We’ve covered a lot of great stuff so far…

1. Are vaccinated children healthier than non-vaccinated children?
2. Do the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks?
3. What are the real numbers of children being hurt?
4. Are vaccinations “effective”?
5. Are vaccine doses personalized?
6. Can vaccines cause damage that may not surface for years?
7. Can vaccines cause crib death (SIDS)?

Please review any of the previous articles you may have missed at www.NeighborsNewspaper.com or at my website www.DonohoeChiropractic.com.

This month I will continue to provide the answers you won’t get anywhere else to some of the most important questions all parents should ask!

8. Did vaccines eliminate diseases?

We’ve heard it said, “Before childhood vaccinations, thousands of children died every year from measles and whooping cough.” And they’ll give you a statistic from 1910, 1920 or 1930 to prove it. It’s true, thousands of children died from these diseases in 1910, 1920 and 1930, but is vaccination the reason why these diseases are no longer the scourge they once were? This quote from Dr. Ivan Illich, the world famous sociologist, was based on extensive analysis of health data.

“Nearly 90% of the total decline in mortality (scarlet fever, diphtheria, whooping cough, and measles) between 1860 and 1965 occurred before the introduction of antibiotics and widespread immunization.” From Medical Nemesis. Chapter 1-The Epidemics of Modern Medicine, NY: Bantam Books 1976

What made deaths from childhood disease fall? Less crowding, better nutrition, clean, running water, indoor plumbing and an overall higher standard of living were responsible.

The following graphs are from one of my favorite books on the subject, Vaccines, Are They Really Safe and Effective? by Neil Miller. Look closely. You’ll see that deaths from these childhood diseases were falling dramatically for decades before vaccination was introduced.

The pertussis death rate had declined by 79% before the vaccine was introduced in 1935! In 1935 there were no compulsory immunization laws and it didn’t get used much until the 1950’s at which time the death rate had declined by about 99%!

Anyone remember scarlet fever? What about typhoid fever? Of course we’ve all heard of pertussis, aka whooping cough. Well all three were once major killers. However, no vaccine was ever introduced for scarlet fever or typhoid fever. Interesting to note is that all three diseases declined to virtually zero!

9. What if we stopped vaccinating?

It’s been predicted that we’d have massive epidemics and lots of deaths.

Prediction: if vaccinations stopped there would be a 71-fold increase in pertussis and a 25-fold increase in pertussis deaths. Koplan JP, Schoenbaum SC, Weinstein MC and Frasier DW. Pertussis vaccine – an analysis of benefits, risks and costs. New England Journal of Medicine. 1979

This is a hypothetical cost/benefit analysis from the CDC and Harvard School of Public Health. The authors predicted doom and gloom. However, they ignored what had actually occurred when pertussis vaccination stopped or decreased in other countries.

What really happened?

When pertussis vaccination decreased (Sweden, the UK and Germany) pertussis deaths decreased. Trollfors B. and Rabo E. Whooping cough in adults. British Medical Journal. 1981

However MD’s did diagnose more whooping cough. They did that because they were told to look for more whooping cough because vaccination rates were dropping. So instead of diagnosing bronchitis, a cold or some other condition, they called it whooping cough and suddenly there was an epidemic and they said, “See, we told you so.” However, the real measure is the death rate and after parents stopped pertussis vaccination, the death rate from whooping cough in the UK was the lowest in recorded history.

The authors of the above cited study went on to say “Neither in England and Wales, nor in West Germany has the decline in pertussis immunization been associated with increases in pertussis associated mortality. In fact both countries reported more fatal cases in 1970, when the immunization rate was relatively high, than during the later half of the decade, when the immunization rates had fallen.”

10. How many people are really getting diseases?

We don’t know! Consider the statistics of measles cases displayed in the following chart. Though it’s a small sampling from a few years ago it speaks volumes!

There is a huge difference between measles cases reported, tested and confirmed. Source: Notifications of infectious diseases confirmed by salivary antibody detection at the Public Health Leadership Society enteric and respiratory virus laboratory (18 Feb 2002).

This is a very important chart and it helps illustrate one of the major hurdles in the vaccine debate: many of the people who tell us how many kids are hurt and how many kids get diseases are MD’s who have a financial interest in vaccinations. All they have to do is report that a child has measles, whopping cough, rubella, chicken pox, etc. without laboratory confirmation and it becomes part of official statistics.

However, as this report from England shows, they checked the reported cases using laboratory confirmation. In some cases the MDS were over 99% wrong in their diagnosis of measles (see the chart). As you can see only a tiny fraction of the children who the MD’s reported as having the measles actually, really had measles.

Are we “protecting” children from diseases that no one is getting? There are diseases that look like measles, pertussis and other childhood diseases. Doctors usually don’t confirm their diagnosis with a lab test - that is time consuming and expensive. In a sense we have the fox guarding the hen house!

Well that’s all for this month. Next month we’ll get into the really nasty stuff… What’s in a vaccine? Bet you didn’t have any idea some of this stuff was being injected directly into our kids’ bloodstreams!

Dr. Donohoe is a family practice chiropractor who specializes in the unique needs of pregnant women and children. His office is located at 41880 Kalmia St., Suite 135 in Murrieta. He can be reached at 951-677-6500 or through his website at www.DonohoeChiropractic.com.