The Myths of Conventional Medical Success: Antibiotics

Ask most people about what they believe has been the most important and successful pharmaceutical drug ever produced, and most people would say, without hesitation - Antibiotics. Yet is this popular belief just another result of successful pharmaceutical promotion?

The first myth concerning antibiotics is their origins. "Antibiotics have been used for millennia to treat infections, although until the last century or so people did not know the infections were caused by bacteria." So antibiotic substances have been used in medicine from very ancient times. In Egypt, for example, it is known that mouldy bread was applied to infected wounds. The ancient Egyptians may not have known what they were doing, or why doing it worked; but clearly they were empiricists rather than medical scientists, and this knowledge was available to them; and they used it. Modern medical 'science' is not the only source of wisdom about drugs!

Science discovered bacteria in the latter part of the 19th century. Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928. Penicillin was manufactured and used throughout the 1939-1945 World War, not least for battle injuries and infections, and thereby gained its reputation as a "wonder drug". Thereafter the progress of antibiotic treatment continued with other serious infectious diseases, like tuberculosis, for which, hitherto, there had been no conventional medical treatment. In addition antibiotics were used to control post-operative infections, making surgery less dangerous, and so more successful.

So, in less than 100 years, antibiotics drastically changed conventional medicine, and many believe that antibiotic drugs heralded "a golden age of medicine". They worked; they killed bacteria; they were a 'miracle' cure. The result is that many claims have been made for antibiotic drugs, not least have extended the average human lifespan by over 20 years. So what is the problem?

First, antibiotic drugs confirmed to conventional medicine, which had spent some 700 years looking for 'heroic' cures, that pharmaceutical drugs would be the future of modern medicine. Where there was illness there would be a chemical agent able to deal with it. Medical science would soon conquer all illness and disease. Conventional medicine has believed this ever since.

Yet the seeds of antibiotic failure had already been sown. Following the discovery of bacteria and other microbes in the late 19th century there had been an important scientific debate about how important germs generally were in causing ill-health and disease. For many scientists, led by Louis Pasteur, thought they were the central cause of illness; and they believed that illness could be overcome simply by killing the 'offending' organism. This belief was popular with the drugs industry, which would be the main agent for discovering new drugs that would do just this. The future of medicine would be pharmaceutical.

However this belief was strongly challenged by another group of scientists, led by Antoine Bechamp, who said that it was the host (the person, the individual, and his/her immune system) that was important, not the germ. If the host was healthy, if his/her immune system was strong, the germ was immaterial; it would not cause illness. The scientific world was divided over the issue, but eventually the germ theory of disease 'won' the argument. This led to the rise of the pharmaceutical industry, which had hitherto been small, and relatively insignificant. Drug companies spent the next century pursuing more and more elaborate ways of killing germs.

It was natural health therapies, like homeopathy, herbalism, naturopathy, acupuncture, et al, that continued to focus on 'the host', who believed, like Bechamp, that looking after the body, and notably its immune system, was the safest and most effective route to good health. But this approach was sidelined, marginalised, overtaken, by the new, burgeoning pharmaceutical industry, and its search for, and the promotion of 'wonder drugs' and 'magic bullets'.

There has been two results of the use, and over-use, of antibiotic drugs over the years that are sufficiently well known, recognised by most people, and even the drug industry. These are (i) antimicrobial resistance, and (ii) the rise of new 'superbugs'. Fewer people are aware that (iii) antibiotics can, and do, kill 'good' as well as 'bad' bacteria, thus causing serious illness, and that (iv) antibiotic drugs have always been known to cause serious (but rarely mentioned) adverse effects.

1. Antimicrobial Resistance

There is no life-form that does not seek to protect itself when it comes under attack. The natural world in its entirety, always seeks to defend itself against attack. Survival is an important instinct, not only for humanity, but for plants, and other animals. Indeed, each life-form have adopted mechanisms, deeply embedded within them, for protection; and bacteria and 'germs' are part and parcel of this natural process. 

So it should be no surprise that when bacteria come into contact with antibiotic drugs they resist. It is what they are supposed to do!

The only surprise, perhaps, is that conventional medical science has never appeared to recognise that this universal response might happen as a result of their drugs - perhaps they have been too busy with their adulation of 'wonder drug'. Nor did conventional medical practitioners help themselves by selling antibiotics to patients, in ever-increasing quantities, including many who did neither needed them, or benefitted from them. Doctors have regularly prescribed antibiotics for "non-bacterial" illnesses for which they could not an effective!

Nor should it have been a surprise that patients increasingly demanded antibiotic drugs from their doctor. Over the decades antibiotics were sold as 'wonder drugs', 'miracle cures', and patients soon began to believe this constant drug promotion, reinforced as it was by government, conventional medicine, and the mainstream media - without question. Sick patients wanted to get better; and they insisted that they should be given antibiotics - regardless!

So resistance means that antibiotic drugs, that once had seemed helpful in overcoming the 'germs' associated with ill-health, have become increasingly ineffective, that no longer had even the most transitory beneficial effect of killing bacteria. Diseases once thought to be 'conquered' by them, are beginning to return. For instance, the return of tuberculosis (TB) after decades of medical claims that antibiotics had eradicated it, is now a reality. The return of this, and other diseases, confirms that any success antibiotic drugs may have had were little more than a (rather long-lasting but nonetheless) temporary illusion.

Even the conventional medical establishment began to realise that in time there would be no effective antibiotics left that would kill the germs they believed caused disease.

2. The Rise of Superbugs

A 'superbug' is a term for organisms that have developed the ability to resist commonly prescribed drugs, and have arisen entirely as the result of antibiotic drug treatment. The bugs were not just resistant, they have transformed themselves into germs that now causes serious illness. Many people will know about MRSA, Candida, and C-Difficile. But as this Healthline article reports, the USA's CDC now lists 18 bacteria that endangers human health. 

    Carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter

    Candida auris

    Clostridioides difficile

    Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae

    Drug-resistant Neisseria gonorrhoeae

    Drug-resistant Campylobacter

    Drug-resistant Candida

    ESBL-producing Enterobacteriaceae

    Vancomycin-resistant Enterococci (VRE)

    Multidrug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa

    Drug-resistant nontyphoidal Salmonella

    Drug-resistant Salmonella serotype Typhi

    Drug-resistant Shigella

    Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)

    Drug-resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae

    Drug-resistant Tuberculosis

So in recent years conventional medicine has realised that it can no longer develop new antibiotic drugs, in part because the pharmaceutical industry now understands it cannot produce drugs that kill germs but do not lead to resistance; but mainly because doctors are now under pressure not to prescribe antibiotics, which reduces demand for them, and undermines the profitability of developing new antibiotic drugs.

3. Antibiotic drugs kill 'good' bacteria

Antibiotics are indiscriminate killers. They do no target the bacteria doctors want to destroy, they cause collateral damage which devastates the bacterial balance that exists normally within the body. Our bodies are made up of a multitude of so-called 'germs'; so when someone takes a course of antibiotics no-one (including drug companies and medical doctors) can be entirely sure which germs will be killed, which will survive, and how the bacterial balance will be compromised.

For instance, most antibiotics are taken by mouth, which means they pass quickly through to our stomach, and the digestive system. This immediately threatens the gut microbiome, which is a highly complex system of bacteria and other organisms that digests our food. So antibiotics interfere with the digestion of food, with serious implications for our health.

Recent research has linked the compromised microbiome with some of the most serious diseases. Notably, all these diseases have reached epidemic levels during the antibiotic 'bonanza' of the last 80 plus years, yet they have never before been associated with antibiotic drugs. This 2022 paper, "Impact of antibiotics on the human microbiome and consequences for host health" has investigated the long term effects of antibiotics on "the healthy state microbial composition problem" in some detail.

        "More recently, scientists have uncovered the detrimental impact of broad‐spectrum antibiotics on the gut microbiota. Home to bacteria, archaea, microeukaryotes, and viruses, the gut microbiota plays a fundamental role in human health. It prevents pathogen colonization, regulates gut immunity, provides essential nutrients and bioactive metabolites, and is involved in energy homeostasis (Mills et al., 2019). In infants, the gut microbiota is acquired during birth and thereafter plays an essential role in the development of infant gut immunity. Evidence to date strongly suggests that balanced microbiota composition and rich species diversity are essential to its optimal functioning (Heiman & Greenway, 2016), which can be compromised in disease states (Mosca et al., 2016). Likewise, reduced diversity and imbalanced microbiota composition in the infant's gut are associated with intestinal illnesses and a predisposition to certain diseases later in life (Milani et al., 2017; Volkova et al., 2021)

This seems to be one of those honest scientific papers that rarely (if ever) finds itself discussed, outside a small scientific medical elite within the conventional medical establishment. So the vast majority of people are not aware of what they describe, namely "the detrimental impact of broad-spectrum antibiotics on the gut microbiota". The usual wall of denial has greeted the paper: governments fails to inform us, the conventional medical establishment (as usual) continues to insist that antibiotics are "safe and effective"; and the mainstream media does not bother to investigate!

Chapter 5 of the paper outlines a multitude of studies that have linked antibiotic use with conditions such as obesity, diabetes, asthma, diarrhoea, allergy, atopic dermatitis and more. It outlines other studies which show how antibiotics, during pregnancy and infancy, can affect a child's immune system, and lead to "disease in later life, both directly and indirectly". Most serious, perhaps, is the section on 'Changes in the Immune System" which outlines several studies that "demonstrate the complex relationship between the microbiota and the host immune response, and the impact of antibiotics on this interaction which needs to be further studied. It can also impact the effectiveness of vaccines used postantibiotic treatment." 

The paper has this conclusion:

        "Antibiotics disrupt the microbial balance and hence the networking within the bacterial community, and that with the host. The resulting resistant bacteria make clinical treatment difficult. Due to this complex link between the host and microbiota, the current usage of antibiotics requires careful stewardship, with an emphasis on the application of antibiotic alternatives, while limiting collateral damage".

Obviously the paper is written by medical scientists who continue to believe that antibiotics, in some shape or form, will still have a part to play in conventional medical treatment. This is an honest position; but it is not one on which I can agree. Antibiotic drugs have been prescribed by conventional medical doctors for 80 years. They are still routinely described to patients as "safe and effective", and prescribed in ever-increasing quantities. And conventional medicine has continued to do so without any apparent awareness that antibiotic drugs could cause an increase in the diseases mentioned in the study. This makes drug-based medicine (not just antibiotics, but especially antibiotics) a inherently dangerous medical system, unaware of the dangers to which it is exposing patients. It is a medical system that can experiment with patient, giving them drugs whose 'side effects' can remain unknown 80 years!

This situation is getting worse. In a study published in October 2024, a link has been found between antibiotic drugs, the microbiome, and Parkinson's disease. Parkinson's has, to my knowledge, never been linked with antibiotic drugs before, and like most revelations about adverse drug reactions it is still being played down. 

        "In a large UK-representative population, the risk of PD was modestly lower among adults who had previously received multiple courses of penicillins in the last 15 years and modestly higher among those exposed to antifungal medicines in recent years".

I suspect the significance of this link between antibiotic drugs and serious illness and disease will only develop over time, and require many more studies. It is not possible to interfere with the human body, not least by compromising the gut microbiome which digests our food, and not cause serious damage to our health. And it is becoming clear that this is what antibiotics have been doing - for many decades.

This is probably one of the reasons that pharmaceutical companies are now talking about the development of more 'targeted' antibiotics - but again, this seems more to do with drug promotion than reality. Medical science has always proved itself to be less clever than its propaganda! And 'targeted antibiotics' would still be based upon the same failed understanding of health - that in order to be healthy we have to kill germs!

4. The other 'side effects' of antibiotic drugs

Conventional medicine still refuses to accept that antibiotic drugs have serious adverse reactions which are just as harmful as any other pharmaceutical drugs. But they do. For instance, the Drugs.com website outlines that they can commonly cause skin rash, allergic reactions, soft or watery stools, short-term diarrhoea, upset stomach, nausea, loss of appetite, Fungal (yeast) vaginal infections, oral thrush; and more seriously severe allergic reaction that results in difficulty breathing, facial swelling, severe watery or bloody diarrhoea; Clostridium difficile infection, stomach cramps, and yeast infections in the mouth or vagina. These 'side effects' have been known for decades, but they are routinely discounted.

The British NHS website says that "these side effects are usually mild and should pass once you finish your course of treatment". And even the Drugs.com website fails to list the side effects discussed in this blog. So even now the conventional medical establishment shows itself to be reluctant to disclose about weight gain, diabetes, et al, which they must know about, but clearly are not sufficiently honest to disclose. Informed patient choice is impossible within such secrecy, and lack of transparency.

So if we look at antibiotics from outside the closed walls of pharmaceutical propaganda, they cannot be described as a success. And as conventional medicine continues to describe them as "safe and effective" it is difficult for them to admit that their most acclaimed 'wonder drug' has failed. In the fullness of time, antibiotic drugs will be seen as a failure, not just because of resistance, or the development of superbugs, or serious adverse effects, but because most of the diseases they were supposed to have eradicated are now returning.

If we are to regain our health we need to revisit the Pasteur-Bechamp debate, and recognise that what is most important is the host, and its immune system; and that the body is not made well by attacking the bacteria that, far from being a threat, are an important part of staying healthy. 

Pharmaceutical medicine will refuse to do so; its enormous wealth, power and influence is based on pursuing the failed 'germ theory' of disease, and its belief in the need to control and kill the very things that keep us healthy.

This blog is one of a series of blogs that examines the myths of conventional medical success. Others in the series include:

    Eradicating Smallpox.

    Conquering Polio.

    Conquering Measles.

    Whooping Cough (Pertussin)

    The Covid-19 Pandemic

Myths of Conventional Medical Success. Whooping Cough (Pertussin)

It has been my intention for some time to write on Whooping Cough (Pertussin) in my blog series "The Myths of Conventional Medical Success", following my blogs on Smallpox, Polio and Measles, Antibiotics - and, indeed, the Covid-19 vaccines. Each of these blogs highlights the outstanding success of the advertising and promotion of the pharmaceutical industry; whilst contrasting this with the abject failure of the drug companies medicine's to they claim to have 'conquered' or 'eliminated' these diseases.

The story of the Whooping Cough vaccines has been remarkably similar; great propaganda, but little or no evidence of effectiveness.

However, this blog has been effectively written for me in an excellent, and well researched article by Roman Bystrianyk, entitled "Whooping Cough and Vaccines: 10 things you probably didn't know, who was co-author of the equally excellent book, "Dissolving Illusions: disease, vaccines, and the forgotten history", written now over 10 years ago - but still as relevant as ever. So I will outline these 10 facts here, and rely upon you to read the Bystrianyk article in greater detail, and alongside his sources.

    1. Death Rate Dropped Nearly 100% Without Vaccination

Historical data from England and Wales, beginning in 1838, indicate that deaths from whooping cough, and other infectious diseases, had already dropped to near zero before the rollout of vaccines or antibiotics.

    2. Sweden Halted Vaccination; Deaths Unchanged

In Sweden, examinations in 1978 showed that 84% of children who were verified to have pertussis had previously received three doses of vaccine. As a result, the whole-cell DTP vaccine was deemed ineffective. 

    3. Vaccination Rates in England Dropped, No Increase in Deaths

A thorough examination of the complete, official data shows an obvious and dramatic drop in whooping cough deaths between 1902 and 2008. The DTP vaccine coverage rate was officially recorded in England starting in 1970. But by 1957, when vaccination began nationally, deaths from whooping cough had already all but vanished.

    4. Whooping Cough Had Become Mild

Whooping cough often instils fear in parents, conjuring images of children coughing and choking dangerously. However, in 1981, Gordon T. Stewart described whooping cough as "generally mild ... which most children escape or overcome easily without being vaccinated." Similarly, in 1995, Douglas Jenkinson studied 500 cases of natural whooping cough and observed that parents rarely noticed the characteristic cough, concluding that a “serious outcome is unlikely.”

5. Whooping Cough Bacteria Is Common

Some estimate that as many as one-third of adolescents and adults with a prolonged cough are infected with B. pertussis bacteria. This applies even to those who have been vaccinated or had the natural disease.

6. Vaccines Cause Neurological Damage

The debate regarding neurologic damage from the vaccine has been going on for decades (and this goes back to at least the 1940's).

7. Whooping Cough Vaccine Fades In Three Years

A study by Dr. David Witt, chief of infectious disease at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in San Rafael, California, found that the pertussis vaccine lost its effectiveness in as little as 3 years (and more studies are referenced).

8. Whooping Cough Now Affects Adolescents and Adults

Before the pertussis vaccine was introduced, lengthy natural immunity was, in fact, the norm because of the natural family and community dynamics. In the 1940s, pertussis was considered only a childhood illness. If an adolescent or adult got it, everyone was astonished.

9. Vaccines Permanently Mis-programs The Immune System

The term “original antigenic sin” (OAS) was coined by Dr. Thomas Francis, who became well known during the Salk vaccine era when he oversaw and interpreted the results of the largest (and most controversial) polio vaccine trial in history. He explained the phenomenon of OAS using the natural influenza virus as an example.

10. Despite Failures, Vaccinologists Recommend More Vaccination

As had been the promise with all vaccines at their inception, there was an expectation that vaccinated people would be protected for life against whooping cough.... This is far from true. The DTaP vaccine compromises the immune system permanently.

 

These ten points outline demolish any realistic chance that Whooping Cough (Pertussin) vaccines played any significant part in either the reduction of cases, the seriousness of those remaining cases, or the safety of the vaccine. 

It is not so much that all these ten points are all proven, and do not require more debate, and further research. 

• It is that most people are not aware of them, they are not, and never have been discussed by the conventional medical establishment,
  
• instead, the conventional medical establishment refuses to debate or to do any further research on them, 
• whilst continuing to maintain the conventional medical myth,

 ..... that the Pertussin vaccines are "safe and effective"; and have successfully eradicated Whooping Cough as a serious, killer disease. They most certainly have not done so.

 

Also read my other blogs on the Myths of Conventional Medicine.

The Myths of Conventional Medicine. Eradicating Smallpox.

The Myths of Conventional Medicine. Conquering Polio.

The Myths of Conventional Medicine. Conquering Measles.

The Myths of Conventional Medicine. The Covid-19 vaccines.

The Myths of Conventional Medical Success. Eradicating Smallpox.

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.

(This was not entirely true; Samuel Hahnemann was developing homeopathy at the same time as Jenner was developing his vaccine. He came up with both safer, and more effective treatments. But that is another story.)

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 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?"

For more information about the failure of the Smallpox vaccine, and some contemporary comments about its dangers, read this article, written by Roman Bystrianyk.

For more contemporaneous (19th century) opinions about "safety and effectiveness" of the smallpox vaccine, and its impact on the vaccinated, see also this article.

For a concise 250 year history of smallpox, and the impact of vaccines, this is a must-read article.

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 in 1885

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 eventually won the propaganda 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.

Postscript January 2025

Roman Bystrianik has now written an excellent article on smallpox that provides further information about Smallpox. He provides evidence that smallpox was considered a 'mild' disease in early 19th century, that smallpox vaccines were never successful (beyond medical promotion), about vaccine failure and the reduction of smallpox deaths. It provides a fascinating alternative history taken from contemporary doctors who sceptical about vaccination.

Postscript February 2025

Now Roman Bystrianik has researched some comments made about the smallpox vaccines by leading contemporary medical figures. It is very clear that none of them believed the vaccines had done anything to 'eradicate' smallpox!

If you found this interesting, you can also read my other blogs on "the Myths of Conventional Medicine".

The Myths of Conventional Medicine. Conquering Polio.

The Myths of Conventional Medicine. Conquering Measles.

The Myths of Conventional Medicine. Whooping Cough (Pertussin).

The Myths of Conventional Medicine. The Covid-19 vaccines.

The Myths of Conventional Medicine. Antibiotics

The Myths of Conventional Medical Success. Conquering Measles

Conventional medicine claims that measles is one of its most important success stories. Conventional medical literature routinely refers to measles as 'a killer disease' that has been conquered, eradicated by the programmes of mass vaccination, developed for children from the 1960's onwards. As a result of this medical success measles is no longer a killer disease - thanks to the MMR vaccines.

This is the propaganda of conventional medicine - in a nutshell. However, even a cursory look at the history of measles, using official statistics, will quickly dispel this myth.

Epidemics of the 19th Century

Measles has been around for millennia. This has been described by the Los Angeles Times in 2015. It states that measles was first identified by physicians in Asia and North Africa during the 3rd to 10th centuries AD; that a Chinese alchemist differentiate measles from smallpox in 340AD; and it lists some of the early known epidemics, notably in 1492 when Christopher Columbus, and early European explorers, introduced it to native Americans. They had no resistance to the virus, and to many of the other infectious diseases that were introduced. Alongside these other diseases, measles had a devastating effect.

        "By some estimates, the native American population plunged by as much as 95% over the next 150 years due to disease"

Yet it is perhaps during the 19th century that measles epidemic attracted most attention throughout the world. In Britain the incidence of measles probably rose as a result of the Agrarian Revolution, which removed people from their village communities, and the Industrial Revolution, which deposited them in the new industrial towns.

So the measles epidemics of the 19th Century developed amongst populations that lived in poverty, in squalid overcrowded housing, poor working conditions, with extremely poor nutrition, amidst disease-promoting insanitary circumstances. Measles epidemics occurred regularly, on average about every five years or so during the first half of the century.

During all this time conventional medicine had no effective treatment for measles. Some comparisons have been made comparing Homeopathic and Conventional Medical Treatment for measles and other disease epidemics during this time, and without exception, it was homeopathy that was more successful in keeping patients alive.

Public Health Measures

As the 19th century progressed the importance of public health policy was gradually realised. These policies led to improved housing, improved sanitation, improved water supply, improved nutrition. Living standards improved, greater affluence was generated, and poverty was reduced.

Official evidence shows, quite clearly, that these measures brought about the decline in both incidence of measles, and mortality rates.

1900 to 1968 - the decline in measles continues

The decline in measles continued rapidly into the 20th century, during which time (although not wanting to repeat myself too much) conventional medicine had no treatment for measles, or any of the other infectious diseases - and of course no vaccine.

This graph demonstrates that between 1900 and 1968 (when the first vaccination programme was introduced) the decline in the incidence of measles did not deviate from its downward trend. It shows clearly that the vaccine made no difference at all.

Moreover, as this graph demonstrates, the deaths caused by measles had already declined by 99.4% between 1900 and 1968 - so mortality rates too was a trend that had started long before the introduction of the vaccine.

 

The Successful Use of Statistics as Propaganda

The introduction of measles vaccines did not alter either the incidence, or the deaths caused by the disease. Each graph continued to decline in much the same way that it had been doing for 100 years!

Perhaps it is time we recognised that statistics can be used to demonstrate or prove anything; and that the conventional medical establishment has been second to none in its brilliant promotional use of statistics. 

What they have achieved is truly remarkable. The pharmaceutical industry has taken credit for 'conquering' measles when the credit is due (almost entirely) to public health measures and increased affluence. Conventional medicine takes a year in the 19th century, when the incidence of, and death rates from measles are at their highest, compares it to the current situation, and then seeks to convince us that the improvement was caused entirely by vaccines. It represents a significant victory of fiction over fact!

The fact is that measles has not been a major 'killer disease for a very long time; that the MMR vaccines have not protected us from it; and (of course) the conventional medical establishment still has no treatment for measles.

Would you like to read more information about the propaganda myth surrounding the eradication of measles 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 in the years prior to the introduction of the vaccine.

Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines, and the Forgotten History: Suzanne Humphries & Roman Bystrianyk. ISBN 1480216895.

Also read my other blogs on the Myths of Conventional Medicine.

The Myths of Conventional Medicine. Eradicating Smallpox.

The Myths of Conventional Medicine. Conquering Polio.

The Myths of Conventional Medicine. Whooping Cough (Pertussin)

The Myths of Conventional Medicine. The Covid-19 vaccines.