Deputation to the Minister of Health
1929 1920s 12 pages THE VACCINATION INQUIRER - (Supplement) August. vii Dr. Bayly:— I have been asked to put before you some points regarding the danger of vaccination. Your predecessor appears to have recognised that there was some danger in the present lymph when he appointed the Rolle...
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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/D6788FE1-53E7-4A81-85D0-EDA1AF7E5056 http://hdl.handle.net/10796/D86F1B01-C197-4D92-8EB8-6EC1BA84FA39 |
| Summary: | 1929
1920s
12 pages
THE VACCINATION INQUIRER - (Supplement) August. vii Dr. Bayly:— I have been asked to put before you some points regarding the danger of vaccination. Your predecessor appears to have recognised that there was some danger in the present lymph when he appointed the Rolleston Committee to investigate the matter, seeing that the second item on which they were asked to report referred to "practical methods which are available in the light of modern knowledge to diminish or remove any risks which may result from vaccination." Vaccination has always killed or injured a certain number of infants (and adults) every year, and the Royal Commission on Vaccination 32 years ago admitted that such injuries and deaths were not inconsiderable in gross amount. The substitution of glycerinated calf lymph for the old arm-to-arm method was intended to lessen the risk of such "accidents," which nevertheless continued to occur. But what seemed to be a new danger in the lymph caused the two Departmental inquiries, the reports of which were published in July, 1928. You are, of course, aware that these two Committees investigated 93 cases of encephalitis following vaccination, 46 of them fatal. Since those Committees reported, your Department had received information up till the end of last year of 65 more cases with 32 deaths, according to a Ministerial reply to Mr. T. Groves on 11th March this year. On 1st February this year Mr. Groves was informed by your predecessor that, during the year 1928, 24 death certificates were received on which the word "vaccination" or "vaccinia" appeared as the cause of death ; while in 14 other cases vaccination had been performed within one month of death. Thus presumably 38 persons, mostly children, were killed by vaccination last year. And this year, too, there have been deaths from vaccination. Your Department, according to the reply to Mr. Groves on 8th July, has details of 10 of them, and of 7 others that occurred within a month of vaccination. In spite of the fact that the Rolleston Committee agreed in regard to post-vaccinal encephalitis that "on present evidence its association with vaccination is not fortuitous" (p. 184 of the Report), and while although, in their opinion, the available evidence acquits vaccinia virus of being the sole cause of this complication, they were "unable to exonerate vaccination from playing some part in its causation," no action appears to have been taken by your Department, and the deaths go on. The Rolleston Committee admitted that the occurrence of post-vaccinal nervous disease is of serious import, and Sir George Buchanan, who holds an important position in your Department, in a Note to the Report of the Smallpox and Vaccination Committee of the League of Nations Health Organisation, suggested that the "risks of nervous complications might be substantially diminished by the use of a more dilute lymph." Three doctors attached to the Ross Institute suggested in the "British Medical Journal" for 6th July that it is the use of the rabbit in the preparation of the lymph that causes this danger of encephalitis. No one really knows anything about it. But the intense suffering caused to rabbits and other animals in the preparation and testing of the vaccine should appeal to those who have included in their political programme the protection of animals from cruelty. The Dutch Government hoped by the use of Spanish neuro-vaccine to stop the occurrence of post-vaccinal encephalitis in Holland in the year 1927, but they failed to do so, and on the recommendation of leading members of the medical profession in Holland, suspended the operation of the compulsory law. Seeing that your predecessor stated in November, 1927, that lymph cannot be completely sterilised, as otherwise its active principle would be destroyed, and as a living virus must be used, dilution of the vaccine would not remove the danger, for technical biological reasons which I have no time to go into. Nor would the reduction of the marks from four to one. One-mark vaccination in the United States has been followed by tetanus and recently by encephalitis. The majority of the cases investigated by the Rolleston Vaccination Committee had been vaccinated with Government lymph. Nearly 10 per cent. of them were infants under one year of age. At least five of them were re-vaccinated persons. Twelve of the 24 deaths admittedly from vaccination in 1928 were of children under two years of age. Four of the 10 deaths admittedly due to vaccination this year were in children under 12 months. With reference to the risk of injury from vaccination I would refer you to the remarks of Dr. R.W. Jameson, at the meeting of the Royal Society of Medicine on 25th January, this year. He said : "We knew nothing at all about vaccination except that it did not usually kill babies at once, and that it conferred some temporary immunity ; we did not know what it did to the children afterwards. He also said that "vaccination should not be advocated until something was known about it." In a leading article on 6th July, "The Medical Officer," the organ of the Society of Medical Officers of Health, says :— "Undoubtedly there are many people who are beginning to suspect that those who favour vaccination are trying to bolster up
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