Deputation to the Minister of Health
1929 1920s 12 pages THE VACCINATION INQUIRER - (Supplement) August. iii been no genuine outbreak, though since 1912 fewer than half the children born have been vaccinated. 4. The great reduction in smallpox mortality dates from the Public Health Act 1875. For 29 years prior to that date deaths ave...
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| Institution: | MCR - The Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick |
| Language: | English English |
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London : National Anti-Vaccination League
1929?
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10796/020DF3A6-1096-49F5-B3F1-E53098F29CB5 http://hdl.handle.net/10796/F9AAE979-97CE-4FBA-A64F-0FBB0B8EC340 |
| Summary: | 1929
1920s
12 pages
THE VACCINATION INQUIRER - (Supplement) August. iii been no genuine outbreak, though since 1912 fewer than half the children born have been vaccinated. 4. The great reduction in smallpox mortality dates from the Public Health Act 1875. For 29 years prior to that date deaths averaged 5,000 per annum ; for the 52 years since 588 per annum, less than one-eighth. The reason, we contend, is that in the earlier period there was less sanitation and more vaccination, in the latter less vaccination and more sanitation. What has made smallpox the least prevalent and the least dangerous and fatal of all epidemic diseases is not vaccination, but public measures promoting sanitation and hygiene. 5. Countries where compulsion is stringent — France, Germany, Italy, Japan — have far more cases and far more deaths than those least vaccinated, e.g., Switzerland and England. In the years 1919-1927 well-vaccinated Italy had 28,889 deaths ; half-vaccinated England 165. 6. The mild skin rash diagnosed as smallpox on which scare after scare has been worked in England of late, is no more like real smallpox than a horse chestnut is like a chestnut horse. Dr. Buchan, a member of the Departmental Committee appointed by your predecessor in 1926 to inquire into this matter, told a meeting of the Society of Medical Officers of Health on February 15th this year : "Cases of mild smallpox at the present time suffer very little constitutional disturbance and commonly continue at work. On the other hand, in the case of manual workers, suspension from work is commonly necessary after vaccination. The patients themselves, therefore, seem to be agreed that the disabilities which attend on vaccination are greater than those of an attack of benign smallpox." In other words, they find the remedy worse than the disease. In the Gloucester outbreak, patients isolated in hospital recovered, not in bed, but in the cricket and tennis fields. Statements based on such cases that smallpox, i.e., real smallpox, is increasing, however official, are simply not true. 7. Most real cases for years have been imported from well-vaccinated countries. The Tuscania brought it from Bombay, and that outbreak showed how effectively real smallpox is controlled here. It also proved that neither vaccination nor re-vaccination saves susceptible persons from attack. 8. The finest control experiment I know is Leicester. For 41 years (1887-1927) compulsion there has been a dead letter. During that period the average annual attack rate has been 0.135 per 1,000 population, without a single death for the past 24 years. We ask for the country as a whole the right to benefit by Leicester's experience without Leicester's need to gain it by refusing to enforce the law. 9. Your Department's statistics admit thousands of vaccinated cases, thereby proving that vaccination does not protect the individual, except when not exposed to the conditions that produce it. These statistics are suspect, as vaccination admittedly often determines diagnosis. In the Gloucester outbreak, of two children in the same family with exactly the same symptoms, the disease in the case of the one vaccinated was diagnosed as chickenpox, of the unvaccinated as smallpox. The late Dr. McVail, addressing Members of Parliament in a House of Commons Committee Room in 1923, said that we must go back at least 20 years to the days of genuine smallpox for an examination of the question. That means that our present-day smallpox is mostly not genuine. Your own Department's reports will show that then in every outbreak the majority of victims were vaccinated. The dissentient Commissioners reported : "It is superfluous at this stage to prove what is no longer denied by anybody, that smallpox attacks the vaccinated." The claim that vaccination gives effective protection for seven years is disproved by hundreds of cases of attack within much less time, and the limitation to seven years itself gives up the whole case, for never at any time have more than the merest fraction of the population been vaccinated within seven years of that time. Any unbiassed intelligent man who understands statistics must be convinced that vaccination is not necessary to control smallpox. Here is a statistical table that proves this. (Mr. Chancellor also handed in a graph showing the rise and fall of vaccination and of smallpox since 1880, prepared by Mr. G.A. Garreau.) We claim that our case is proved, and as the evil and injustice of compulsion is continuous, we ask for immediate repeal. But if after hearing Dr. Beddow Bayly, who will speak on another aspect of the subject, you think further inquiry necessary, we urge the appointment of a Royal Commission to go into the whole question, comprised of persons competent to weigh evidence and containing members against as well as in favour of vaccination. Recent departmental committees have issued reports manned exclusively by prominent doctors, who took no evidence from sceptics or unbelievers. The Rolleston Committee held 36 sittings, examined 10 witnesses, all doctors, all pro-vaccinists, not one statistician, not one unbiassed member or witness. To get the truth the Royal Commission must have on it equal representation of both parties and take evidence from those against as well as from those for vaccination.
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