefit and that we could not have eradicated it completely without the vaccine.

If so Edward Jenner—who has been described as a swindler and a fool by some and the savior of Mankind by others—may have been responsible for saving COUNTLESS MILLIONS of lives.

I think it’s important not to throw out the baby with the bathwater and to be against ALL vaccines would be to condemn many people to death. We just need an atmosphere in which we are all free to express our views and concerns. The raving anti-vaxxers are just as nuts as the raving pro-vaxxers.

I repeat what I said at the top: some work, some don’t, some are safe and some are dangerous.

Yours in truth and objectivity,

Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby
The Official Alternative Doctor