The best cases against vaccines
There are a series of cases to be made against vaccines. But they rank in order of importance and effectiveness.
1. Vaccines did not save “millions of lives.”
This argument is perhaps the most important to consider because it’s an assumption of vaccine efficacy that’s taken for granted to an astounding degree. That vaccines are responsible for the decline of infectious diseases including mortality, morbidity, and incidence, is contradicted by the historical statistics that cover this issue. Both in the United States and Britain, there were tens, if not hundreds of diseases that virtually disappeared over the course of the past century which had no vaccine to credit, and some of these diseases had no other medical explanations going for them. In both countries, the death rate for the infectious diseases which did have a vaccine, had already fallen by incredible rates. In the case of measles, mortality rates fell close to 98 percent prior to the vaccine. In the case of influenza it was close to 50 percent. Something was responsible for this pre-vaccine reduction. Saying “vaccines saved millions of lives” just because certain diseases show a horrid history prior to the vaccine doesn’t say much beyond a correlation-equals-causation argument. As in most things, there were many causal factors behind the falling mortality rates of most diseases in the western world. If the story that “once vaccines came into the picture, diseases became less of a problem all the way down to the incredibly successful rates we see today,” and decide to credit vaccines, we are using a correlation argument, and one that loses credibility in light of the actual mortality and morbidity statistics of the past century. The question as to whether the prevalence of these diseases would have continued to fall without a vaccine remains up in the air. We can never know. This might as well apply to the smallpox vaccine. What’s to say otherwise besides the beloved correlation-equals-causation assertion? Are you familiar with the correlation that pins the number of vaccines to the emerging incidence of childhood diseases? Perhaps you agree with it, or perhaps you reject it. The problem is, without adequate control trials and long term studies, the best we can do is make an educated guess.
2. The science is utterly lacking on both sides of the argument, and the science that does exists has been well-refuted.
This is an important case to be made, and it’s valid in many ways. Perhaps the most obvious validation for why the science is not settled is the simple question, “why hasn’t it worked to settle the debate?” Why do people still disagree? The answer is simple (and no, it’s not simply dogma which can be levied against both sides). It’s that the gold standard, double-blind, placebo controlled studies (where the placebo is a real placebo and the control group is a real control group) doesn’t exist. Until then, everyone has a right to believe their own way. Even the science that people use to exonerate vaccines from autism has been debunked. As have the studies used which show the danger of vaccines to be larger than previously expected. My favorite debunking of the former group of studies that aim to exonerate vaccines from autism is that the author of 8 of them has admitted to committing scientific fraud in these studies, falsifying the evidence that showed vaccines do, in fact, cause autism in black boys. My second favorite, is that another author is wanted for stealing 1 million dollars from the CDC. There’s also methodological flaws to these studies which show that the placebos were other mercury-containing vaccines, and that the control group were made up of individuals who were vaccinated for everything but the MMR shot. That these studies looked exclusively at MMR, Thimerosol, and Autism, shows that the bigger question remains unanswered, “do vaccines cause harm in any other ways?” This question simply needs basic safety science which doesn’t exist for vaccines.
Now there’s no doubt lots of science exists that can act together as a kind of “mosaic” which suggests that vaccines are safe and effective. But a similar mosaic can claim the opposite. Neither can do so effectively enough to convince the other party. All together, the science that exists don’t make a difference, again, because the gold-standard of science does not exist to lay the issue to rest. People on both sides will fight it out on the issue of whose science is bigger and better, and as long as both sides are extremely zealous of the prestige of science, without real, hard, incontrovertible proof, nothing changes.
My recommendation for those who are beholden to proving the science that vaccines are indeed more harmful than suggested, is to focus solely on the one study that needs to be done, the true double-blind placebo controlled study comparing vaccinated with unvaccinated that meets all the requirements that make good science good science. I wonder who might be the most hesitant to see this study conducted by an independent science organization?
3. If the serious danger of a given vaccine dose is 1 in a million, that adds up to 325 people injured or killed in the U.S. alone every year, provided everyone receives vaccines.
This is another key weakness of the vaccine proponents. If you question the safety of vaccines, you’re simply ridiculed. However, if you claim that vaccines are 100 percent safe, then you are also ridiculed. Everyone knows, including vaccine proponents, that “everything carries a risk” and so the risk we hear relating to vaccines is that it’s “1 in a million.” That’s still 325 people injured or killed in the U.S every year from vaccines. Do those numbers not climb when we consider the addition of new vaccines? Do they not climb and increases in doses? If no, why exactly? That may be a good question to ask your pediatrician.
If the number is 1 in a million for all vaccines regardless of the above considerations, which is a BIG IF, that still amounts to a number of people injured or killed that’s closely comparable to the number of people who died from measles the year prior to the advent of the vaccine. In 1962, 408 people died of measles. In 1963 the vaccine was introduced.* In 1962, the U.S. population was around 192 million, making the danger of measles for the average person back then about 2 in a million. So, if you have 2 kids today, 2 in a million are the odds you can expect of one of them being injured or killed by vaccines.
4. You are the test subject of a massive experiment, and I am the control group.
Imagine saying that to someone after they gasp with confusion, “You’re not vaccinated?” Since no double-blind, placebo studies prove the safety or efficacy of vaccines, then we have to admit we are in the midst of a massive experiment, wherein an ‘educated guess’ is the best anyone has to navigate and make their choices. Yes, maybe a vaccine does provide a good risk/benefit ratio if it works and the disease is deadly without it, but you can’t know this. You can only trust it to be true. What we can all agree to, given that we all love good science, is that every good study needs an adequate control group to make the results worthwhile and meaningful. So let’s all thank the brave souls who have decided to serve as that control group, in this real life experiment. Whether you like their choice or not, they’re necessary.
5. The vaccine issue is settled on main-stream media, but nowhere else.
Briefly, this point is less for your opponents. It’s for you. You who have suffered to no end under the pain of derision and conflict. This is the way out. We need to recognize that the vaccine hysteria is not about the science, and it never was. It’s always been about the Voice of those who want to make people believe in vaccines.
Thousands of parents have iterated the same story. My child was fine until the vaccine. Multiply this story by the thousands who have directly experienced it and the thousand of others who hear it and feel that it’s probably true, and there you have a strong, albeit deeply wounded, voice. It may not be a voice carried on mainstream megaphones, or backed by government agencies, or allowed into the institutions of science to ask the question that has no clear answer. But it is a growing voice, and its pure. It’s a voice that reflects the human passion that has no need for government agencies, for institutions of science, or for mainstream media. It’s a voice that doesn’t need double-speak tactics or propaganda. It’s a voice of the heart, sharing a word-for-word, verbatim story. Who’s going to lead this movement? Will he or she stand on the science that’s been debunked and rendered ineffective? Or will he or she call for the one and only study that truly needs to be done? Will this leader call for “safer vaccines”? Or question the validity of the assumptions of a product that has no safety/efficacy studies capable of settling this debate? Will the voice be strong enough to free the people from the clutches of their fears, or will it make people dependent on another voice?
More than a leader, this movement needs you to find your voice.
*The year following the Measles vaccine, 1964, 421 people died of the measles. After 2 years, that number fell (in congruence with the declining rate seen over the past 10-15 years) to 276. It’s continued on down to the present day of rate of <1.
Mortality statistics of the past century. Recommendation: Get to know them well.
Journal Article from jstor.org (requires email, but is free and highly recommended)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3349539?read-now=1&seq=18#page_scan_tab_contents
CDC “stacks” historical statistics.
https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/1360
https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/838