Most people give more time and consideration to buying a car than to the vaccines their children are given. Although volumes of books, medical journals, U.S. Congressional Record testimonies and international health statistics spanning more than 100 years question, challenge, discredit and condemn the practice of vaccination as an unproven pseudo-scientific theory, it remains in widespread use. One need not be a licensed "expert" to approach and comprehend this subject. An open mind, a focused commitment to good health, and common sense will do.

As Ethyl Douglas Hume explains in her classic book Bechamp or Pasteur (1923), "The whole belief [of vaccination] is rooted in a belief in the immunity conferred by a non-fatal attack of a disease. The idea arises from the habit of regarding a disease as an entity, a definite thing, instead of a disordered condition due to complex causes; the germ theory of disease, in particular, being the unconscious offspring of the ancient Eastern faith in specific demons, each possessed of his own special weapon of malignity. Thus, the smallpox inoculation introduced into England from Turkey by Lady Mary Wortley Montague in the eighteenth century [1717] and its substitute of cowpox inoculation were based on the ancient Indian rite of subjecting people to an artificially- induced attack of smallpox to propitiate Sheetula Mata, the goddess of that torment."

The modern version substitutes "germs" for "demons." An organized destruction of natural health care escalated around 1850, when chemist Louis Pasteur misinterpreted the brilliant and revolutionary work of Professor Antoine Bechamp (chemist, physician, naturalist, biologist) on the essential role of germs in life processes. We literally have been suffering under that delusion ever since.

Vaccines Are Not Harmless

It is a little known fact that vaccines are immunosuppressive. They are produced from and contain cells from sickened animals (calf lymph, monkey kidney, chick embryo, etc.), human fetus tissue, viruses, heavy metals (mercury, aluminum), antibiotics and a host of chemical propellants and solutions (formaldehyde, etc.). These substances are acknowledged poisons. Injecting foreign matter into the bloodstream results in a wide range of diseases of the blood, brain, nerves and skin (including cancer, leukemia, MS, arthritis, immune deficiency), and even death. Does putting these toxic substances into a healthy newborn and continuing to administer "booster shots" throughout childhood (and now adulthood) prevent disease? The immune system is simply doing its job when it expels material from the body through rash, diarrhea, nausea, fever, etc. When we quell the cough, break the fever, drug or suppress the symptom, what are we preventing?

A Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (July 1985) table shows a long list of adverse reactions to DPT vaccination occurring within 48 hours. One in two (1/2) doses resulted in pain, 1/3 in redness, and 2/5 in swelling. Although some symptoms of vaccine damage appear as mild/local reactions (up to 50%), this does not deny internal systemic damage. High-pitched screaming or inconsolable crying (possibly indicating encephalitis or brain inflammation) occurs in 1/100. The statistic is in doses; thus, since every child gets 5 doses, this occurs to 1 in 20 babies.

67,000 U.S. children are given the DPT vaccination each week. Does this relate to the steady rise in children with hyperactivity and brain dysfunction? Some babies fall into a coma for the 2-day observation period. This, as well as other damage and death that sometimes follows, is not acknowledged, noted on the child's medical record, nor reported to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), the organization that compiles and reports statistics like incidence of adverse reaction to vaccines.

The patient vaccine information insert for the DPT (Diphtheria/ Pertussis/Tetanus) triple vaccine reads..."sudden infant death syndrome has been reported following administration of DPT. The significance is unclear...85% of SIDS cases occur in the period 1 through 6 months of age, with the peak incidence at age 2 to 4 months." The vaccine is given at 2, 4, and 6 months. What is unclear? Death in infants from vaccination is being called many things, including SIDS, to obscure the actual cause(s). Not one of the hundreds of parents we have spoken with was ever shown this patient insert by the doctor.

What happened to the threat of swine flu? As of 1978, more than 3000 lawsuits for deaths and paralysis resulting from the swine flu vaccine injections were filed against the U.S. government, totaling $1.5 billion in compensation. If the vaccine was withdrawn, how did the disease disappear? Perhaps it never existed?

Vaccines Are Not Effective

"Immunity" is a grand medical delusion. Immune function, like all other body processes, responds to and is the direct result of changing beneficial and detrimental health practices and factors. There is no magic pill or potion that will lock us into a state of "protection" in spite of our actions. We are biologically accountable for our behavior. Technology cannot trick it without serious repercussions.

In 1950, the British Medical Society conducted exhaustive studies on the relation of the incidence of diphtheria to the presence of antibodies. Their conclusion: there is absolutely no relation between the antibody count and the incidence of disease. More recently, Dr. Wendell Belfield of San Jose, California has found that when the primary immune defense (leukocytes, interferon, etc.) is intact, antibodies are not needed or produced. If vaccine toxicity destroys the first line of defense of immune function to create antibodies, what do we gain in their pursuit?

Polio and paralysis are not synonymous. Dr. Ralph Scoby, President of the Polio Research Institute published (Archives of Pediatrics, 1950) a list of 170 diseases with "polio-like symptoms and effects but with different names." Paralysis is the result of the diphtheria (and other) vaccination, tonsillectomies and malnutrition. Yet the public was rallied to accept the Salk anti-polio vaccine for a disease diagnosed without viral confirmation, the medical standard. The result was that paralysis increased up to 600% and 17 states banned use of the vaccine. Government agencies knew yet refused to recall the vaccine in order to keep public confidence in vaccination high. If the Salk vaccine wiped out polio, why did the Sabin oral vaccine replace it? It was called "superior;" it is not. Taken by mouth, it is only less lethal.

A State Communicable Disease Report for California (1971) shows that between 1955 and 1966 the reported number of polio cases dropped from 273 to 50 while viral meningitis rose from 5 to 256 cases. Another California report lists "0" polio cases. An asterisk leads the reader to this statement, "All such cases now reported as meningitis." What's the best way to eliminate a disease? Re-name it and make a new vaccine.

Vaccines Are Not Responsible For The Eradication Of Disease

The Presidential Address of the British Association for the Advancement of Sciences (1971) and Scientific American (1973) presented records documenting that 90% of all "contagious" disease was eliminated as the result of vastly improved sanitation, water systems, nutrition and living/working conditions. Mass vaccination (and antibiotics) was introduced about 100 years after that enormous period of decline (1850-1940) and yet is given full credit.

The U.S. Congress' Office of Technology Assessment's report entitled "Assessing the Efficacy and Safety of Medical Technologies" states, "It has been estimated that only 10 to 20% of all procedures currently used in medical practice have been shown to be efficacious by controlled trial." The report adds that almost every surgery that was subjected to controlled medical study has been abandoned. Vaccination (technically surgery) remains unproven because authorities consider it unethical to not do it. Vaccinating the entire population destroys the evidence for proving or disproving the theory.

Dr. Leon Chaitow has reported in sworn testimony that British army medical personnel were instructed by their authorities to rediagnose any disease which occurred (and was not supposed to) as a result of the mandatory vaccination. What good are their statistics? They are used to manipulate the public trust.

Vaccination Does Not Prevent Disease

World health records from England, Germany, Italy, Mexico, the Philippines, British India, and more document the devastating epidemics that followed mass vaccination. The worst smallpox disaster occurred in the Philippines after 10 years (1911-1920) of a U.S. compulsory program that administered 25 million vaccinations to its population of 10 million. The result: 170,000 cases of smallpox and more than 75,000 deaths. History past and present is replete with similar tragedies. "Education" by vaccine producers and their supporters always omits incriminating facts.

The London Times began three weeks of coverage with a front-page article entitled "Smallpox vaccine 'triggered Aids virus'" in May of 1987. Newsworthy enough, but the U.S. media reported nothing. The greatest amounts of people with immune deficiency are located in areas where the World Health Organization (WHO) vaccination programs are most intense. It is not at all surprising that the combination of poor living conditions and immune suppression via vaccination has resulted in mass illness.

Good health is the result of multiple stress factors: nutrition, personal hygiene, environmental, nurturing social relationships, etc. As we build up and break down, the body eliminates waste material through our lungs, skin pores, bowels, kidneys, etc. The less well people are or the more waste products produced (the result of overtaxing the body's systems), the more discomfort they may feel from these processes. When needed, bacteria are "called" out of their natural balance to where waste materials have accumulated in order to decompose, recycle them and sanitize the area.

It is important to understand that wastes are present before the bacteria arrive. Bacteria are present in great numbers in the second and third stages of disease. Bacteria do not cause dis-ease. Disease creates an environment favorable to the proliferation of bacteria; it demands that they multiply. Dis-ease is not something to be cured; it is cure.

It is considered "normal" for vaccinated children to experience earaches and sore throats. Even with lowered vitality, their bodies seek a quick route out (i.e., through the skin, ears, tonsils) to expel the toxic vaccine material and resulting waste from the vaccines' damage. Antibiotics suppress symptoms and drive toxins deeper into the body, thus complicating elimination. Vaccines lower immune response, but the absence of medically-acknowledged symptoms is not a sign of better health. Conversely, lowered vitality -- the norm in vaccinated children -- is never called a symptom.

Children injured supposedly "by dis-ease" are often malnourished, force-fed, medicated, vaccinated and already have degenerative disease. It is not the dis-ease that is dangerous, it is the prior and continued (mis)treatment that weakens the child to such a degree that a simple detoxification can threaten his or her life. The view that dis-ease kills is what we call "The Last Straw" Theory of Disease. It negates the essential factors that influence health.

With all the new iatrogenic (doctor-caused) diseases, we've decided to name one also. Patient For Life Syndrome (PFLS) begins when a healthy 8-week-old is given the first vaccination that sickens him or her and initiates the syndrome: vaccination - earache - antibiotic; vaccination - sore throat - antibiotic; etc. Each additional vaccine further weakens the child, thus setting up the condition for a lifetime of medical intervention. Is it any wonder we are suffering with allergies, asthma, skin, immune, nerve, and brain disorders?

Dr. Rosenow (Journal of Infectious Diseases, 1914) published his experiments with bacteria in which he took strains from different disease sources and put them into a uniform medium. Soon, there was no difference between them. He concluded that bacteria are not different species but that they have the capacity to transmute to adapt to their environment. Fifty years earlier, in "Notes on Nursing," Florence Nightingale wrote this enlightened statement, "There are no specific diseases. There are specific disease conditions."

The rubella vaccine is particularly crippling in adult women, causing rheumatoid arthritis, chronic rubella, immune deficiency, and more. Yet New York State legislature recently passed a law to require revaccination with measles, mumps and rubella of all college students born after 1956. We are now told that the vaccines that eliminated disease were "relatively ineffective." Well, which is it?

Medical schools are funded by drug companies that are profit-making businesses. Why do we expect to get unbiased information from their students and promoters? Would you go to a butcher to find out about vegetarianism? Even caring doctors who have not thought out this issue for themselves continue to mislead people to believe that the medical theories are facts.

The medical mainstream influences us with fear that can overshadow our logic, intelligence and protective instinct. Vaccine proponents insinuate that without them and their "miracles" we will perish. It takes emotional support to withstand the indoctrination. But more parents are making informed choices even under the tremendous pressure from authorities and well-meaning friends and families. It is sad that most parents are bullied, strong-armed, sweet-talked, intimidated, or coerced into giving uninformed consent and getting it done in a hurry. Vaccination is not emergency medicine.

Responsible informed choice requires taking time to find out the facts and acknowledging our feelings. Meeting other responsible adults and their unvaccinated children can offer a real life picture of what good health looks like and how we can use our natural abilities (the dis-ease process) to maintain and regain best health. Sharon Kimmelman educates and counsels people on vaccination hazards, their right to abstain and preparing to claim exemptions for school. You can contact her at (212) 873-5051, Vaccination Alternatives, PO Box 346, New York, NY 10023. Or by email at va-sk@juno.com.

This article originally appeared in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut Naturally, a resource directory for natural living, 1990 edition.