This is the second of a series of blogs on "The Myths of Conquering Disease". The first blog concerned Measles, and the alleged success of the MMR vaccine in the virtual elimination of this killer childhood disease. (The third has subsequently been published, on the Polio vaccines).
This blog investigates the alleged 'eradication' of smallpox by a vaccine, but it will do more than this. At the time of writing the UK government, on the advise of conventional medical science, is threatening to impose vaccine passports, essentially forced vaccination, mandatory drugging, on the people of Britain. This is aimed, initially, at forcing everyone to take the Covid-19 vaccines.This may appear to be bad news for those of us who love freedom and liberty, and/or those who use natural medical therapies and the immune system to protect from viruses. Yet this historical survey of smallpox should encourage us.
This is not the first time our government, in its wisdom, has tried to force harmful vaccines on us. It was also an integral part of the conventional medical establishment (CME's) attempts to treat smallpox back in the 19th century.
The Eradication of Smallpox
This myth about the 'eradication' of smallpox by vaccination is particularly important. When the effectiveness and/or safety of vaccines is questioned the automatic response of the CME is to refer to smallpox. This was a killer disease - and it was conquered by vaccines. Such has been the propaganda success of this story, most people now believe it; unquestioningly. Over the last 70 years it has become one of the enduring myths successfully generated by a failing medical system.
Smallpox has been with us for many centuries. It is believed to date
back to Egypt in the 3rd century BCE.
Since then, as civilizations grew and expanded, the disease spread all
over the world, and smallpox epidemics left devastation in its wake on many, many occasions.
Smallpox was certainly a killer disease in the 17th and 18th century. And although it has not been eradicated (as the CME usually claim) its incidence is now extremely rare. But the decline of smallpox had little, if anything, to do with a vaccine. It was the result of a raft of social reforms and public health measures that improved the impoverished and deeply unhealthy lives of many millions of people during that time. The last serious smallpox epidemic occurred in 1949, and the link between smallpox and vaccines has been more about clever propaganda by the rich, powerful and influential drug companies that historical fact.
Smallpox was at its zenith in the 17th, 18th and early 19th century. The background to this can be simply explained. The Agrarian Revolution removed large numbers of people from their tough, meagre, but relatively healthy existence in rural communities. It separated poor families from their natural element. The displaced people were removed from the villages to the growing urban towns. Here they faced multiple problems, all of which naturally led to ill-health, and a greater vulnerability to infectious disease. There is an excellent book (that you should read) that graphically illustrates the relationship between people's living conditions and the incidence of killer infectious disease.
Humphries and Bysrtianyk. Dissolving Illusions: disease, vaccines, and the forgotten history. (ISBN 1480216895 or 13:978-1480216891)
I will refer to this book through most of this blog. It provides a graphic description of the living and working conditions these new town dwellers had to endure, and how it inevitably affected their health. They can by simply highlighted here.
- Towns with a high density population with no amenities.
- Squalid, damp and overcrowded housing.
- Abject poverty produced by what were effectively slave labour conditions.
- Non-existent sewerage.
- Poor, inadequate and often diseased food supplies.
- Contaminated drinking water.
- Diabolically inhumane working conditions, and excessively long working hours, including very young children whose growth and development was stunted by having to work in mines, sweeping chimneys, and similar environments.
These were ideal breeding ground for disease. So there were regular epidemics that killed thousands of people, too weak to resist infection. It was not just smallpox. There were many other killer diseases.
- Typhoid fever
- Cholera
- Dysentary
- Diphtheria
- Whooping Cough
- Typhus
- Scarlet fever
- Measles
- Yellow fever
- Consumption (TB)
There was little or no protection from these diseases. No-one, certainly not the conventional medics of the day, knew what was causing the epidemics. Epidemics were almost annual events, and people were helpless when they struck their community.
The scourge of smallpox; the introduction of the vaccine; and medical disagreement
Smallpox was just one of these diseases,. It was greatly feared. The cause was unknown. There was no medical treatment. And even if treatment had been available most people would not have been able to afford it.
The 18th century saw many doctors looking for a solution. Variolation was tried in Asia, where people with deliberately infected with smallpox (by blowing dried smallpox scabs into
the nose). The individual would get smallpox, a milder form, and if they recovered they were thought to be slightly more more immune to the disease. It was not a great success.
Then in 1796 Edward Jenner developed his vaccine. The story is well known. He used a similar, but less dangerous pox - cowpox - to infect his patients. Jenner believed that this protected people from the more serious smallpox. He pronounced that this procedure gave life-time protection from smallpox. Yet from the earliest days there was no widespread acceptance of this.
"The accounts from all quarters of the world, wherever vaccination has been introduced ..... the cases of failures are now increased to an alarming proportion".
Humphries and Bystrianyk (H&B) found numerous contemporaneous medical journals that detailed how smallpox could still infect those who previously had smallpox and also these those who had been vaccinated.
"It attacked many who had had smallpox before, and often severely; almost to death; and of those who had been vaccinated, it left some alone, but fell upon great numbers".
"In hundreds of instances, persons cow-poxed by JENNER HIMSELF have taken the real smallpox afterwards, and have either died from the disorder, or narrowly escaped with their lives".
H&B described a pattern that is has become familiar to this day within conventional medicine. A battle began between those who believed in the vaccine, but could not (or would not) recognise the dangers of the procedure, and those who were willing to see the dangers of the vaccine, but had no alternative treatment to offer.
Frightened people, threatened by a killer epidemic, will always look for solutions. And Jenner was the only person at the time who was offering a solution. And the medical profession could offer something only if they supported the vaccination process. So it was this side of the battle that came to the fore.
Mandatory Vaccination
This situation continued like this until 1853. During this time H&B noted that 'vaccine hesitancy began. Again, it is a familiar story that is being repeated today: doctors promoting and recommending vaccination, often quite forcibly: and patients recognising that the vaccines were causing serious harm, whilst not preventing reinfection. So a growing number of people recognised the dangers, and questioned the value. of the vaccine.
So in 1853 the UK government imposed mandatory vaccination for smallpox. This was despite the continuing debate about the safety and effectiveness of vaccination. Mandatory vaccination was also imposed in the USA, and elsewhere around the world. In Britain the law was tightened in 1867. The result was that little changed.
"Compulsory vaccination laws did nothing to curb the problem of smallpox. Boston data begins in 1811 and shows that, starting around 1837, there were periodic smallpox epidemics. Following the 1855 mandates, there were smallpox epidemics in 1859-1860, 1864-1865, and 1867, culminating with the infamous epidemic in 1872-1873. These repeat smallpox epidemics showed that the strict vaccination laws instituted by Massachusetts had no beneficial effect".
H&B outlines considerable contemporaneous evidence that similar outcomes persisted in many other parts of the 'vaccinated' world.
"Bavaria (Germany) in 1871 of 30,742 cases 29,429 were in vaccinated persons, or 95.7%, and 1,313 in the unvaccinated, or 4.3% . In some of the small local outbreaks of recent years the victims have been nearly all vaccinated (e.g., at Bromley (England) in 1881, a total of 43 cases... (were) all vaccinated".
"Official returns from Germany show that between 1870 and 1885 one million vaccinated person died from smallpox".
So despite forced vaccination, smallpox epidemic continued to happen regularly, and a large proportion of those who died had been vaccinated. It is a familiar story! H&B reported a 1970 study that suggested the vaccine was actually causing smallpox infection and death.
"Because of poor surveillance and vaccine reaction under-reporting, the authors of a 1970 study suspected that the number of smallpox vaccine-related deaths was higher than the reports reflected. This study only examined deaths from 1959 to 1968 in the United States. If the deaths were this high in a country with a modern health-care system, what was the total number of deaths from smallpox vaccination from 1800 to the present across the entire world?"
Again, it is a familiar finding that is likely to be repeated if there is mandatory Covid-19 vaccination, with death figures arising from these vaccines now rising rapidly, they (rather than the virus) will be the cause of patient harm and death.
The Decline of Smallpox
The smallpox death rate began to decline from about 1872 onwards in most parts of the world. This was, of course, during the time of mandatory vaccine. But it was also the time that social and public health reforms were beginning to bear fruit.
So which of these two factors caused the reduction in the incidence of smallpox? First, it is important to note that vaccination was declining from this time to, and the use of vaccination was to continue decline alongside the incidence of smallpox.
"...after 1872 vaccination coverage rates slowly declined from a high of nearly 90%. Coverage rates plummeted to only 40% by 1909. Despite declining vaccination rates, smallpox deaths remained low, vanishing to near zero after 1906. Smallpox vaccination has always correlated positively to epidemics in the countries that collected data in the vain hope of proving the vaccine's worth". (My emphasis).
The Great Demonstration in Leicester
The decline in vaccination did not arise from by a reassessment by government, or a revaluation by conventional medicine, that the vaccines were not only ineffective, but instrumental in causing smallpox outbreaks. It happened because people lost confidence in vaccination. It was the people who made the decision - and particularly the people of Leicester, England, where, in 1885 'The Great Demonstration' took place.
"Despite the actions taken by the government to ensure a very high vaccination rate, a massive smallpox epidemic hit not only Leicester but all of England and other parts of the world in the early 1970's. The epidemic in Leicester resulted in thousands of cases of smallpox and hundreds of deaths, shaking to its core many people's belief in the protective power of vaccination".
The Leicester Mercury in July 1884 said that "it must strike the reflective observer as rather singular that all the recent smallpox outbreaks have made their appearance among populations where the laws enforcing vaccination have been rigorously and systematically carried out".
Clearly, this paper was speaking during a time when press freedom was still operational!
The 'Great Demonstration' was, in effect, a Great Revolt against the smallpox vaccine. It was inspired by the recognition of the harm it was causing, and the penalties handed out to people who had the courage to refuse it. H&B gives a full account of the event, describing "fearless people who wanted to be able to make their own decisions for their health and the health of their children, and thus fought for self-determination."
"Thousands of brave people set off a historical rebellion that successfully countered a prevailing medical belief and heavy-handed government rule."
The Conventional Medical Establishment were horrified, and in their arrogance (not untypical of the arrogance of the CME today) proclaimed that Leicester residents would suffer greatly for their decision to turn their backs on vaccination.
"They prognosticated that this unvaccinated town with its "highly flammable material" would suffer with the "dread disease" that would spread like "wild-fire on the prairie" and decimate the population".
CME's worst fears never happened. Vaccine supporters were already claiming responsibility for the fall in smallpox numbers, and they believed their own propaganda. They predicted doom but "...the leaders of Leicester held steadfast to what they knew was right and successfully implemented their plan of sanitation, hygiene, and isolation - instead of vaccination.Their grand experiment would test the very notions of freedom of choice, self-determination, and the heart of a flawed medical belief". (My emphasis).
Even 30 years later H&B found that many still believed Leicester would eventually face disaster, quoting a 1914 article in the New York Times, which sounds astonishingly similar to the kind of coverage our mainstream media is using today in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic.
"Those who openly oppose vaccination or who tell everybody to wait until they come to the bridge of danger before crossing it, are taking a heavy responsibility on their souls".
The Sanitation Revolution
Leicester backed the Sanitation Revolution which was proceeding apace around the world, where action was taken to improve housing, living and working condition, the amelioration of poverty, improved nutrition, and similar. This progress did not come from the CME, it was done for political and social reasons. And it was this social progress that reduced the incidence of smallpox.
It also produced another piece of evidence to prove that vaccines had not vanquished smallpox. During these years epidemics of other killer diseases also declined - typhoid, cholera, dysentery, diphtheria, whooping cough, typhus, scarlet fever, measles, yellow fever, consumption - diseases for which there were no vaccines, and no other conventional medical treatment.
The early 20th century saw the continuing decline in both the incidence of all these killer infections, which H&P describe as "The Amazing Decline". During this decline smallpox vaccination continued to decline, and their were increasingly fewer cases of smallpox, usually of a much milder nature.
"By the 1920's it was recognised that the new form of smallpox produced little in the way of symptoms even though few people had been vaccinated.... As the classic and deadly variety of smallpox declined, so did the rate of vaccination".
In the 1920's and 1930's only the mild form of smallpox was evident. The death rate fell close to zero, and by 1946 smallpox had all but vanished. Compulsory vaccination ended in England in 1948. The last smallpox death in the USA was in 1948, even though vaccination continued until 1963.
"This resulted in an estimated 5,000 unnecessary vaccine-related hospitalisations from generalised rash, secondary infections, and encephalitis".
The rising power of the pharmaceutical industry
Yet throughout the 20th century conventional medicine also became more powerful, largely due to the general belief that science would soon triumph in medicine, curing illness and disease, just as science had produced motorcars, aeroplanes, telecommunications and the like. Indeed, the discovery of insulin, anaesthetics, (leading to the development of surgery) plus other 'hopeful' developments, led to an optimism that has never materialised.
The pharmaceutical industry has become the most profitable in the world, and it has not been shy to use its influence, and its wealth, to take control of governments, monopolise medical organisations, and pay for the mainstream media. Therefore - vaccines eradicated smallpox!
So whilst conventional medicine lost the battle against smallpox it eentually won the wider war. And it is always the victor that writes history. This is why so many people believe that it was the smallpox vaccine that overcame smallpox. This is propaganda, it is not reality. Conventional medicine is a confidence trick. This is why it is properly referred to as "ConMed" - its propaganda has been brilliant.
The Myths of Conventional Medicine. Conquering Measles.
Would you like to read more information about the
propaganda myth surrounding the eradication of smallpox as a 'killer'
disease? If so, please read this brilliant and insightful book. It provides a
comprehensive historical and statistical account of the decline of the
disease, and the role of the vaccine.
Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines, and the Forgotten History: Suzanne Humphries & Roman Bystrianyk. ISBN 1480216895.
