UNIVERSAL IMMUNIZATION: Medical Miracle or Masterful Mirage

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Vaccinations in the Third World

 

 

Thu, 10 Mar 2005 19:51:42 -0000

 

This will help you to understand the reality of vaccination in the

third world.

 

No monitoring, no individualizing, no follow up and then they think

they can pass off articles about measles declining, or the vaccine

working.

 

Many things children die of are vaccine reactions but labelled

something else.

 

EXCELLENT LONG ARTICLE

 

 

 

http://www.whale.to/a/obomsawin.html

 

 

 

 

 

UNIVERSAL IMMUNIZATION

 

Medical Miracle or Masterful Mirage

 

By Dr. Raymond Obomsawin

 

 

 

(This book first appeared at the Soil and Health Library, an important

source of books on holistic agriculture, holistic health,

self-sufficient living, and personal development).

 

 

 

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF: RAYMOND OBOMSAWIN

 

 

 

PREFACE

 

ABSTRACT

 

Introduction

 

The Unresolved Issue of UCI/EPI Effectiveness and Impact

 

The Unresolved Question of Potential Adverse Effects

 

The Unresolved Issue of Long-Term Adverse Effects

 

The Unresolved Issue of Safer and More Effective Alternatives

 

The Unresolved Question of Ethics

 

Conclusion

 

 

 

SECTION I: MIRACLE IN THE MAKING: REALITY OR DELUSION?

 

Introduction

 

EPI--Field Evaluation Experience

 

UNICEF's General EPI Strategy and Stated Achievements

 

Field Observations

 

Contra-Indications Screening

 

A Case History

 

Vaccine Scheduling

 

Immunization's Impact in the Declension of Infectious Diseases

 

Incomplete Statistical Reporting

 

The Developmental Implications of UCL/EPI

 

Is Immunization Effectiveness a Certainty?

 

Early Theoretical Foundations Re-Examined

 

Artificially Induced Immunity--Reality or Delusion?

 

An Historic Overview of the Bacterial/Viral Theory of Disease Causation

 

The Bacterial/Viral Versus the Cellular/Ecological Theory of

Infectious Disease

 

Infectious Disease Tables I--XVIII

 

Immunization Effectiveness Data

 

Data on Diphtheria

 

Data on Measles

 

Data on Polio

 

Data on Pertussis (Whooping Cough)

 

Data on Tetanus Toxoid and Immune Globulin

 

WHO Smallpox Eradication Success Reconsidered

 

Vaccine Associated Dangers--General Observations

 

Of What Do Vaccine Products Consist?

 

Some Observed and Potential Adverse Effects of Spacific Vaccines and

Toxoids--Diagnosable in the Short Term

 

Extent and Nature of Observable Vaccine Damage

 

Long Term (Delayed) Potential Adverse Effects of Immunization

 

Evidences for Immunization Induced Immune Malfimction

 

The Ethics of Universal Childhood Immunization

 

Bane or Boon? Selective Medicine in Primary Health Care

 

SECTION II: TOWARDS MORE APPROPRIATE PRIORITIES IN

 

DEVELOPING WORLD PRIMARY HEALTH CARE

 

 

 

Eclipsing the Spirit of Alma Ata

 

Emerging--A More Practicable Primary Health Care Model

 

 

 

SECTION III: A CONSIDERATION OF ALTERNATIVES TO ENSURING NATURAL IMMUNITY

 

 

 

The Soil as Chief Determinant of Health and The Foundation of Public

Health Policy

 

Insightful Experiments

 

Soil Re-Mineralization--A Return To Primeval Conditions

 

Soil Dietetics and Disease

 

Key Nutritional Measures in Preventing Infectious Disease

 

Vitamin A

 

Vitamin C

 

I. Viral Infections

 

II. Bacterial Infections

 

III. Phagocytotic Activity

 

IV. Conclusion

 

A New and Better Strategy

 

General Conclusion on Appropriate Alternatives

 

Conclusion

 

References to sections 1,2 & 3

 

 

 

ANNEX 1: PROBLEMS WITH DEVELOPING WORLD MEDICALIZATION AND THE

TRADITIONAL MEDICINE ALTERNATIVE

 

The Disturbing Dilemma of Developing World Medicalization

 

India--An Alarming Case In Point

 

A Compelling Voice of Protest

 

The Traditional Medicine Alternative

 

Critical Conclusions and Directions

 

References

 

 

 

ANNEX II: AGROCHEMICAL AGRICULTURE--THE NEED FOR A SANER ALTERNATIVE

 

The Dilemma of Chemical Fertilization

 

Pesticide Poisons

 

Biologically Sound Alternatives To Pesticides

 

The Promise of Clean Organiculture Methods

 

A Recent International Initiative in Clean Organiculture

 

References

 

 

 

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF: RAYMOND OBOMSAWIN

 

 

 

Raymond Obomsawin was born in the United States on August 16, 1950 and

holds dual US and Canadian citizenship. He married Marie-Louise in

August of 1976, and they have three, vibrant children: Sunrise,

Sunbeam and Sundown. These children--two are still in their teens, and

one is twenty-one--have never received the prescribed regimen of

childhood vaccines, and due to a healthful lifestyle have exhibited

total immunity to the diseases that are common to the childhood years.

(Time and again they've been physically exposed to those ill from some

of these very diseases.)

 

 

 

Dr. Obomsawin holds over two decades of cross-cultural

experience--both in North America and internationally--in the primary

disciplines which impact on human bio-social development. He holds a

Baccalaureate Degree in Health Education and Communications, Masters

Degree in Development Education, and PhD with concentrations in Health

Science and Human Ecology.

 

 

 

He is currently serving as President of the Circle of Nations

Institute of Life Sciences & Sustainable Development an international

R & D institution legally established in Hawaii, and has previously

served as: Manager of Overseas Operations for CUSO (Canada's largest

International Development NGO); Evaluation Analyst in the Canadian

International Development Agency; Evaluation Manager with the

Department of Indian Affairs & Northern Development; Executive in the California Rural Indian Health Board system; Director

of the Office for National Health Development NIB (Now Assembly of

First Nations); Founding Chairman of the National Commission Inquiry

on Indian Health; and Supervisor of Native Curriculum for the

Government of the Yukon Territory.

 

 

 

Some key highlights of Dr. Obomsawin's professional experiences and

achievements follow:

 

 

 

Chaired and served on regional, national, and international committees

holding development related policy, management, and research mandates.

 

Advised senior decision-makers--in both public and NGO

sectors--providing critical analyses and recommendations on

international development policies, project, and programming

initiatives in health, education, agriculture, nutrition,

agro-forestry, environmental sustainability, and multi-year country

planning.

 

Spearheaded the first world-wide inter-sectoral review funded by a

Western government on Indigenous Culture Based Knowledge Systems in

Development. The study elicited the involvement of public and NGO

sector bio-social development, technical and research institutions in

all world regions; and entailed exploratory field missions to the

Andean and Upper Amazon regions of South America, as well as East

Africa, South and Southeast Asia.

 

Organized, administered, and executed socio-politically sensitive

evaluation studies on complex bio-social service interventions, as

well as educational and development initiatives internationally, eg,

as a team member evaluated: UNICEF's Integrated Services Project which

served over 900 villages in Northeast Thailand; and other development

projects at the Asian Pacific Development Centre, Malaysia; Asian

Institute of Management, and The Woman for Woman Foundation,

Philippines; and Institute of Social and Administrative Studies,

University of the South Pacific, Fiji.

 

Coordinated (in Canada and Norway) the initial development of Terms of

Reference for a comprehensive evaluation of the United Nations World

Food Program--operant in 90 countries under the trilateral sponsorship

of Canada, Norway, and the Netherlands.

 

Spearheaded the establishment and chaired Canada's National Commission

Inquiry on Indian Health which served as a national--grass-roots

mandated--indigenous health policy development body.

 

Presented--in plenary session--the paper " From Selective to Indigenous

Medicine: Repossessing the Ancient Wisdom,' at the International

Development Research Centre and National Institutes of Health

sponsored International Workship on Traditional Health Systems and

Public Policy.

 

Presented the keynote address " Re-Discovering Our Roots: The Ancient

Wisdom of Sustainable Societies " at the Community Sustainability

Resource Institute's 3rd Annual Conference, USA.

 

Experienced multi-cultural exposure including private, voluntary, and

or public sector interchange in over 25 countries on five continents,

as well as Australasia and select Pacific island nations, and

 

Produced academically and professionally over 75 articles, reports,

proposals and publication documents.

 

PREFACE

 

 

 

TO THE THIRD EDITION

 

 

 

(MAY 1998)

 

 

 

Dr. Raymond Obomsawin, PhD

 

 

 

This extensive report focuses on the current massive international

effort to administer artificial immunization to the children of the

world. The actual launching of the World Health Organizations's

Universal or " Expanded Program on Immunization " (EPI) occurred in the

year 1983. Its overriding purpose was to achieve maximum immunization

coverage of the world's children. Under the influence of the

WHO--which is a United Nations created and sustained multilateral

agency--all national political leaders (then representing 158 nation

states) made a commitment to achieve 80% immunization coverage in

their respective countries by the year 1990. In that year the WHO set

a new standard for the governments of the world, ie, a more

intensified goal of achieving 90% immunization coverage by the year

2000. As a review document, this report poses an open challenge to the

scientific, developmental, and humanitarian basis of this global

public policy, in turn urging national governments to establish a far

more rational, effective and harmless inter-sectoral approach in

seeking to ensure that the children and families of our world

community enjoy lifelong natural immunity to infectious diseases.

 

 

 

The research covered in this document tackles the issue of universal

immunization from a very broad perspective, thereby going well beyond

the more obvious realities of its being a " medical racket " hatched by

a pharmaceutical industry beholden to its investors, and religiously

dispensed and defended by allopathic medicine men. Through employing

trans-disciplinary and integrative analyses it draws upon wide-ranging

disciplines and fields of thought as it considers the purposes,

policies and practices surrounding mass immunization. The effort to

research and pull together this report occurred while I was serving as

an Evaluation Analyst in the Evaluation Division at the Canadian

International Development Agency. My initial research began early in

1991, contextual to conducting a field evaluation of the EPI component

of a major UNICEF project then affecting several hundred communities

in Northeast Thailand. The report is being distributed and or sold in

its present form under the auspices of a non-profit public health

advocacy organization, the Health Action Network Society, Burnaby,

British Columbia, Canada. (As author, I will receive no royalties from

either its sale or distribution.)

 

 

 

Since the first edition came out in the early 1990s, the many serious

issues and concerns which are raised in this study have not by any

means been properly addressed or resolved. The medico-industrial

complex has neither wavered nor modified its posture of providing a

white washed endorsement and promotion of what is largely an unproven

technological fix of dubious origin, which carries its own seeds of

disease and death. For the most part, the same can be said for the

public sector policies whereby government such as that of the United

States place themselves in an untenable conflict of interest position

by playing a direct role in the development of new vaccines, the

active promotion and enforcement of mandatory artificial immunization,

and the monitoring of vaccines for adverse side effects thereby

setting its own criteria and degree of liability in the compensation

of victims. (Only one in four vaccine injury victims, who apply for

compensation under US law, are compensated for their often

catastrophic vaccine injuries. Government qualifying rules require

that the onset of adverse symptoms must have occurred within four

hours of the administration of the vaccine. Despite these severe

limitations in legal liability, since passage of the National

Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, up to February 28, 1998,

compensatory payments have totalled $871 million 800 thousand.)

 

 

 

Sad to say, the public sector's world-wide reliable monitoring for

adverse side effects (not excluding that of the US Government) does

not appear to have noticeably improved from its abysmal state since

the initial issuance of this report. As well, multilateral development

agencies such as UNICEF continue to push this unproven and essentially

spurious technology on a largely uninformed and intimidated public

throughout the Developing World nations. On a positive note, within

First World nations public awareness of the problems and dangers

associated with mass immunization programs appear to have broadened

and intensified. Vehicles of the information revolution, such as the

Internet have helped considerably. Even physicians themselves are at

long last waking up to and advocating the truth, e.g., in France, 200

doctors have called on their govemement to immediately halt the

hepatitis B vaccine program because of the many cases of neurological

disorders and multiple sclerosis being caused by this vaccine, and in

Switzerland, 500 doctors continue to oppose their govemement's MMR

vaccine campaign.

 

 

 

Lawsuits for vaccine damages have as well become increasingly common.

In the summer of 1997, various news reports in the Commonwealth

countries reported that Dawbams law firm in Norfolk, England is

carrying forward a major class action lawsuit for widespread damages

arising from Britain's 1994 MMR campaign. In a public statement issued

by this law firm it is affirmed that:

 

 

 

We know of hundreds of children who were fat and well before being

vaccinated, but who are now chronically ill or seriously mentally or

physically disabled. Of some 600 cases: the most common are autism

(202); serious digestive problems (110); epilepsy (97); hearing and

vision problems (40); arthritis (42); behaviour and learning problems

(41); ME (24); diabetes (9); paralysis (9); blood disorders (5); brain

damage (3); and death (14).

 

 

 

Bolstering the firm's case is the fact that the affected children's

pediatricians and neurologists continue to state in British radio and

TV documentaries that the children's varied injuries were in fact

caused by administration of the MMR vaccine.

 

 

 

Additionally, growing numbers of affected parents and professionals

have been instrumental in the emergence of multiple research and

activist organizations such as the Immunization Awareness moni Society

(IAS), New Zealand; Vaccine Awareness Network (VAN), Australia;

Association for Vaccine Damaged Children (AVDC), Canada; Global

Vaccine Awareness League (GVAL), California; and the National Vaccine

Information Center (AWIC) in the Greater Washington DC area. This

phenomena tells us that there are still some heroic and honest hearted

people left in our world who are willing to stand together for the

right, and make personal sacrifices of their time, resources, and

reputations in the face of the combined efforts of government and

industry to both slander and silence them. In fact, in recent weeks a

prominent member of the IAS has been in touch with me, and shared

information which included the fact that a 1992 survey by their

organization found an almost 500% greater incidence of asthma among

New Zealand children who've received routine childhood vaccines, than

among those who haven't.

 

 

 

It is also of interest that on September 13-15, 1997, more than 500

parents, physicians, university scientists, health officials, legal

experts, ethicists, journalists and activists from 34 states and five

countries convened for the First International Public Conference on

Vaccination. This historic session was organized under the auspices of

the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC). According to

information provided by the NVIC, the Conference inter alia examined

issues such as vaccines and infant dealth; biological mechanisms of

vaccine injury; vaccines and learning disorders; hepatitis B vaccine

injuries; viral vaccinces and chromosome damage; polio vaccine

contamination; and vaccine regulation. A number of the more important

observations made by the presenters at the conference further

corroborate and complement the alarming findings that are raised in my

report. Some key observations follow:

 

 

 

The " P " in the old DPT vaccine is so highly toxic to the human brain

that the whole cell pertussis vaccine should be immediately withdrawn

from the market.

 

Vaccines which cause brain inflammation and severe brain damage, such

as DPT, are also biologically capable of causing milder forms of brain

damage, such as learning disabilities and Attention Deficit Disorder.

 

Live viral vaccines are implicated in brain injuries, such as the MMR

vaccine which is now linked to autism, while the same vaccine has

never been fully investigated for its long term effects on human

immune and neurological systems.

 

Live viral vaccines may also be implicated as a cause of genetic

damage in humans.

 

There are many reports of adults in Canada, who have suffered central

nervous system and immune dysfunction or death following hepatitis B

vaccination.

 

Polio vaccines contaminated with monkey viruses may have caused the

development of HIV- I and rare forms of bone, brain and lung cancers

in humans.

 

Children injured by vaccines and other toxic insults, have

disturbances in biochemistry such as imbalances in fatty acid

metabolism and neurologic dysfunction such as autistic spectrum

disorders and seizure disorders.

 

Data from New Zealand and several European countries suggests that

early childhood vaccination has caused an increase in juvenile diabetes.

 

A combination of multiple vaccinations and multiple exposures to

environmental and chemical toxins may cause immune and neurological

dysfunction in the general population like that being suffered by Gulf

War veterans.

 

Government health officials in federal health agencies have withheld

information about vaccine risks from the public.

 

The general consensus among research scientists in attendance was that

current immunization programs are causing injuries and deaths because

of inadequate vaccine safety research, testing, manufacturing and

monitoring for long term effects. What's new? (Conference proceedings

are available to the public from the National Vaccine Information

Center: #206-512 W. Maple Avenue, Vienna, VA, USA, 22180, Telephone:

1-800-909-SHOT.)

 

 

 

It also bears mentioning that I recently came across a June, 1995

interview with an old acquaintance, the veteran physician to the

Aboriginal People of Australia, Dr. Archie Kalokerinos. The interview

was published in the International Vaccination Newsletter

(Krekenstraat 4, 3600 Genk, Belgium). Archie is in many ways a man

deserving of great recognition for his brave struggle with the

establishment forces in his country, who attempted to block his

efforts to expose and reverse the massive death rates (as high as 50%)

being caused by mass immunization in a population at great risk to its

dangers. In this interview he states that it was this " extreme

hostility " that:

 

 

 

.. . . forced me to look into the question of vaccination further, and

the further I looked the more shocked I became. I found that the whole

vaccine business was indeed a gigantic hoax. Most doctors are

convinced that they are useful, but if you look at the proper

statistics and study the instances of these diseases you will realize

that this is not so . . .

 

 

 

My final conclusion after forty years or more in this business

[medicine] is that the unofficial policy of the World Health

Organization and the unoffical policy of the 'Save the Children's

Fund' and ... [other vaccine promoting] organizations is one of murder

and genocide. . . . I cannot see any other possible explanation. . . .

You cannot immunize sick children, malnourished children, and expect

to get away with it. You'll kill far more children than would have

died from natural infection.

 

 

 

Although the public sector in Canada hired a biomedical protagonist of

artificial immunization to attack and undermine the original findings

and observations contained in this document, nothing was effectively

challenged or disproven in this determined effort, nor has there been

any challenge from any other quarter since. Furthermore, I've received

some very good news from a reliable source in Montreal, Canada, that a

number of practicing physicians in that city have ceased using

vaccines in their practice after having read this report. I fully

trust that it will prove of lasting value in informing and influencing

other professionals, parents and interested lay persons who may be

honestly seeking to explore both sides of the controversy for the

first time.

 

 

 

Finally, it is my sincere hope that the re-issuance of this document

will provide a considerable source of valuable documentation and

commentary for those who are at the forefront in the battle for

biomedical truth and right in a world largely beholden to the bottom

line of capitalists who value their profits above seemingly everything

else. In the end, the truth with prevail.

 

 

 

 

 

" Discovery Consists In Seeing

 

What Every body Else Has Seen

 

And Thinking What Nobody

 

Else Has Thought . . . "

 

 

 

Albert Szent-Gyorgi

 

 

 

 

 

ABSTRACT

 

 

 

Introduction

 

 

 

Despite the widely accepted view that millions of children now enjoy

freedom from various life threatening infectious diseases, and thus

improved health, because of highly effective and safe vaccine

programs, at the outset of the 90's an Evaluation of Canada's

International Immunization Program Phase I (CIIP--I), concluded that

in fact there are " many pressing questions which remain to be

investigated within EPI (Expanded Programs of Immunization) and

Primary Health Care. " A range of critical issues relative to Universal

Childhood Immunization (UCI) and EPI programs have been examined and

responded to in the main report. These follow:

 

 

 

The Unresolved Issue of UCI/EPI Effectiveness and Impact

 

 

 

The verifiable measurement of UCI/EPI effectiveness and impacts, has

been pervasively deficient in the major immunization programming

investments made by The Canadian International Development Agency

(CIDA)--approaching $150 million--in the 1986-1991 time period. The

aforenoted CIIP--I evaluation study further noted that the actual

impact of UCI/EPI on mortality levels remain essentially undetermined

and unsubstantiated. To quote: " at present it appears that there is no

conclusive evidence on the impact of immunization on child mortality

from all causes. . . . It may be that EPI's effect is merely to bring

about replacement mortality, whereby children . . . succumb to other

diseases instead. The uncertainty over the impacts of EPI remain a

major question in PHC [primary health care] programming. " In light of

the compelling need for the proper and periodic evaluation of the

impacts of publicly financed programs, this deficiency remains a very

serious one.

 

 

 

Unexpected and unexplainable outbreaks among " immunized " persons, have

led immunologists to now seriously question whether their current

understanding of what constitutes reliable immunity is in fact

trustworthy. For example, the admission is being made that immunity

(or its absence) cannot be determined reliable on the basis of history

of the disease, history of immunization, or even history of prior

serologic determination. There is as well an emerging body of

mathematically based epidemiological research which suggests

significant problems with UCI/EPI targeted efforts for the control and

eradication of measles in the Developing World, where in spite of high

measles immunization coverages, measles epidemics are being reported

with surprising frequency.

 

 

 

Vaccine failures in the Oman polio epidemic could not be explained by

failures in the cold chain, nor on suboptimum vaccine potency. It was

further observed that the efficacy of OPV in inducing humoral immunity

has been lower than expected, and that primary reliance on routine

immunization may be inadequate to achieve the goal of eradicating

polio by the year 2000. (Similar polio outbreaks have been occurring

in other highly vaccinated populations, e.g., the Gambia, Brazil, and

Taiwan.)

 

 

 

The Unresolved Question of Potential Adverse Effects

 

 

 

Another basic issue that has never been addressed in UCI/EPI

programming is the need for the effective monitoring and evaluation of

potential vaccinal adverse effects. Past estimates on the degree of

adverse reactions are both unreliable and optimistic since actual

monitoring efforts have generally been negligible. Furthermore, many

physicians and nurses are not cognizant of the importance of reporting

untoward reactions, and or remain unaware of their clinical features.

Overall, the evidence strongly suggests that the chronic

underreporting of vaccine-induced morbidity, disability, and mortality

is in fact the norm, whether in the Developing or Developed Worlds.

The first definitive policy statement on this issue by the World

Health Organization (issued on April 1991) indicates the WHO's

recognition of the significance of this problem. It should be

considered as a priority issue in future UCI/EPI research, monitoring

and evaluation.

 

 

 

The Unresolved Issue of Long-Term Adverse Effects

 

 

 

A minority of qualified scientists are now postulating that the full

vaccine schedule as routinely employed in early childhood vaccination

inevitably weakens the immunologic system of the child, leaving this

system crippled in its ability to protect the child throughout life,

and in turn opening the way for other infectious diseases due to such

immunologic dysfunction. It is also being postulated by such

scientists that mass immunization is directly contributing to the now

widespread escalation of various auto-immune, degenerative disease and

allergic conditions.

 

 

 

The Unresolved Issue of Safer and More Effective Alternatives

 

 

 

Sufficient evidence now suggests that an increasing awareness of the

potential dangers that are being increasingly associated with mass

vaccination programs, will serve to precipitate public demand for

greater research investments in the further exploration and testing of

promising and danger-free alternative prophylactic methods. A

considerable body of literature on lifestyle (especially nutrition)

based prophylaxis and treatment for both bacterial and viral

infectious diseases suggest that this is the optimum alternative to

the artificial immunization dilemma.

 

 

 

The Unresolved Question of Ethics

 

 

 

UCI/EPI--as presently conceived and executed--represents two major

departures from the time honoured ethics and traditions of medicine:

 

 

 

that all forms of treatment should be individualized, particularly

when prescribing or injecting substances which carry the potential for

disease, disablement, and death; and

 

the objectively informed patient (or parent) should always have

absolute freedom to accept or reject any given measure or therapy, and

have reasonable opportunity to consider alternatives.

 

 

 

Conclusion

 

 

 

The foregoing observations indicate that there is a genuine need for

world governments to reconsider their policies with respect to

universal childhood immunization, ensuring particular focus on

clarifying the vital issues of the short and longer term impacts of

UCI/EPI, and the pressing need to establish far safer and more

effective alternatives.

 

 

 

 

 

--

 

 

 

SECTION l

 

 

 

MIRACLE IN THE MAKING:

 

REALITY OR DELUSION?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

 

 

Universal Childhood Immunization (UCI)--in its more localized context

referred to as Expanded Program of Immunization (EPI)--stands

worldwide as a top health programming priority among various

multilateral, bilateral, and nongovernmental (NGO) international

development agencies. This appears to be the case because immunization

programs are widely accepted and actively promoted as offering

recipient beneficiaries more substantive disease prevention benefits

than any other modality in the arsenal of modern medicine, coupled to

its unique capacity to offer the surest and " quickest " results. When

compared to the more basic intersectoral and developmental requisites

for public health sustenance and disease prevention, UCI/EPI is

generally considered to be the easiest to implement programmatically,

promote publicly, and defend politically. The World Health

Organization (WHO) has gone on record to affirm that, " Immunization is

one of the most powerful and cost-effective weapons of modern

medicine. Immunization services, however, remain tragically

under-utilized in the world today. " 1

 

 

 

Despite the Canadian govemment's confirmed support of the

comprehensive primary health care approach--as defined in the Alma Ata

Declaration--the majority of increases in the Canadian International

Development Agency (CIDA) Health Sector disbursements, in the last

half of the 1980s, have been for the selective and vertical modality

of UCI/EPI. In fact, according to observations made in the 1989,

Evaluation Assessment of CIDA Investments in the Health Sector,

immunization has become the dominant health activity supported by

CIDA. " Annual disbursements over the past three years have risen from

$3 to $22, to $49 million. " 2 The lion's share of this increase stemmed

from the launching of Canada's International Immunization Programme

(CIIP), covering the period of 1986-1991. (An October 10, 1991 Fact

Sheet on Canada's Role in Immunization, states that of the $43 million

expended by CIIP in the period 1985-1990, involved the execution--by

more than 30 nongovernmental organizations--of over 100 projects in

more than 50 countries. When we include the government-to-government

[bilateral] program, total CIDA funds committed to UCI/EPI in the

1986/1987-1990/1991 fiscal year periods equal some $143 million. At

the end of 1991/1992 it was the intention of the government to expend

roughly another $50 million on UCI/EPI over the next five years, with

about $30 million for CIIP II.) According to a Mid-Term CIIP

Operational Review completed November 20, 1989, UNICEF took almost $27

million from the Program for 37 EPI projects, amounting to 67% of CIIP

funds. Additional CIIP funding passed indirectly to UMCEF, via Rotary

for vaccine purchases, and via Canadian partners who purchased project

equipment from UNICEF stockpiles.3

 

 

 

Speaking of this major shift in priorities, wherein by the end of the

1980s immunization support accounted for one half of all health sector

disbursements, the CIDA Health Sector Evaluation Assessment

recommended that " this situation merits examination on the grounds of

both the heavy focus by CIDA on this one type of health program and

the nature of immunization efforts . . . Primary Health Care is more

complex and multifaceted then the provision of this one . . .

technology. " 4 This need to re-examine immunization support was further

affirmed when the Assessment identified certain " important am that

merit further review, " including: case studies of the health impact of

projects involving or crossing varied sectors; the level of

sustainability achieved in completed CIDA health projects; and areas

of large spending or of controversy, i.e., immunization. " 5

 

 

 

Although the Assessment did not go on to define the nature of the

controversies surrounding immunization, mass immunization programs

have been seriously questioned on both developmental and scientific

grounds. It will be the purpose of this report to proceed with a

detailed examination of the issues of controversy, draw some

conclusions, and make appropriate recommendations. The critique of

these issues stems from a careful review and evaluation of wide

ranging biomedical literature sources of relevance to the subject.

This work has been carried out in the spirit of honest inquiry, thus

affording a fresh and critical analyses of the fundamental issues.

 

 

 

Although the conclusions as reached visibly sustain " one side " of what

is largely a hidden and professionalist dominated debate on

immunization, the reader should note that this is done in order to

provide a long neglected and constructive counterbalance to the

predominating supportive declarations of the establishment, and in

turn the parroted promotion of the same view by the popular media.

 

 

 

It must further be appreciated that past and ongoing investments in

the drive for universal immunization extend well beyond the mere

allocation of substantial government and publicly donated funds (which

translates into biennial expenditures of a billion US dollars, 63

percent of which comes from Developing World countries themselves)6 to

include:

 

 

 

extensive public and private sector commitment to meeting the

infrastructural, service, product and marketing requirements of the

world-wide medico-industrial complex which employs tens of thousands

of people in drug companies, private laboratories, universities,

governmental health departments, hospitals etc. (furthermore it is

estimated that there are 25,000 professional national and

international staff who directly oversee hundreds of thousands of

field workers involved in the annual vaccination of 60 million children);7

 

related domestic and international legislation and politics; and

 

massive public educational indoctrination initiatives that are largely

predicated on promoting the unquestioned effectiveness and relative

safety of immunization, and which by design engender an impelling fear

in those " unprotected. "

 

UNICEF's Executive Director has gone on record in many fora to herald

the substantive value and potency of immunization. In advance of the

inception of Canada's current and greatly expanded International

Immunization program he gave a full and unqualified assurance that

" Expanded immunization--using newly improved vaccines " will " prevent

the six main immunizable diseases from killing an estimated 5 million

children a year and disabling 5 million more. " 8

 

 

 

The front page of the January/February, 1988, issue of Development

Forum, published by the U.N. Department of Public Information,

unequivocally affirms that " immunization is the success story of the

decade. In the Developing World immunization has reached 50 percent

for DPT vaccine and 40 percent for measles, and is now saving over 1.3

million lives annually. " Everyone is encouraged--bordering on

religious fervor--to get on the bandwagon.

 

 

 

UNICEF.. calls for a 'Grand Alliance' of all possible resources

teachers, and religious leaders, mass media and government agencies,

voluntary organizations and people's movements, business leaders and

labour unions, women's groups and health services to create an

informed public demand for. . . the methods which could now bring

about 'a revolution' in child survival and development. In Turkey, for

example, 200,000 school teachers and 54,000 imams have helped to

treble the nation's immunization coverage. In Syria and Egypt,

television has succeeded in getting the immunization message into

every home . . . UNICEF argues that 'there is no greater cause in

which to march.' 9

 

 

 

Indeed, immunization has of late gained the distinction of being

considered the " leading edge " in primary health care, and is extolled

by its advocates as " the single most successful component of the child

survival program. " Its high acceptance and apparent success relate to

a number of factors:

 

 

 

A technological package that is easily understood and readily

available . . . the fact that vaccination does not require substantial

behaviourial change; the relative ease of measuring coverage and its

offer of an opportunity for political leadership at all levels to be

visibly involved. Finally, it is the single component of PHC that

provides the greatest opportunity for the private sector to

participate through the supply or production of vaccine and cold chain

equipment.10

 

 

 

It is accepted wisdom among medical professionals and in turn the

public, that millions of children now enjoy improved health and

freedom from various life-threatening diseases because of safe and

effective vaccines. In the words of Fulginiti, " morbidity and deaths

secondary to the contagious diseases have either been eradicated,

measles greatly reduced in occurrence, and rubella, mumps, pertussis,

and other diseases significantly lessened in terms of their impact. " 11

 

 

 

 

 

EPI--FIELD EVALUATION EXPERIENCE

 

 

 

This general examination of Immunization as a central modality in the

prevention of common infectious diseases in the Developing World will

begin with some salient extracts taken from the writer's findings in a

field evaluation he carried out on a UNICEF--Expanded Program of

Immunization and Primary Health Care initiative in Northeast Thailand,

in March of 1990. The data derived from evaluating the EPI component

is being provided as basic background information because it provides

some useful insights on comparable UNICEF-EPI initiatives that are now

occurring throughout the Developing World, and points to some critical

issues meriting further investigation. (EPI was one of eight

components in the Integrated Services Project for Children, extending

over a five year period, at a cost exceeding $8,500,000.(Cdn). This

funding was primarily provided by the Canadian Government, and

supplemented with public contributions. The Project was executed by

UNICEF Thailand, in cooperation with the Royal Thai Government.)

 

 

 

The EPI in Northeast Thailand proved to be a considerable undertaking.

It included: the execution of a cluster survey on immunization

coverage in all 59 districts (in which there are over 900 villages);

provision of EPI training for 600 Village Health Volunteers, Village

Health Communicators, and religious leaders; similar training for 200

health care providers, and 40 multiple WHO staff, EPI information

strengthening and finally social mobilization to vaccinate, viz.

provide BCG/OPV/DPT and measles coverage for all 59 districts. It

further involved the equipping of 373 tambon (subdistrict) health

centres with sufficient numbers of. refrigerators; vaccine carriers

with four icepacks; BCG vaccine kits; thermometers; cold chain

monitoring cards; and steam sterilizers.

 

The EPI initiative placed its strategic concentration on the following

areas:

 

 

 

EPI training of village and religious leaders

 

emphasis on reaching progressively higher annual vaccination targets

 

provision of cold chain equipment and support to targeted Tambons

 

information campaigns in primary and elementary schools

 

public education campaigns in targeted villages

 

increased vaccine production; and

 

strengthening the EPI information system at the district and

provincial level.

 

In reviewing figures for the project covering the first three years

(1985-1987), the priority emphasis on immunization is evident. Project

expenditures for this component reached 126 percent of the original

target for immunization, compared to only 28 percent for primary

health care. Food and nutrition fared somewhat better at 60 percent of

the target, a little under the project average of 61 percent. A budget

analysis conducted on the project for this period states that

" Implementation of the community action component is . . . low.

However, the savings obtained here will be passed on to the EPI and

pre-school components . . . " The reason given for exceeding the

original budget projections for EPI, was " because of the demands and

opportunities for support presented. " 12

 

 

 

Recognizing the central importance of " health care outcomes, " both the

evaluation exercise and this broader examination of the issues have

purposely focused on concerns surrounding the qualitative issue of EPI

health care outcomes and effectiveness. However, it became readily

apparent in the evaluation of the Program that--due to the absence of

base line data on any sample of the recipients, let alone the

additional need for a comparable control group, and the control or

monitoring of intervening variables it was not really possible to

proceed with any accurate or verifiable determination of health care

outcomes (i.e., to establish a cause and effect relationship) for EPI.

 

 

 

This need to provide verifiable measurement of a program's health care

outcomes appears to be pervasively deficient throughout most health

programming directed to the Developing World. The implications of this

general deficiency to the specific measurement or determination of EPI

effectiveness, remains a serious one, and will be addressed more

thoroughly at later points in this report.

 

 

 

UNICEF'S GENERAL EPI STRATEGY AND STATED ACHIEVEMENTS

 

 

 

In a UNICEF sponsored research study on immunization coverage

conducted in Thailand in the mid 80's, the following general

observation is made:

 

 

 

[The] immunization programme has been proven to be an efficient, and

relatively inexpensive method of disease prevention in both developing

and developed countries. In the last decade, we have seen an increase

in immunization usage, public acceptance, improved delivery techniques

and more stable vaccines. The more extensive use of vaccines has

resulted in a dramatic decrease of many leading communicable diseases

in all parts of the world. However, this condition is by no means true

in developing countries where most of the vaccine preventable diseases

like diphtheria, pertussis, neonatal tetanus, poliomyelitis and

measles remain to be a serious health menace among infants and

children in these countries. " 13

 

 

 

The view as expressed here--during the early stages of this

project--provides a fair representation of the rationale behind

UNICEF'S resolve to proceed with its universal disease eradication

drive, via vaccine induced immunization. (It is of no passing interest

that WHO and UNICEF sponsored literature, such as above, now embody a

new nomenclature, in which one does not refer to preventable diseases,

but more precisely " vaccine preventable diseases " thus tending to

convey the unsubstantiated conclusion that such diseases are only

preventable through the use of vaccines.)

 

 

 

In UNICEF's Fourth Progress Report on this project issued in 1989, it

was affirmed that, " Impressive progress has been made towards the

achievement of Universal Child Immunization (UCI). Immunization

coverage has been increased and the incidence of immunization diseases

reported has reduced. " This achievement was reported as taking place

despite such persistent obstacles as: insufficient " awareness and

knowledge among health officials and community leaders; " inadequate

" availability of vaccines and cold chain in remote areas; " and the

problem of " drop-out due to ignorance, distance, and fear of side

effects. "

 

 

 

FIELD OBSERVATIONS

 

 

 

On the basis of structured and semi-structured interviews in five

provinces, five districts, and nine villages visited, the following

facts came to light:

 

 

 

The EPI component objectives were comprehensively and successfully

implemented, exceeding the original numerical targets

 

EPI was reported as the " only activity that is implemented and

recorded entirely by government (health) officials "

 

All parents had been informed that: immunization was an effective, and

essential life-guarding measure, and although it could result in fever

or a minor rash for their infants, this should be expected as normal

(a small price to pay for the benefits received); and that otherwise

the procedure was very safe and should pose no cause for fear or alarm

 

The most commonly reported side effect of infant vaccinations was

fever, with village reports ranging from a low of 6% of infants

immunized to " 99%. " (Rashes were the second most commonly reported

side effect)

 

Fever reducing drugs are either routinely administered to vaccinated

infants, or administered on request of parents (however, one village

did report the effective use of water instead of drugs to reduce

fever), and

 

Sisaket province reported that " rare " cases of post-vaccination shock

have occurred, attributing this to vaccinal " overdose. " Surin province

reported that there were cases of post-vaccination shock in various

other provinces, but not in Surin. Such cases were attributed to the

vaccine vial not being " sufficiently shaken. "

 

CONTRA-INDICATIONS SCREENING

 

 

 

Evidence indicated that the EPI program did not incorporate adequate

measures for contraindications pre-screening and post-monitoring.

 

 

 

All infants received the vaccines regardless of their weight or

nutritional status (only one village indicated that vaccines were not

given to infants severely underweight, and only one province reported

post-vaccination monitoring of infants under 3 kg).

 

Actual nutritional status assessment does not appear to be conducted

on infants (excepting the body weight factor) before administering

vaccination.

 

There did not appear to be any procedural requirements for checking

family histories to determine whether there existed any history of

neurological disorders before administering vaccination.

 

The official view historically held and still articulated by the World

Health Organization (WHO) is that both the provision of screening for

contraindications, and post operation monitoring for adverse reactions

are uncalled for in the context of Developing World EPI campaigns. The

underlying rationale has been that the life saving benefits of EPI so

far outweigh any risks, that attention to potential risk factors and

the potential for vaccine induced damage in vaccinates remains

impracticable, and thus a non-issue.14

 

 

 

Despite this unqualified optimism, according to information provided

by CIDA's Health and Population Directorate sector, the WHO effective

October, 1990, instituted a policy for " adverse event monitoring " in

Developing World Immunization activities. A definitive policy

statement on this issue titled Monitoring of Adverse Events Following

Immunization, has been available since April 1991. (The implications

of WHO's recognition of the significance of this issue in setting

UCI/EPI research, monitoring and evaluation priorities should be

apparent.)

 

 

 

It is thus important to point out that there is by no means a

consensus on this issue within the Bio-science community (including

the inconsistencies exhibited in the public pronouncements, and

policies of the WHO). In one of the most recent scholastic manuals

available on immunization practice, noted authority, George

Dick--Professor Emeritus of Pathology, London University--provides the

following cautions relative to the traditional assumptions of the WHO:

 

 

 

Before considering immunization it must be determined that the disease

in question is of sufficient severity, frequency or other importance

to justify immunization against it. Furthermore, " if the infection is

readily treatable, there is seldom justification for immunization. "

 

" immunization is indicated only when the classic methods of control

are [demonstrably] impracticable or unsuccessful. "

 

Before any vaccine is introduced " there must be good evidence that the

vaccine is effective and relatively safe . . . Sufficient time has not

yet elapsed to predict with any certainty the durability of immunity

with the live virus vaccines, which are now in common use, such as

poliomyelitis, measles . . . [etc.] "

 

" The best type of active immunization follows a clinical or

subclinical natural infection. With many diseases this often gives

lifelong protection at little or no cost to the individual or to the

community. "

 

The pre-immunization era declines in infectious diseases " should make

one careful in attributing changes in the epidemiology of some

diseases to the result of a specific treatment or immunization. " 15

 

He further confirms that in the following conditions, the EPI vaccine

as noted should not be administered. (Obviously pre-vaccine screening

measures must be in place in order to ensure that these guidelines are

met.) Dick's recommendations follow on Table A.

 

 

 

TABLE A -- GUIDLINES FOR CONTRAINDICATIONS SCREENING Diphtheria acute

febrile illness (fever)

 

 

 

Whooping Cough

 

(pertussis) acute febrile illness

 

a history of seizures, convulsions or cerebral irritation in the

neonatal period

 

any neurological defects

 

any severe local or general reaction to a previous dose of pertussis

 

" Children whose parents or siblings have a history of idiopathic

epilepsy or neurological defects require careful assessment as to the

advisability of imunization. "

 

 

 

Polio acute illness including diarrhoea, or other (OPV) acute

intestinal dysfunction

 

sever hypogammaglobulinaemia

 

anyone on corticosteroids or immunosuppressive therapy

 

 

 

Measles acute febrile illness

 

immune mechanism deficiencies

 

anyone on corticosteroids or immunosuppressive therapy

 

Hodgkin's disease and leukaemia, or other diseases of the lymphoid,

or mononuclear phagocytic (reticuloendothelial) system

 

 

 

Preliminary PHC and EPI research conducted for CIDA's Evaluation

Division indicates as well that vaccines should not be administered to

children who are suffering from malnutrition due to associated

immunodeficiency problems (of which--inter alia--chronic infections

are symptomatic). However, the official WHO position on this point is

that " Fever, respiratory tract infections, diarrhea, and malnutrition

should not be considered as contraindications to immunization. " This

is based on the relationship between immunodeficiency status and

increased risk of natural infection.16, 17, 18 (For a cross-sampling

of other reference sources which support a counter-view to the WHO

stance on immunodeficiency and contraindications to vaccines, please

see ref.18)

 

 

 

The Project's failure to address this issue--in a responsible

manner--has undoubtedly caused some very real harm, when only good was

meant, as the following shows.

 

 

 

 

 

A CASE HISTORY

 

 

 

Upon completing the briefing session with a large contingent of Surin

provincial and Northeast regional health officials--at which the chief

provincial spokesperson confirmed that although post-vaccination shock

was a problem in other provinces, there were no known cases being

reported in his province evaluation team members departed for their

respective village destinations. Upon entering the village of

Kanjarong, in the Chom Phra district (only 35 miles distant from the

provincial capital) in company with the UNICEF Integrated Services

Project Monitor, we encountered and met with the village Head Man and

the Deputy Head Man.

 

 

 

In the course of the interview, the Deputy Head Man, with some

intensity explained that his own son had experienced what he

considered as very serious damage as a result of immunization. The

Project Monitor and I returned the following day, at which time we

both interviewed the mother and observed the affected child during the

interview. As a result of this more careful and thorough interview,

the following facts of the case were ascertained:

 

 

 

Up to the age of 3 months the infant had been breastfed. Breastfeeding

was terminated by the mother due to a diagnosed thyroid deficiency,

per the " doctor's " request. She subsequently began feeding him

powdered milk, supplemented by egg, meat, and white rice. The use of

fresh fruit and vegetables in the infants diet remained very marginal.

 

 

 

 

 

At the age of 8 months the infant was taken in for his final DPT

(triple antigen) vaccine. He almost immediately went into what was

diagnosed and described as a state of " shock, " for which he was duly

treated by a physician. As well, a whole series of serious problems began:

 

chronic sleeplessness

 

high fever

 

unbroken colds and runny nose continuing over several months

 

unbroken crying (except when held) for a period exceeding 2 months

 

in the eleven months following the vaccine (the child at time of

inter-view was I year 7 months) there appeared to be severely impaired

weight and growth developments.

 

Although cognizant that this case history could be construed (and in

turn dismissed) as a rare anecdotal occurrence that was only

coincidental to the administration of the triple antigen vaccine,

after careful thought I've decided to included it in some detail for

three basic reasons:

 

 

 

I. evidence suggest that for multiple reasons--as noted throughout

this document--such adverse reactions are likely to be taking place at

a significantly greater level than is popularly believed;

 

 

 

II. a calm, intelligent and caring mother's direct experiential

observations and hindsight about her child represent a fully valid and

trustworthy source of information; and

 

 

 

III. overall, the clarity and force of the evidence was such that the

child's reaction was clearly more than a mere coincidence, and thus

not attributable to other direct causes. (As well there is clear

evidence suggesting that the occurrence and severity of adverse

reactions to vaccines--among infants--correlate proportionally to both

lack of breasffeeding, and Vitamin C deficiency (e.g., see refs. 17 & 18).

 

 

 

The following comments should be made with respect to points (a)-(e)

above:

 

 

 

The evidence of unabated infections suggests general impairment of the

child's immune system, i.e., vaccine induced immune malfunction.

 

The unbroken crying (its unfortunate that children under the age of

one can't verbally explain the nature and extent of their distress)

suggest the possibility of permanent nervous system damage. (In

observing the child walk about, it was visibly evident that his

general motor functions and coordination were impaired.)

 

The reported growth stunting effect was also visibly obvious, as the

child appeared to be at most the size of a one year old. (In that

impaired growth is generally not identified in the literature as a

vaccine related or induced hazard, this condition may well have been

principally related to other factors bearing on the child's

nutritional intake and or assimilative capacities.) The mother

reported that his weight at birth was 4 kilos (a very heavy baby by

Thai standards) and at 5 months, 9 kilos. At the time we

visited--though now I year and 2 months older--his weight was

unchanged, still at 9 kilos.

 

 

 

It is also worth noting that the mothers three month old grandson, who

was present during the interview, had been experiencing high fever,

and continuous colds since having received recent inoculations. Given

that I visited only 9 out of over 900 participating villages, and then

only raised this issue with a fraction of respondents, poses serious

concern as to just how widespread and serious the problem of adverse

side effects is.

 

 

 

It is known for instance that when mass immunization programs were

enforced in Australia's Northern Territory among what was a generally

malnourished Aboriginal population (the most notable concern being

Vitamin C deficiency) death rates doubled, in some areas approaching

50 percent i.e., " Every Second Child. " According to the author of a

book by that title and veteran physician to the Aboriginals A.

Kalokerinos:

 

 

 

A health team would sweep into an area, line up all the Aboriginal

babies and infants and immunize them. There would be no examination no

taking of case histories, no checking on dietary deficiencies. Most

infants would have colds. No wonder they died Some would die within

hours . . . Others would suffer immunological insults and die later

from pneumonia, 'gastroenteritis'or 'malnutrition'.19

 

 

 

In Northeastern Thailand, in the villages visited practically all

mothers were breastfeeding, and were to some extent including fresh

garden vegetables and fruit in their diets. This in turn provided a

fair degree of protection from the kind of severe reactions and

mortality just noted among Australian Aboriginals. Nonetheless, it is

apparent that there still remains a sizable number of malnourished. To

quote C. Guthrie:

 

 

 

Malnutrition seems to be declining in the Northeast... Still,

malnutrition is widely prevalent. One does not need to go looking for

it. In one school . . . in Don Luang, 50 percent of the children were

suffering from one level of malnutrition or another. I found it

somewhat disturbing to find that the objective expressed by most

officials was restricted to the eradication of 3rd degree

malnutrition, in spite of the wide prevalence of 1st and 2nd degree

malnutrition.20

 

 

 

It appears that the mass coverage obsession common to UCI and EPI,

have run roughshod over the repeated qualifications, and warnings that

have been issued against administering vaccines to inimunodeficient

infants and children, of which malnutrition is a prime indicator. The

fact that a March 1988 Annual Report on this Project (p. 5) indicated

that a WHO/UNICEF review team found that EPI " drop out rates were

high, because of the fear of side effects as expressed by mothers, "

suggests that the prevalence of vaccine induced complications and

morbidity in Northeast Thailand, may well be more significant than

heretofore thought. (The broader question and implications of vaccine

induced morbidity and mortality will be examined in more detail, later

in the report.)

 

 

 

VACCINE SCHEDULING

 

 

 

The rationale behind administering multiple vaccines and toxoids

throughout the first 14 week period of an infant's life (excepting

measles) is that in the first year of life--when the immune system is

still relatively immature--a child is considered more susceptible to

most infectious diseases. However, this view fails to admit the

corollary that the immune and nervous systems of infants, are immature

thus making them potentially more vulnerable to the toxic effects of

vaccines and toxoids.

 

 

 

Nonetheless, the argument is commonly raised that vaccines must be

administered in accord with the recommended schedule, " (particularly

in the Developing World), as the risk of dangers is so marginal, and

the dangers of widespread and unchecked infectious diseases so great

that the infant must have the vaccines--or else. Of course this view

is acceptable only insofar as the multiple beliefs surrounding UCI/EPI

are valid, i.e., that there are no better disease preventative

measures; that the presence of such infections cannot be safely

handled or treated; and that vaccines are both highly effective and

very safe.

 

 

 

 

 

The current WHO recommended schedule vaccination follows: At birth BCG

(Tuberculosis) and OPV-0 (Polio--Live Oral, Trivalent)

 

6 weeks DPT#L (Diphtheria Toxoid; Pertussis/Whooping Cough; and

Tetanus Toxoid) and OPV#L

 

10 weeks DPT#2 and OPV#2

 

14 weeks DPT#3 and OPV#3

 

9 months Measles

 

 

 

It is instructive to consider the experience of Japan in this regard.

Delay of DPT immunization until 2 years of age in Japan has resulted

in a dramatic decline in adverse side effects. In the period of

1970-1974, when DPT vaccination was begun at 3 to 5 months of age, the

Japanese national compensation system paid out claims for 57 permanent

severe damage vaccine cases, and 37 deaths. During the ensuing six

year period 1975-1980, when DPT injections were delayed to 24 months

of age, severe reactions from the vaccine were reduced to a total of

eight with three deaths. This represents an 85 to 90 percent reduction

in severe cases of damage and death. 21

 

 

 

Although it is obvious that conditions in Japan remain distinctive

from that of most Developing World countries, it must be noted that

insofar as susceptibility to infectious disease remains greater in

lesser developed countries, it clearly follows that susceptibility to

vaccine damage will also be proportionally greater. Thus the lesson

from Japan carries a valid message relative to the prevention of

vaccine damage in Developing World EPI campaigns.

 

 

 

IMMUNIZATION'S IMPACT IN THE DECLENSION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES

 

 

 

Statistics indicate that over the life of this project, Thailand (and

presumably the Northeast region, for which direct figures were not

available) has exhibited some degree of declension in childhood

infectious diseases (excepting measles) for which immunization has--in

recent years--been made generally available. However, it must be borne

in mind that prima facie improvement in morbidity levels--in end of

itself--falls far short of proving any actual interventional cause and

effect relationship for EPI.

 

 

 

Direct discussions with the International Development Research

Centre's Health Sciences Division confirms that in selective primary

health care activities, such as EPI, there exists " no good base line

data from which to measure health care outcomes. SPHC (Selective

Primary Health Care) programs in the implementation of EPI appear to

ignore this whole issue, " Due to the strong and widely maintained

assumption that interventions such as EPI serve inextricably and

directly as the basis for health improvement outcomes, there has been

a general failure since the inception of the first vaccine programs to

establish genuinely verifiable evidence for their long term

effectiveness, and safety. 22

 

 

 

The general nature of this problem in Selective Primary Health Care

activities is well expressed by prominent Medical Sociologist J.

Williamson, when he says there has been a failure to " assess

explicitly the degree of validity and sufficiency of the evidence

linking care structures (facilities, personnel), and processes (what

providers do, e.g., EPI) to outcomes of care in general and to health

outcomes in particular. " 23

 

 

 

Epidemiological science is largely predicated on the reality that

changes in morbidity and mortality in populations are necessarily

linked to a whole series of contributive factors. " (Noted authority

George Dick states that: " Many infectious diseases can be prevented

without immunization, because once the natural history of the disease

is understood, the source may be eliminated or transmission prevented

[e.g.,] . . . . When it was discovered that cholera and typhoid

epidemics were regularly transmitted by faecal contamination of water,

the provision of clean water supplies nearly eradicated these diseases

from many countries without recourse to immunization. " )24 It is widely

acknowledged that factors such as: nutrition, sanitation, potable

water; the natural and social environments (e.g., agricultural

practices, food supply, education and income), all play vital roles in

determining the onset, severity, and eradication of both infectious

and degenerative diseases. Diseases such as cholera and typhoid, have

been strongly linked to water and sanitation, whereas evidence

continues to accumulate that nutrition remains likely the most

critical determinant factor in the full range of infectious and

degenerative human diseases.25

 

 

 

The very fact that in this UNICEF project--as in many others--EPI is

implemented over a period of years in the midst of a whole series of

other natural and basal socioeconomic improvement measures, each

having their own critical impact on any population's health status

(including epidemicity levels) suggests that EPI could actually be

playing a negligible or even a negative role, and no one would really

know the difference.

 

 

 

According to the recently completed comprehensive Program Evaluation

of the Canadian International Immunization Program--Phase 1, this

poses a situation in which the relative impact of expanded

immunization programs on mortality levels in the Developing World

remain largely unsubstantiated. To quote: " at present it appears that

there is no conclusive evidence on the impact of immunization on child

mortality from all causes . . . It may be that EPI's effect is merely

to bring about " replacement mortality, " whereby children . . . succumb

to other diseases instead. The uncertainty over the impacts of EPI

remain a major question in PHC programming. " 26

 

 

 

In a similar vein, Debabar Banerji, Chairman of the Centre of Social

Medicine and Community Health at Jawaharlal Nehru University raises

serious concerns with the UNICEF sponsored Universal Childhood

Immunization program in his own nation. He suggests that:

 

 

 

If we turn to the epidemiological analysis of UCI-90 in India, we are

astonished to learn that such a gigantic program has been launched

without having even the most basic data on infectious diseases . . .

Then how will it be possible to determine the cost-effectiveness of

the program? Actually, there ought to have been much more detailed

analysis. . . .

 

 

 

For example, with regard to disease levels and factors, he urges that

very basic questions should have been addressed before implementing

UCI, such as: . . . how different are the rates in different parts of

the country and what are the ecological, cultural, social and other

factors which affect the rates--through influencing the balance

between the host, the parasite [i.e., virus or microbe] and the

environment. Information should have been provided on what are the

trends in the epidemiological behaviour of the different diseases over

a time period, what should be the epidemiological strategy for

intervention in the natural histories of the diseases, and so on.

Paying scant attention to such critical epidemiological

considerations, the crusaders of UCI-90 have opted in favor of

saturation spraying with " silver bullets " [vaccines]. Over and above

this, there are also the important questions of efficacy of the

vaccines. . .

 

 

 

Administratively, the exponents of UCI-90 seem to indulge in

collective amnesia to wish the bitter experiences of major vertical

[top down] programs like the mass BCG Campaign, the National Malaria

Eradication Program, and the three [national] efforts at eradication

of smallpox . . . Also actively shunned are the many lessons from the

failures of vertical programs for trachoma, leprosy, filariasis,

cholera, and sexually transmitted diseases. " 27

 

 

 

 

 

INCOMPLETE STATISTICAL REPORTING

 

 

 

Selectively slanted and incomplete reporting of the true statistical

picture is not an infrequent problem in the promotive oriented

reporting on EPI impact data. For example, the following Tables B and

C, were based on data presented in Section 4.3 " Expanded Programme of

Immunization, " in UNICEF's Fourth Progress Report CUC/CIDA Development

of Basic Services for Children in Thailand, covering the period

January--December, 1988.

 

 

 

 

 

Table B -- Immunization Coverage for Measles in Thailand Year of

Coverage 1982

 

1983

 

1984

 

1985

 

1986

 

1987

 

1988

 

 

 

Percentage Immunized 06

 

26

 

44

 

60

 

63

 

 

 

Table C -- Incidence of measles in Thailand Year 1982

 

1983

 

1984

 

1985

 

1986

 

1987

 

1988

 

 

 

Number 27,691

 

34,713

 

47,205

 

32,156

 

19,659

 

42,051

 

32,498

 

 

 

Case Rate Per 100,000 (57.1)

 

(70.2)

 

(93.7)

 

(62.2)

 

(37.1)

 

(78.1)

 

59.1)

 

 

 

 

 

The following comment is made with respect to the expansion of the

measles vaccination program, " . . . the immunization coverage for

measles has increased from 6 percent in 1984 to 63 percent in 1988,

leading to a reduction in measles prevalence from 93.7/100,000 in 1984

to 37.1/100,000 in 1986. "

 

 

 

What the report fails to indicate though is that although the 1986

inununization coverage of 44% had increased by 1987 to 60%, the

measles infection rate in the same period actually more than doubled,

with an increase from 37.1 to 87.1 per 100,000. It is also noteworthy

that the culminating maximum immunization coverage of 63% achieved in

1988, correlates with a 1988 infection report rate of 59.1

/100,000--which in fact poses higher level of measles infection than

the 1982 reported infection rate of 57.1 /100,000, which was a time

when measles immunization was not being provided in Thailand. (The

higher per capita infection rate--after five years of expanding

coverage--obviously reflects very negatively on the assumed efficacy

of the vaccine, and may have been deliberately obfuscated in the

reporting. No evidence was seen to suggest that the post-immunization

increases in disease rates were attributable to case reporting

improvements.)

 

 

 

THE DEVELOPMENTAL IMPLICATIONS OF UCI/EPI

 

 

 

Clearly, Universal Childhood Immunization stands in contradiction to

the strategically development based primary health care principles as

embodied in the Alma Ata Declaration. (The issue of intersectoral

primary health care versus selective medicine remains an area of major

controversy. It will be examined in considerable detail later in this

paper). In fact, Developing World analysts such as D. Banerji,

forcefully contend that short term, " top down " approaches to health

care--such as EPI threaten to reverse Alma Ata's historic gains for

more self-directed and sustainable health care. In his view the

shifting emphasis toward selective medicine including UCI/EPI:

 

 

 

Negates the principle of community participation and control as

exemplified in " bottom up " development

 

Accords resource allocations only to certain target groups, ignoring

the needs of the total family and community

 

Reinforces elitist authoritarian attitudes, thus increasing oppression.

 

Has a fragile basis in science

 

Displays questionable moral and ethical values, in which a

questionable commodity of foreign and elite interests, is promoted to

and imposed on the majority of the people.28

 

In his own words, the Universal Childhood Immunization initiative,

constitutes the efforts of ruling interests in Donor nations:

 

 

 

.. . . to hit out at the very core of the philosophy of primary health

care by imposing technocentric vertical programs against a few

diseases in the name of saving children . . .This movement not only

tends to fragment a health care system and take it away from a wider

ecological, intersectoral, and integrated approach, but it also

actively hinders community self-reliance and seriously erodes the

democratic rights of the people to participate in decisions which so

vitally concern them. This is perhaps the most malignant facet of the

present efforts to impose specialized . . . programs from outside,

using social marketing techniques to sell them. " 29

 

 

 

Researchers like Rifkin and Walt maintain that interventions such as

EPI, are essentially based on the (now fading) view that human health

is dependent upon and arises from a force of elite professionals who

hold privileged knowledge--coupled with corresponding power and

control--to effect their disbursal of technocentrically contrived

benefits, to relatively ignorant and passive recipients.30 It goes

without saying that any programmed encouragement of this mind

set--despite the very best of intentions--constitutes an inimical

force to those principles and processes whereby intelligent

self-development, and informed self-care can prevail.

 

 

 

In reference to the developmental implications of UCI/EPI, medical

sociologist L.J. Chetelat notes that:

 

 

 

Health professionals, by taking and promoting easily executed

interventions, such as immunization, create a demand for these

programs and raise expectations which are seldom realized.. SPHC by

identifying specific techniques (such as EPI) and strongly supporting

them, diverts attention and resources from the process of development,

to highlighting specific programs with exaggerated and often

unpredictable outcomes. In reality, technocratic and " instant "

successes, put into danger the long slow process that leads to

sustained improvements. They are creating a climate of short-term

expediency, rather than long term change.31

 

 

 

 

 

IS IMMUNIZATION EFFECTIVENESS A CERTAINTY?

 

 

 

It can well be said that real " ignorance is not knowing, but knowing

what isn't so. " The question of whether vaccines in fact protect

recipients from the diseases for which they are given, might seem

absurd on the face of it. As already noted, when we closer examine the

question of statistical evidence for immunization's effectiveness,

there remain significant epidemiological uncertainties. The literature

further reveals some critical problems in data gathering,

interpretation and reporting practices. These basic concerns are

succinctly summarized by Professor Gordon Stewart, recent head of the

Department of Community Medicine at Glasgow University:

 

 

 

What kind of immunization is this for which success is being

claimed?... What kind of epidemiology is this which advocates

immunization b excluding, consideration of factors other than

immunization? . . . " at kind of editorial policy is this which

publishes incomplete data and promotes far reaching claims about the

efficacy of immunization, but refuses to publish collateral data

questioning this efficacy? 32

 

 

 

We are thus confronted with an unenviable situation where in the

general absence of verifiable multifactored and controlled studies,

EPI remains today--scientifically speaking--as a basically unproven

program intervention. In fact, there is a substantive and growing body

of data that call into serious question the soundness and

effectiveness of mass immunization programs. This data not only calls

into question EPI effectiveness, but further details adverse side

effects and potential long term dangers of this widely implemented

medical intervention.

 

 

 

EARLY THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS RE-EXAMINED

 

 

 

In order to better grasp the issue of vaccine effectiveness, it would

prove helpful for us to go back to the early theoretical foundation

upon which current vaccination and disease theories originated. In

simplest terms, the theory of artificial immunization postulates that

by giving a person a mild form of a disease, via the use of specific

foreign proteins, attenuated viruses, etc., the body will react by

producing a lasting protective response e.g., antibodies, to protect

the body if or when the real disease comes along.

 

 

 

This primal theory of disease prevention originated by Paul

Ehrlich--from the time of its inception--has been subject to

increasing abandonment by scientists of no small stature. For example

not long after the Ehrlich theory came into vogue, W.H. Manwaring,

then Professor of Bacteriology and Experimental Pathology at Leland

Stanford University observed:

 

 

 

I believe that there is hardly an element of truth in a single one of

the basic hypothesis embodied in this theory. My conviction that there

was something radically wrong with it arose from a consideration of

the almost universal failure of therapeutic methods based on it . . .

Twelve years of study with immuno-physical tests have yielded a mass

of experimental evidence contrary to, and irreconcilable with the

Ehrlich theory, and have convinced me that his conception of the

origin, nature, and physiological role of the specific 'antibodies' is

erroneous.33

 

 

 

To afford us with a continuing historical perspective of events since

Manwaring's time, we can next turn to the classic work on

auto-immunity and disease by Sir MacFarlane Burnett, which indicates

that since the middle of this century the place of antibodies at the

centre stage of immunity to disease has undergone " a striking

demotion. " For example, it had become well known that children with

agammaglobulinaemia--who consequently have no capacity to produce

antibody--after contracting measles, (or other zymotic diseases)

nonetheless recover with long-lasting immunity. In his view it was

clear " that a variety of other immunological mechanisms are

functioning effectively without benefit of actively produced antibody. " 34

 

 

 

The kind of research which led to this a broader perspective on the

body's immunological mechanisms included a mid-century British

investigation on the relationship of the incidence of diphtheria to

the presence of antibodies. The study concluded that there was no

observable correlation between the antibody count and the incidence of

the disease. " " The researchers found people who were highly resistant

with extremely low antibody count, and people who developed the

disease who had high antibody counts.35 (According to Don de Savingy

of IDRC, the significance of the role of multiple immunological

factors and mechanisms has gained wide recognition in scientific

thinking. [For example, it is now generally held that vaccines operate

by stimulating non-humeral mechanisms, with antibody serving only as

an indicator that a vaccine was given, or that a person was exposed to

a particular infectious agent.])

 

 

 

In the early 70's we find an article in the Australian Journal of

Medical Technology by medical virologist B. Allen (of the Australian

Laboratory of Microbiology and Pathology, Brisbane) which reported

that although a group of recruits were immunized for Rubella, and

uniformly demonstrated antibodies, 80 percent of the recruits

contracted the disease when later exposed to it. Similar results were

demonstrated in a consecutive study conducted at an institution for

the mentally disabled. Allen--in commenting on her research at a

University of Melbourne seminar--stated that " one must wonder whether

the . . . decision to rely on herd immunity might not have to be

rethought.36

 

 

 

As we proceed to the early 80s, we find that upon investigating

unexpected and unexplainable outbreaks of acute infection among

" immunized " persons, mainstream scientists have begun to seriously

question whether their understanding of what constitutes reliable

immunity is in fact valid. For example, a team of scientist writing in

the New England Journal of Medicine provide evidence for the position

that immunity to disease is a broader bio-ecological question then the

factors of artificial immunization or serology. They summarily

concluded: " It is important to stress that immunity (or its absence)

cannot be determined reliable on the basis of history of the disease,

history of immunization, or even history of prior serologic

determination.37

 

 

 

Despite these significant shifts in scientific thinking, there has

unfortunately been little actual progress made in terms of undertaking

systematically broad research on the multiple factors which undergird

human immunity to disease, and in turn building a system of prevention

that is squarely based upon such findings. It seems ironic that as

late as 1988 James must still raise the following basic questions.

" Why doesn't medical research focus on what factors in our environment

and in our lives weaken the immune system? Is this too simple? too

ordinary? too undramatic? Or does it threaten too many vested

interests . . ? " 38

 

ARTIFICIALLY INDUCED IMMUNITY--REALITY OR DELUSION?

 

 

 

Physiologist, S.K. Claunch raises an reasonable postulate when he

suggests that the body's capacity to initiate a " vigorous reaction "

(i.e., the acute processes of elimination associated with viral and

infectious diseases) hinges essentially on its level of vitality, and

thus such reactions are most commonly found in children. In contrast,

it is generally acknowledged that the very feeble and or chronically

diseased--who have significantly lower vital energy levels--tend to

remain relatively free from such acute reactions. This observation in

turn lead him to express the concept that:

 

 

 

If any child has its vitality lowered and its health impaired to the

degree that it is no longer strong enough to develop an acute disease,

it is, for the time being, at least " immune. " This is the exact

clinical picture one observes when serums, vaccines and " biologicals "

are shot into a child . . . its vitality is so lowered that it is no

longer healthy enough to protest or react against them. So long as its

vitality stays down, it will be " immune. " 39

 

 

 

A number of detractors have legitimately raised the question of how

the injection of foreign disease matter into the human system can

constitute a legitimate approach to the sustenance of human health.

After all, we don't seek warmth of icebergs, is there thus any more

logic in seeking health from substances which are intimately

associated with disease and death? The articulate view of physiologist

H.M. Shelton is that:

 

 

 

To interfere with the all-important composition of the blood in the

haphazard manner serologists do, results in incalculable disturbance

of its physiological equilibrium . . . health depends, not upon

killing bacteria [ & viruses] but upon building up the soundness . . .

integrity [and] functional vigor . . . of our own tissues and organs.

.. . . Normal resistance can be achieved only by use of the same means

by which it was originally built and maintained.

 

 

 

Nature makes no mistakes and violates no laws. She is uniformly

governed by fixed principles and all her actions harmonize with ...

[nature's governing] laws . . . The best, indeed the only method

ofpromoting public health is to teach people the laws of nature and..

how to preserve health. Immunization programs are futile, and are

based on the delusion that the law of cause and effect can be annulled

Vaccines and serums are employed as substitutesfor right living; they

are intended to supplant obedience to the laws of life. Such programs

are slaps in the face of law and order. " 40

 

 

 

AN HISTORIC OVERVIEW OF THE BACTERIAL/VIRALTHEORY OF DISEASE CAUSATION

 

 

 

In order to provide some further background to the reader, this

section will briefly recount some of the most significant observations

of earlier scientists on the broader question of what is the actual

role bacteria and viruses play in human infectious disease. The debate

on this issue--although an old one remains highly relevant and timely

in that the whole edifice of Western selective medicine, both

preventive and therapeutic, hinges upon a correct perspective on and

resolution of the question.

 

 

 

Indeed, it remains remarkable that whether we go to recent or more

distant history, we find that fundamentally critical scientific

discoveries and observations which serve to clarify these issues, and

point in a more appropriate direction, continue--at least in

practice--to be largely unknown and or ignored. (Some researchers

would suggest that this failure arises because such discoveries--if

genuinely applied--would significantly curb what amounts to annual

income totaling multiple billions of dollars in the exploitation of

human disease.) However, it is apparent that the factors underlying

this failure are in reality much broader and more complex.

 

 

 

Due to the need for brevity, only two cases of historic significance

will be considered. Earlier in this century, C.E. Rosenow of the Mayo

Biological Laboratories began a series of experiments in which he took

distinctive bacterial strains from a number of different disease

sources and placed them in one culture of uniform media. In time the

distinctive strains all became one class. By repeatedly changing

cultures, he could individually modify bacterial strains making them

some harmless or " pathogenic " and in turn reverse the process. He

concluded that the critical factor allowing demonstration of the

polymorphic nature of bacteria was their environment and the food they

lived upon. These discoveries were first published in the year 1914 in

the Journal of Infectious Disease. " 41

 

 

 

Rosenow's work was corroborated and expanded upon about two decades

later by R.R. Rife, developer of the Universal Microscope which was

developed concurrent with RCA's initial marketing of the electron

microscope. Rife's alternative was a 5,682 component, 150,000 power

(60,000 diameters of magnification) instrument which made live

bacteria visibly " clear as a cat on your lap. " This microscope was a

light transmitting instrument with a resolution of 31,000 diameters

(traditionally electron microscopes had resolutions of up to 25,000

diameters) which overcame the chief weakness of the electron scope,

i.e., the inability to view living cells structures and bacterial and

viral organisms in their unaltered living state.(An alternative was

required, as living matter when viewed under the electron scope,

becomes altered and distorted due to bombardment by a virtual

hailstorm of electrons, with such distortions increasing

proportionally with the intensity of magnification. Consequently, the

extremely high magnification levels found in the latest electron

microscopes actually serve to exacerbate this major flaw.)

 

 

 

Modern microscopy texts suggest that with light microscopes it is

impossible to obtain extremely high magnifications of objects and

still retain visual clarity. For example Novikoff and Holtzman affirm

that in such instruments a point is reached after which the image is

" increasingly blurred and nothing is gained by further magnification.

Thus, light microscopes are rarely used at magnifications greater than

.. . . 1500 X. " 42

 

 

 

However, Rife's invention with its 14 separate crystal quartz lenses

and prisms, was able to bend and to polarize light in such a way that

a specimen could be illuminated by extremely narrow portions of the

spectra, and even by a single light frequency. This combined with the

shortening of projection distance between prisms, and other innovative

technical features permitted high resolutions without distortion at

extremely high magnifications, never before or since attained in light

microscopy.43

 

 

 

Rife showed that by altering the environment and food supply, friendly

bacteria such as colon bacillus could be converted into varied

" pathogenic " bacteria. For example, Rife also observed that bacillus

coli could in time be modified into the bacterial agent associated

with typhus, and the process actually reversed. In Rife's words:

 

 

 

In reality, it is not the bacteria themselves that produce the

disease, but we believe it is . . . the unbalanced cell metabolism of

the human body that in actuality produce the of disease. We also

believe if the metabolism of the human body is perfectly balanced . .

.. it is susceptible to no disease.44

 

 

 

This observation closely parallels Alexis Carrel's earlier research at

the Rockefeller Institute where he was able to control the rates and

levels of infectious disease mortality among mice. Beginning with the

standard diet he observed a corresponding death rate of 52 percent. By

making specific dietary improvements he was able to reduce mortality

rates downward to 32 percent, then 14 percent, and finally to a rate

of 0.45

 

 

 

Not too long after Rife's and Carrel's reported observations,

scientist Rene Dubos (also at the Rockefeller Institute) reaffirmed

their open and direct challenge to the conventional thinking and

practice of the scientific community at large. He suggested that the

presumed relationship between microbes and the onset of human disease

has been " so oversimplified that it rarely fits the facts of disease.

Indeed it corresponds almost to a cult . . . undisturbed by

inconsistencies and not too exacting about evidence. " He expanded upon

this view in suggesting that we need to objectively account for the

fact that extremely virulent:

 

 

 

.. . . pathogenic agents [i.e., bacterial and viral micro-organisms]

sometimes can persist in the tissues without causing disease, and at

other times can cause disease even in the presence of specific

antibodies. We need also to explain why microbes supposed to be

non-pathogenic often start proliferating in an unrestrained manner if

the body's normal physiology is upset. . . .

 

 

 

During the first phase of the germ theory the property was regarded as

lying solely within the microbes themselves. Now virulence is coming

to be thought of as ecological . . . This ecological concept is not

merely an intellectual game; it is essential to a proper formulation

of the problem of microbial diseases and even to their control " 46

 

 

 

Indeed, Dubos--in time--came to voice the conclusion that " Viruses and

bacteria are not the cause of disease, there is something else. " In

his classic work Mirage of Health, he states " The world is obsessed by

the fact that poliomyelitis can kill and maim . . . unfortunate

victims every year. But more extraordinary is the fact that millions

upon millions of young children become infected by polio virus, yet

suffer no harm from the infection. " 47 This view closely corresponds to

the oft quoted conclusion arrived at in later life by R. Virchow

(popularly reputed as father of the " germ theory " ) when he stated, " If

I could live my life over again, I would devote it to proving that

germs seek their natural habitat, diseased tissues, rather than being

the cause of disease. "

 

 

 

Since Dubos' time, researchers have estimated that the quantity of

symptom free exposure to viruses out number clinical illnesses by at

least one hundred-fold.48 This conclusion is based on the " high

proportion of adults who have virus-neutralizing substances in their

serum and the number who, during an epidemic, excrete virus without

becoming ill.49

 

 

 

Further corroborative conclusions have been recently reached by some

prominent scientists in their critical examination of the popular view

that Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV) is the key, if not the

singular cause of the Acquired Immuno-deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).

Evidence is in that the popularized view that HIV causes AIDS is far

more a political necessity, than a genuine scientific conclusion.

(Although the observed action and effects of viruses, and

retroviruses--such as HIV--do in fact significantly differ, what is

being called into question is the validity of labeling microbes--of

whatever form--as the key and or sole " cause " for disease, or as in

this case of acquired immunodeficiency.)

 

 

 

Peter Duesberg (Professor of Molecular Biology at the University of

Calif.- Berkeley; considered by many to be the world's leading expert

on retroviruses; and Nobel Prize candidate for his work in discovering

oncogenes in viruses) provides compelling evidence that lifestyle

based factors serve as the primal determinants in the evolution of the

20 plus neoplastic and degenerative diseases that are now associated

with AIDS. Employing his own research--complemented by 196 cited

references--an article entitled " HIV and AlDs: Correlation but not

causation, " was published in 1989 in the Proceedings of the National

Academy of Sciences USA. This article indicates that " Free " HIV virus

(Free meaning that the retrovirus is already part of the genome) is

not detectable in most cases of AIDS; " " Pure HIV does not cause AIDS

upon experimental infection of chimpanzees or accidental infection of

healthy humans; " and " Epidemiological surveys indicate that the annual

incidence of AIDS [to be understood as a condition symptomized by

various secondary infections for which natural immunity has been lost]

depends critically on non-viral [related] risk factors . . . defined

by lifestyle, health, and country of residence. "

 

 

 

In an interview published nearly five years later Dr. Duesberg is more

convinced than ever that the HIV retrovirus is not the cause of AIDS,

or of the mortality associated with AIDS. Some of the key points he

makes in this important interview follow:

 

 

 

There are roughly seven and a half million people world wide who are

known carriers of HIV, and who continue to remain free of the immune

deficiency symptoms associated with AIDS, and there's not one

authenticated case " where you get infected today and get a disease. .

.. years later . . . infectious agents work immediately or never. "

 

HIV has been found to be totally absent in the system of over 4,600

persons diagnosed with AIDS, so to save political face the US Centers

for Disease Control have been forced of late to give such cases a new

name i.e., " idiopathic CD 4 Iymphocytopenia. "

 

There are a million Americans with HIV and their T cells are normal,

indeed, " HIV is one of the most harmless viruses you could possibly

have. It never claims more than one in 1,000 cells every other day "

during which time your body replaces " at least 30 out of 1,000 " cells.

 

AIDS is not an infectious disease, but rather arises from " party

swinger lifestyles " that includes: the widespread and abundant use of

various immune- depleting drugs both legal and illegal such as

cocaine, alcohol, marijuana, amphetamines, aphrodisiacs, amyl or butyl

nitrites (poppers), combined with correlated conditions of

malnutrition, inadequate sleep, and poor hygiene.

 

Another key cause of AIDS and the mortality arising from it is medical

treatment in itself, viz. AZT has become " AIDS by prescription " and

design. In other words in the US alone 200,000 persons (most of whom

have normal health) who've tested positive for HIV antibodies, are

given 250 mg of AZT every six hours. This highly toxic drug destroys

bone marrow, as well as red blood cells thus precipitating cellular

oxygen starvation destroys white blood cells; causes anemia, weight

loss, muscle loss, nausea, and worsening immune system deficiency

coupled with the ensuing infectious diseases commonly associated with

AIDS, and finally death. (The very same sequence of rapid

physiological deterioration, immune deficiency and infections has been

documented in healthy persons who were tested positive for HIV, and

quickly submitted to medical treatment, but were later confirmed as

false positives.)50

 

Bio medical scientist and AIDS researcher Joseph Sonnabend speaks of

" . . . the failure of our scientific and medical institutions to have

provided an even rudimentary understanding of the pathogenesis of this

disease in the eight years since its first description, let alone to

have developed interventions...that might significantly alter its

course. " His well researched conclusions include the view that " The

association of HIV seropositivity with AIDS could . . . derive from

the possibility that the _expression of HIV (and consequent

seroconversion) is an effect, rather than a cause of AIDS. . . " 51

 

 

 

In summary, if we retum to Robert Koch's 19th century postulates of

the " Germ Theory, " viz. in order to cause disease particular

" bacterium: " a) must be found in every case of the disease; b) must

never be found apart from the disease; and c) must consistently

produce the same disease as that manifested by the body from which the

disease related germs were taken; we find that in reality each

postulate has been disproved time and again by varied experience and

experimental data.52

 

 

 

Nonetheless, it appears that to this day there remains only a marginal

acknowledgment or practical recognition that it is the condition of

the body-mind complex and its internal and external environments,

which are the principal determinants of the nature, prevalence and

role of bacteria, viruses, and even retroviruses.

 

 

 

THE BACTERIAL/VIRALVERSUS THE CELLULAR/ECOLOGICALTHEORY OF INFECTIOUS

DISEASE

 

 

 

As a result of the re discovery of many of these earlier scientific

investigations, as well as more recent observations in molecular

biology, there has arisen among more independent scientists and

primary health practitioners a new concept that has been coined as the

cellular theory of infectious disease. This seemingly more logical and

updated view, poses a serious challenge to the present unquestioned

emphasis on supporting mass selective medicine approaches (including

artificial immunization) in the Developing World.

 

 

 

The traditional Bacterial--Viral and the emerging Cellular--Ecological

theories of disease are contrasted in the table which follows. The

practical acceptance of the cellular theory as delineated would entail

a substantive shift away from both preventive and therapeutic

interventions which are heavily predicated on Western selective

medicine, i.e., vaccines and drugs, and toward fundamental health

improvement measures such as sound nutrition, potable water,

sanitation and overall enhancement of the human physical and social

environments.53

 

 

 

Considerable experimental, historical and epidemiological evidence

supports the cellular ecological theory, as outlined in Table D.

 

 

 

 

 

TABLE D --- INFECTIOUS DISEASE THEORIES CONTRASTED Bacterial/Viral Theory

 

of Infectious Disease

 

Cellular/Ecological Theory

 

of Infectious Disease

 

 

 

1. Disease arises from micro-organisms originating outside the body.

1. The evolution of and susceptibility to disease arises from

conditions arising within the cells of the body.

 

2. As the primary cause of disease, micro-organisms are generally

considered as vicious, needing to be destroyed. 2. These

micro-organisms are primarily endogenousto more complex living

organisms and normally function to assist the life sustaining and/or

metabolic processes of such bodies.

 

3. The appearance and function of specific micro-organisms is

constant. 3. The appearance and function of these micro-organisms

undergo pathogenic changes when the host organism is weakened or

injured, which injury may be mechanicallly, biochemically or

emotionally induced.

 

4. Every disease is associated with a particular micro-organism. Every

disease is asssociated with particular factors and conditions.

 

5. Micro-organisms are primary causal agents. 5. Micro-organisms

become pathogenic, i.e., associated with disease, only when the

integral health of the body deteriorates. Hence, psycho-physical

integrity is of first importance, as it constitutes the key factor in

the prevention, or the remediation of human disease in all its forms.

 

6. Disease is inevitable and can " strike " anybody, anytime. 6. Disease

arises from the persistent violation of natural laws, and correlated

unhealthful conditions.

 

7. To prevent and cure disease, it is necessary to war upon pathogenic

micro-organisms (using toxic aqnd pathogenic weaponry) that as well,

destroys the health of the body-mind complex. 7. To prevent or cure

all forms of disease, one need only to ensure that the primal

requisites of health ore met, which includes sysstematic compliance

with natural physical, psychological, and spiritual law.

 

 

 

In that major declines in infectious disease took place before the

advent of specific vaccines and antibiotics, scientists and or

physicians such as Dubos, Dettman, Illich, McCormick, Taylor, Buttram,

and Hoffman agree that the overall eradication of varied infectious

diseases were due to basic improvements in nutrition, sanitation,

housing, education and related socioeconomic conditions. For example,

Canadian physician W.J. McCormick was able to make this telling

observation at midpoint in the present century.

 

 

 

The usual explanation offered for this changed trend in infectious

diseases has been the forward March of medicine in prophylaxis and

therapy; but, from a study of the literature, it is evident that these

changes in incidence and mortality have been neither synchronous with

nor proportionate to such measures . . .

 

 

 

.. . . . the decline in diphtheria, whooping cough and typhoid fever

began fully fifty years prior to the inception of artificial

immunization and followed an almost even grade before and after the

adoption of these control measures. In the case of scarlet fever,

mumps, measles and rheumatic fever there has been no specific

innovation in control measures, yet these also have followed the same

general pattern in incidence decline.54

 

 

 

 

 

INFECTIOUS DISEASE TABLES

 

 

 

Tables I--X

 

 

 

Span several decades--with some going back to the mid-nineteenth

century--and reveal the evidence upon which McCormack's observation is

based.

 

 

 

 

 

Tables XI & XII

 

 

 

Provide more recent data which suggest the apparent failure of

Expanded Programs of Immunization in the reversal and prevention of

whooping cough (pertussis) and diphtheria in Nigeria, with notable

increases in these diseases occurring soon after implementation of

widespread immunization (tables in the source article for measles,

polio and tetanus, although not included, each suggest that the impact

of EPI was negligible).

 

 

 

 

 

Tables XIll--XVIII

 

 

 

Represents the period of a decade in the Dominican Republic (a

visually parallel micro-cosm to the longer decline periods exhibited

in the Western world) where there occurred a general pattern of

significant multiple infectious disease declines--prior to the advent

of expanded immunization--with a general pattern of moderate increases

in various disease levels occurring soon after full implementation of

specific immunization interventions, followed by a return to the

earlier decline pattern.

 

 

 

 

 

FURTHER BACKGROUND NOTES ON TABLES

 

 

 

It is a rarely excepted rule that when increases and or decreases in

disease specific mortality occur, there will be corresponding changes

in morbidity, (e.g., see parallel death, and case bar lines on tetanus

and tuberculosis in Canadian Immunization Guide, 3rd Edition, 1989).

 

The only tables which are not essentially visual reproductions of

tables found in the documented " Source References, " are Tables XIII-

XVIII. The reason follows: In reviewing a series of 6 UNICEF

evaluation studies (Evaluation Pub. No's 1-6) on EPI efforts

throughout the 1980's in Nigeria, Burkino Faso, Turkey, Cameroon,

Senegal, and the Dominican Republic, only Pub. No. 6 on the Dominican

Republic provided sufficient epidemiological data to permit the

drawing of any definite conclusions on EPI impacts. Because EPI

intervention data was not included in the evaluation report's

morbidity tables, original tables were prepared.

 

The designation " natural decline, " simply indicates infectious disease

declines free from adventitious immuno-prophylaxes. As in the West,

significant and enduring non-artificial immunization factored declines

have occurred in the Developing World. This has occurred despite what

are considered to be normal cyclical down and up-swings in infectious

disease levels.

 

 

 

Table 1: Deaths of Children Under 15 Years (England & Wales)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table I--shows that in England and Wales there was a 90 percent

decline in child mortality from the combined infectious diseases of

scarlet fever, diptheria, whooping cough, and measles in the period of

1850 to 1940. The first vaccine made available was for diptheria in

the early 40's, whereas the pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine became

available in the early 50's and the measles vaccine in the late 60's

(no vaccine was provided for scarlet fever).55

 

 

 

Table II: Whooping Cough (England & Wales)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table II--indicates that in England and Wales the annual death rate of

children (under age 15) from whooping cough declined by roughly 98.5

percent in the period covering 1868 to 1953, after which the pertussis

vaccine became generally available.56

 

 

 

 

 

Table III: Measles (England & Wales)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table III--shows that in England and Wales the annual death rate of

children (under age 15) from measles declined from over 1,100 per

million in the mid-neneteenth century, to a level of virtually 0, by

the mid 1960's.57

 

 

 

Table IV: Smallpox (England & Wales)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table IV--reveals that in England and Wales there was a continuing

decline in the annual death rate from smallpox, with a reduction in

mortality of roughly 300 per million to virtually 0, taking place in

the 60 year period following the middle of the last century. This

table further illustrates that the progressive rate of decline was

severely disrupted--with a roughly 275 percent increase in mortality

from the disease--occurring immediately after smallpox vaccination

laws were enforced.58

 

 

 

Table V: Infant Mortality Rate (Australia)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table V--Indicates that in Australia, approximately two thirds of the

total decline in infant deaths from all childhood infectious diseases,

in the period covering 1881 to 1971, occurred before the introduction

of mass immunization offorts.59

 

 

 

Table VI: Declining Death Rates (US)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table VI--reveals that in the United States--without benefit of any

vaccine--the tuberculosis mortality rate underwent a drop of roughly

96 percent in the first 60 years of this century; and that in a little

short of the same time span (although the effectiveness of the vaccine

has been seriously questioned by reputed scientists) mortality from

typhoid vanished.60

 

 

 

Table Vll: Declining Death Rates (England)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table VII--shows that in England death rates from respiratory

tuberculosis underwent a roughly 87 percent decline in the period

beginning 1855 and ending in 1947, when antibiotics first came into

wide use; and a further decline approximating 93 percent by 1953,

preceedin the introduction of the BCG vaccine.61

 

 

 

Table Vlll: Number of Countries Reporting Smallpox

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table VIII--reveals, in the 17 year period preceeding the WHO Smallpox

Eradication Program, a progressive drop to nearly one half, in the

number of countries reporting smallpox morbidity.62

 

 

 

Table IX: Acute Rheumatic Fever Death Rates (Britain)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table IX--indicates that in Britain, the annual death rate from

rheumatic fever underwent a decline approximating 86 percent in the

period covering 1850 to 1946, before penicillin had become available.63

 

 

 

Table X: Scarlet Fever Death Rate (England & Wales)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table X--reveals that in the period of 1865 to 1935, before

sulfonamides had become available in England and Wales, the annual

death rate from scarlet fever declined by approximately 96 percent.64

 

 

 

Table XI: Diphtheria (Nigeria)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table XI--shows that following a significant increase in the diptheria

morbidity rate which Peaked in 1977, the disease underwent two years

of rapid natural decline--equivalent to 73.5 percent--in the number of

cases, with such decline occurring prior to the immplementation of EPI

in 1979. This decline pattern continued during implementation of EPI

to 1980, after which--by 1982--the incidence of diptheria exhibited a

major increase of nearly 30 fold.65

 

 

 

Table XII: Whooping Cough (Nigeria)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table XII--shows that a significant increase in the whooping cough

morbidity rate (1973 to 1974), was followed by a sharp natural decline

from 1974 to 1975 equivalent to 91 percent. The very slight incline

which followed up to 1979--when EPI was introduced--still posed an

86.5 percent lower morbidity level than in 1974. Post EPI data

indicate a short lived slight decline, followed by an increase in

morbidity of 34 percent over the ensuring two years.66

 

 

 

Table XIII: Poliomyelitis (Dominican Republic)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table XIII--reveals that in the period of 1980 to mid 1983--before

implementation of EPI the poliomyelitis morbidity rate underwent a

natural decline equivalent to 98.5 percent to wheat is practically an

eradication level of only 1 per million. EPI was followed by a

continuing natural decline to zero, however the incidence of

poliomyelitis then underwent a minor increase for two years, and

gradually returned to a zero level in 1980.67

 

 

 

Table XIV: Measles (Dominican Republic)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table XIV--indicates that in the period of 1980 to late 1985--before

implementation of EPI the measles morbidity rate underwent a natural

decline equivalent to 88 percent. Upon introduction of EPI in late

1985, the natural decline continued for a brief period, halted and

then measles more than doubled from its 1986 and 1987 levels.68

 

 

 

Table XV: Diphtheria (Dominican Republic)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table XV--shows that in the period of 1978 to mid 1985--before

implementation of EPI--the diptheria morbidity rate underwent a

natural decline equivalent to 81.5 percent. Upon introduction of EPI

in mid 1985, the natural decline continued for a brief period, and

then by 1987 the diptheria case rate more than doubled from its 1986

level. The disease than returned to its natural rate of decline,

proceeding to a very low level in 1989.69

 

 

 

Table XVI: Pertussis (Dominican Republic)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table XVI--reveals that in the period of 1978 to mid 1985--before

implementation of EPI the pertussis (whooping cough) morbidity rate

underwent a natural decline equivalent to 84.5 percent. Upon

introduction of EPI in mid 1985, there was a slight rise and then

return to the earlier natural decline pattern reaching its lowest

level by 1988. However, by 1989 the pertussis morbidity rate nearly

tripled from its 1988 level.70

 

 

 

Table XVII: Tetanus (Dominican Republic)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table XVII--indicates that in the period of 1979 to mid 1985--before

implementation of EPI the tetanus morbidity rate underwent a natural

decline equivalent to 74 percent. Upon introduction of EPI in mid

1985, the natural rate of decline continued for a brief period to

1986. However, by 1988 the incidence of tetanus had more than tripled

from its 1986 level, and then by 1988 returned to its earlier natural

decline pattern, reaching a level in 1989 still higher than its 1986

level.71

 

 

 

Table XVIII: Neonatal Tetanus (Dominican Republic)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table XVIII--shows that in the period of 1978 to the end of

1985--before the implementation of EPI (tetanus toxoid for expectant

mothers)--the neonatal tetanus morbidity rate underwent a natural

decline equivalent to 98.5 percent. Upon introduction of EPI in late

1985, the natural rate of decline continued for a brief period to

1987. However by 1988 the incidence of neonatal tetanus had increased

by nearly five fold over its 1987 rate, and then by 1989 declined to a

level still higher than it was in 1986.72

 

 

 

 

 

IMMUNIZATION EFFECTIVENESS DATA

 

 

 

Data on Diphtheria

 

 

 

Ekanem's earlier noted research (Table XI), reveals an increase of 215

percent in the number of diphtheria cases by the end of the three year

period following implementation of UNICEF's Expanded Program of

Immunization. Robert Mendelsohn (Assoc. Prof. of Preventive Medicine

and Community Health, University of Illinois) reports " that children

who have been immunized [for diphtheria] fare no better than those who

have not. " He went on to describe an outbreak of diphtheria in which

" fourteen of twenty-three carriers had been fully immunized. " This

means that just over 60 percent of the carriers who were presumed to

be protected by the toxoid, contracted the disease. In his words

" Episodes such as these shatter the argument that immunization can be

credited with eliminating diphtheria or any of the other . . .

childhood diseases. " 73

 

 

 

The following conclusion is extracted from the Minutes of the 15th

Session (November 20-21, 1975) of the Panel of Review of Bacterial

Vaccines and Toxoids with Standards and Potency (data presented by the

US Bureau of Biologics, and the Food and Drug Administration).

 

 

 

For several reasons, diphtheria toxoid, fluid or absorbed, is not as

effective an immunizing agent as might be anticipated. Clinical

(symptomatic) diphtheria may occur . . . in immunized

individuals--even those whose immunization is reported as complete by

recommended regimes . . . the permanence of immunity induced by the

toxoid . . . is open to question.74

 

 

 

 

 

Earlier historical data on protective toxoiding efforts in N. America

clearly verify not only the FDA's conclusion, but the fact that the

toxoid actually exacerbated the seriousness of the disease. North

American data on various diphtheria outbreaks in the early 40's,

reveal the following facts.

 

 

 

In the Halifax Canada epidemic, of the cases admitted for hospital

treatment, 66 had previously received one or more doses of diphtheria

toxoid or antitoxin, or were found Shick negative. In fact, of this

number five cases had been immunized within the preceding two month

period.75

 

In the Ottawa Canada epidemic, of 99 cases (all under the age of 15),

36 were found to have previously received all three doses of the toxoid.76

 

In the Baltimore USA epidemic, 63 percent of all cases had a record or

history of prior immunization with toxoid. Among the fatal and more

serious " Bull-neck " cases, 77.8 percent had previously been toxoided.77

 

During roughly the same historic period, we find in various European

countries a gripping picture suggesting that the use of Diphtheria

toxoid in fact precipitated epidemics of the disease.77

 

Throughout 1941 to 1944 " The Ministry and Dept. of Health, Scotland,

admitted almost 23,000 cases of diphtheria in immunized children, "

with 180 fatalities.78

 

By the year 1941, the majority of children in France had been

inoculated for diphtheria, the case rate standing at 13,795 by the end

of that year. Mass immunization efforts continued, and " by 1943, the

diphtheria cases were more than tripled to 46,750. " 79

 

Diphtheria increased by 55 percent in Hungary and tripled in Geneva,

Switzerland after the introduction of compulsory immunization laws. In

Germany, with compulsory mass immunization " introduced in 1940, the

number of cases increased from 40,000 per year to 250,000 by 1945,

virtually all among immunized children. " Norway, during the same time

frame--just noted--remained unvaccinated, and had only 50 recorded

cases of diphtheria. 80

 

" In Sweden, diphtheria virtually disappeared without any immunization. " 81

 

According to Coumoyer's research, official US Military records show

that enlisted men and women who are thoroughly vaccinated--manifest a

morbidity and mortality rate from diphtheria four times higher, than

that of unvaccinated civilians.82

 

 

 

Data on Measles

 

 

 

As already noted earlier in this report, the national per capita case

rate in Thailand for measles in 1982, 2 years before the advent of the

Expanded Programme of Immunization, was lower than in the year 1988,

i.e., 5 years after implementation of EPI. Per Ekanem's earlier cited

research, the national per capita case rate in Nigeria for measles in

1973, 6 years before the advent of UNICEF's Expanded Programme of

Immunization, was lower than in the year 1982, i.e., 3 years after

implementation of EPI.83

 

 

 

The University of Alberta initiated special research on the question

of measles immunity, as a result of a measles epidemic which " swept "

the University campus in 1987, despite a " 98 percent immunization

rate. " The research team's head immunologist R. Marusyk (who is also

affiliated with the Alberta Provincial Public Health Laboratory) has

subsequently confirmed that it is an invalid assumption that

vaccination programs for measles--which are normally administered at 9

to 12 months, and a later childhood booster shot--confers lifelong

immunity. One of their findings indicated that 93 percent of infants

" who were studied " showed no immunity by the age of six months. The

mothers of the 120 babies had all been vaccinated. Normally,

antibodies that have been transferred at birth from the mother to the

child remain present for a year. " 84 (According to D. de Saving at

IDRC, this transfer and retention of antibodies apparently occurs when

the mother has had an actual measles infection, and not just vaccination.)

 

 

 

Similar to the experience at the University of Alberta, the National

Geographic in its January 1991 issue article " The Disease Detectives, "

refers to a 1988 measles epidemic at Fort Lewis College, Durango,

Colorado USA in these words: " Surprisingly most who fell ill had been

vaccinated. CDC (US Center for Disease Control) investigators rushed

to the campus during the 1988 outbreak to trace what had gone wrong. "

 

 

 

There are repeated reports of measles epidemics occurring in fully

vaccinated populations. These failures have occurred repeatedly since

the vaccines introduction.85 Other documented research findings follow:

 

 

 

A survey conducted in 1978--covering 30 states in the US--revealed

that " more than half of the children who contracted measles had been

adequately vaccinated; " 86

 

Moskowitz et al. found that in those states with comprehensive

(k-grade 12) immunization requirements, between 61 and 90 percent of

measles cases occur in persons who received the recommended

vaccines;87 and

 

A review of 1,600 cases of measles in Quebec, Canada in the period of

January to May of 1989, revealed that 5 8 percent of school-age cases

had been previously vaccinated.88

 

According to an unpublished WHO research study comparing what would be

defined as a " measles susceptible " group of children, to a control

group that had been immunized for measles, it was observed that the

non-immunized group manifested a normal contraction rate of 2.4

percent, whereas the immunized group exhibited a 33.5 percent

contraction level. This implies a 15 times greater likelihood of

infection by the immunized.89 (The researchers responded to these

results with the comment that the vaccine must have been mishandled,

or perhaps the vaccine used was badly manufactured.)

 

 

 

It is of interest that there is an emerging body of mathematically

based epidemiological research which suggests practicable problems

with EPI efforts in the control and eradication of measles in the

Developing World. For example, P. Kenya observes that:

 

 

 

Horizontal mass immunization campaigns at regular intervals may be

impractical in terms of costs and operational logistics. . . . In

spite of high measles immunization coverages, measles epidemics are

often reported, not only in the less developed regions but also in

those developed countries with measles elimination targets.90

 

 

 

 

 

Data on Polio

 

 

 

An article in a major consumer journal titled " Twentieth-century

miraclemaker, " in extolling the value of Salk's polio vaccine,

indicated that in 1953, there were 15,600 cases of paralytic polio in

the United States; by 1957, due to the vaccine, this number dropped to

2,499. " Since this popular conception persists to this day as an

important demonstration of the effectiveness of vaccination procedures

in general, and the polio vaccine in particular, it bears some

re-examination.

 

 

 

Bernard Greenberg (late Dean--School of Public Health, University of

N. Carolina) who--during the polio epidemics of the 50's--chaired the

Committee on Evaluation and Standards for the American Public Health

Association, submitted testimony to the Congressional Hearings on

polio vaccines (HR0541, 1962). His evidence respecting diagnostic

modifications and statistical manipulation, seriously challenged the

popularly promoted view that the epidemics subsided as a result of

vaccine intervention. In his words " As a result of . . . changes in

both diagnosis and diagnostic methods, the rates of paralytic

poliomyelitis plummeted from the early 1950's to a low in 1957. " This

involved:

 

 

 

redefinition of what constitutes an epidemic

 

redefinition of the disease; and

 

mislabelling, and later reclassification (prior to 1954 " large

numbers " of presumed " paralytic polio " cases were actually " Coxsackie

.. . . and aseptic meningitis, " statistical reclassification of " polio "

cases (not leading to permanent paralysis) in the ensuing 4 year

period became the norm in virtually all regions of the country.

 

It is of further interest that Greenberg testified that after the

introduction of much more intensive and frequently compulsory

immunization programs--beginning in 1957--there was a correspondingly

substantial increase in polio cases (which were presumably paralytic,

due to the aforenoted reclassification process). In the period of

1957-1958 there was a 50 percent increase, and 1958-1959 an 80 percent

increase in such cases. He also indicated that during this period

statistics were manipulated and statements made by the US Public

Health service, to give an opposite impression.92

 

 

 

A distinguished interdisciplinary medical panel moderated at the 120th

Annual Meeting of the Illinois State Medical Society, confirmed that

in the year 1959, roughly 1,000 cases of paralytic polio occurred in

persons who had previously received multiple doses of the Salk

vaccine. As a panel member,

 

B. Greenberg contributed the following observation:

 

 

 

One of the most obvious pieces of misinformation . . . is that the 50

percent rise in paralytic poliomyelitis in 1958, and the real

accelerated increase in 1959 have been caused by persons failing to be

vaccinated This represents . . . an unwillingness to face facts and to

evaluate the true effectiveness of the Salk vaccine. . . . A

scientific examination of the data and the manner in which the data

were manipulated, will reveal that the true effectiveness of the

present Salk vaccine is unknown and greatly overrated.93

 

 

 

When pediatrician R. Mendelsohn, was asked whether polio would return

if vaccinations were stopped, he replied " Doctors admit that forty

percent of our population is not immunized against polio. So where is

polio? Diseases are like fashions, they come and go . . . " Later on US

National television he referred to epidemiological records which

revealed the disappearance of polio in Europe during the 40's and

50's, without benefit of immunizations.94

 

 

 

Speaking at an international health convention in 1978, A. Burton

reported that statistical data compiled by the University of New South

Wales in Australia revealed that polio immunization programs had no

measurable impact in reversing what was a recent epidemic in that

country. He expressed the view that polio comes in cycles anyway, and

when it does subside, it is inadvertently considered " conquered " by

vaccines.95 This naturally occurring cycle in polio epidemics was well

illustrated in Great Britain where polio peaked in 1950, and had

declined by 82 percent by the year 1956, at which time the vaccine was

first introduced.96

 

 

 

Returning to the earlier cited US Congressional Hearings (HR 1054), we

find that the nation of Israel experienced a major " type I " polio

epidemic in 1958. Mass polio immunization had already been enforced

and there was no appreciable difference in contraction levels between

the vaccinated and unvaccinated. Additionally, 3 years later in 1961,

the state of Massachusetts experienced a " type II " polio outbreak in

which " there were more paralytic cases in the triple vaccinates than

in the unvaccinated " .97

 

 

 

It is noteworthy that in one of the few double blind trials that have

been conducted on a vaccine, was for the Salk polio vaccine, in which

trial over 200 individuals who received the vaccine went on to

contract polio, whereas no observed polio cases developed amongst the

controls. This trial was reported by Mendelsohn who in the same 1984

article wrote:

 

 

 

The evidence points to mass inoculation against polio as the cause of

most remaining cases of the disease . . . there is an ongoing debate

among the immunologists regarding the . . . killed virus vs. live

virus vaccine. Supporters of the killed virus vaccine maintain that it

is the presence of live virus organisms in the other product that is

responsible for thepolio cases that . . . appear. Supporters of the

live virus type argue that the killed virus vaccine offers inadequate

protection and actually increases the susceptibility (to polio) of

those vaccinated. . . . I believe that both factions are right, and

that use of either of the vaccines will increase not diminish the

possibility that your child will contract the disease.98

 

 

 

 

 

Thirteen scientists recently concluded that: vaccine failures in the

major Oman polio epidemic could not be explained by failures in the

cold chain, nor on suboptimum vaccine potency; the efficacy of OPV in

inducing " humoral immunity " was lower than expected; and primary

reliance on routine polio immunization may be " inadequate " to achieve

the goal of eradicating polio by the year 2000. (They also noted

similar paralytic polio epidemics in other highly vaccinated

populations,99 e.g., the Gambia, Brazil, and Taiwan.)

 

 

 

Data on Pertussis (Whooping Cough)

 

 

 

V. Fulginiti, Chairman of the American Academy of Paediatrics

Committee on Infectious Diseases made this incisive observation:

 

 

 

Despite more than 30 years of experience with pertussis immunization,

the reasons for recovery from the acute infection and subsequent

immunity, are still uncertain. It is known that second attacks are

rare following natural disease. It is also known that 45-95% of

recipients of pertussis vaccine are susceptible to pertussis up to 12

years later . . . we do not understand the immunologic mechanisms

involved in resistance to infection after natural disease or immunization.

 

 

 

Is pertussis vaccine effective? . . . prior to the widespread use

ofpertussis vaccine, both the incidence of pertussis and the

case-fatality ratio declined. A 50-fold reduction in incidence and an

84% reduction in case-fatality were recorded in Great Britain in the

years between 1947 and 1972. . . . In England, protection provided by

vaccines prior to 1968 was meager; no greater than 20% protection was

noted. . . . Britain is in the position of advocating use of a vaccine

for which there are not hard data.100

 

 

 

G.T. Stewart's observations as published in the British Medical

Journal indicated that " of 8,092 cases of whooping cough, 2,940 (36%)

were fully immunized, while only 2,424 (30%) were definitely not

immunized. " 101

 

 

 

A Medical Tribune Report (January 10, 1979) details an outbreak of

whooping cough in which 46 out of 85 fully immunized children

contracted the disease.102 (the reason that the other 39 did not

contract the disease could have been related to any number of

predisposing factors).

 

 

 

Ekanem's earlier noted research (Table IX) , reveals an increase of 21

percent in the number whooping cough cases by the end of the three

year period following implementation of an Expanded Program of

Immunization in Nigeria.103

 

 

 

Data on Tetanus Toxoid and Immune Globulin

 

 

 

Neustaedter indicates that " Tetanus seems to be nearly eliminated from

the United States, primarily because of good hygiene and proper wound

management. " His research suggests that in the period of 1982-1984 in

the US, there were a total of nine tetanus cases among both children

and adolescents, in which there were no deaths.104 Whereas Coumoyer's

research points to " contaminated umbilical stump infections " as a

principal cause of tetanus in the Developing World.105 Such infections

can be effectively rectified through providing appropriate information

and training to traditional birth attendants.

 

 

 

Both Cournoyer and Johnson indicate that there have been some reports

of lock jaw death in properly inoculated individuals.106 & 107

Additionally Cournoyer suggests that " Evidence in support of the

(tetanus toxoid) vaccine comes from epidemiologic studies which are by

nature controversial, and which do not satisfy the criteria for

scientific proof.108

 

 

 

According to the data contained in Table XVII, in the Dominican

Republic the incidence of tetanus among children actually increased in

the two year period following administration of tetanus toxoid. Table

XVIII indicates that in the same country, the rate of neonatal

tetanus--among mothers underwent an increase in the year following

administration of tetanus toxoid.109

 

 

 

WHO SMALLPOX ERADICATION SUCCESS RECONSIDERED

 

 

 

Although smallpox is apparently now accorded to the history books, it

will be necessary to re-examine the issue of this disease having been

universally eradicated, with particular reference to the WHO

eradication campaign. An honest look at this question is of

considerable importance, as the current worldwide UCI-EPI program

gains much of its legitimacy and inspiration from this widely

acclaimed success story.

 

 

 

A strong challenge to this now popular view, is reflected in the

post-campaign findings of medical researchers like Buttram and Hoffman:

 

 

 

Most people probably credit the smallpox vaccine with playing the

major role in recent eradication of smallpox throughout the world, but

let us examine the facts. In the article 'Vaccines a Future in

Question,' statistics showed that less than 10 percent of children in

developing countries have received vaccines.

 

 

 

They went on to comment that with this level of coverage, the WHO

campaign was not a real factor in the eradication. Data obtained in

their broad based research also led them to conclude that " mass

smallpox vaccination was not necessary for the eradication of smallpox.110

 

 

 

In further examining this question from a longer historical

perspective, it became readily apparent that the WHO claim did not at

all square with the earlier data, i.e., historical smallpox

eradication efforts. If we go back as far as the last century, we

discover that Creighton's independent research findings as published

in the Ninth Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, strongly

contradict the effectiveness of mass smallpox immunization programs. A

few revealing excerpts follow:

 

 

 

.. . . in Bavaria in 1871 of 30,742 cases 29,429 were in vaccinated

persons, or 95.7 percent.

 

Notwithstanding the fact that Prussia was the best re-vaccinated

country in Europe, its mortality from smallpox in the epidemic of 1871

was higher (69,839) than any other Northern state.

 

According to a competent statistician (A. Vogt), the death-rate from

smallpox in the German army, in which all recruits are re-vaccinated,

was 60 percent more than among the civil population of the same age .

.. . although re-vaccination is not obligatory among the latter.

 

It is often alleged that the unvaccinated are so much inflammable

material in the midst of the community, and that smallpox begins among

them and gathers force so that it sweeps even the vaccinated before

it. Inquiry into the facts has shown that at Cologne in 1870 the first

unvaccinated person attacked by smallpox was the 174th in order of

time, at Bonn the same year the 42d, and at Liegnitz in 1871 the 225th.111

 

As we move on into the earlier part of this century we find the same

dismal picture of increased susceptibility correlated with increased

vaccination coverage. Dettman and Kalokerinos describe a visit they

paid to the Philippines about 15 years ago:

 

 

 

.. . . We were fortunate enough to address their own medical (and)

health officials where we reminded them of the incidence of smallpox

in formerly " immunized " Filipinos. We invited them to consult their

own medical records and asked them to correct us if our own facts and

figures disagreed. No such correction has been forthcoming, and we can

only conclude that between 1918-1919 there were 112,549 cases of

smallpox notified, with 60,855 deaths. Systematic (mass) vaccination

started in 1905, and since its introduction case mortality increased

alarmingly. Their own records comment that " The mortality is hardly

explainable. " 112

 

 

 

Speaking at a 1973 environmental conference in Brussels, Professor

George Dick admitted that in recent decades, 75 percent of those that

have contracted smallpox in Britain, have had prior a history of

vaccination. In that " only 40% " of children were vaccinated (and at

most 10 percent of adults), such figures clearly indicate that the

vaccinated--as in the much earlier historical record--continue to show

a higher tendency to contract the disease. Dick also admitted that

smallpox had been eradicated in certain tropical countries without

mass vaccination.113 (Table VIII reveals that in the 16 year period

preceding the year the WHO eradication campaign was launched--38

additional countries had ceased to report any smallpox cases.)114

 

 

 

A. Hutchison writing in the Journal of the Royal Society in 1974,

referred to the smallpox vaccines " lack of potency " and the

inadequacies of other measures for containment, in his words, " I have

given details of the various outbreaks of smallpox in Britain and

where they were diagnosed. These clearly indicate that the

(preventive) measures are most ineffective.115

 

 

 

An article in the New Scientist indicates that " The smallpox family of

viruses is genetically unstable, " and that new viral strains which

threaten the " WHO smallpox eradication programme, could emerge

anywhere.116 It is thus of interest that in a 1980 article in the

Australasian Nurses Journal, Dettman and Kalokerinos pointed out that

electron-microscopy cannot distinguish between the various

" poxviruses.117 (According to D, de Saving of IDRC, as of 1990 DNA

sequencing can make the distinquishingment. What is not known though,

is whether this has any beating on the reporting of the various " pox "

diseases worldwide.) This fact led them to raise a vitally significant

question " as to whether smallpox may be declared conquered, (it's

estimated that only 10 percent of the world population actually

received the vaccine) with the possibility of it masquerading under

the guise of a similar pox. " Their line of evidence and reasoning is

summarily stated:

 

 

 

.. . . we claim that if the evidence is honestly evaluated that

smallpox has actually been prolonged and that the so called protective

vaccinations actually put the recipient at risk from . . . the disease

itself. Authorities now realize this and the 'top world' countries are

making vociferous protests about third world countries continuing use

of smallpox vaccination because (a) suddenly it has become recognized

that it is an extremely dangerous procedure, (To give some idea of the

vaccine's dangers, it was reported--in the late sixties--that

annually, roughly 3,000 children were experiencing varying degrees of

brain damage due to the smallpox vaccine; and according to G. Kiftel

in 1967, smallpox vaccination damaged the hearing of 3,296 children in

West Germany, of which 71 became totally deaf.117) and (b) it has now

been conquered. The ultimate in ingenuity. . . .118

 

 

 

In turning to recognized textbooks on human virology and vertebrate

viruses we find that attention has been given since 1970 to a disease

called " monkeypox, " which is said to be " clinically indistinguishable

from smallpox. " Cases of this disease have been found in Zaire,

Cameroon, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Liberia, and Sierra Leone (by May

1983, 101 cases have been reported). It is observed that " . . . the

existence of a virus that can cause clinical smallpox is disturbing,

and the situation is being closely monitored. " 119 (For a highly

detailed account of the history of this disease and efforts to

eradicate it, which further corroborates these observations, see,

Razzell P., The Conquest of Smallpox, Caliban Books, United Kingdom,

1977.)

 

 

 

VACCINE ASSOCIATED DANGERS--GENERAL OBSERVATIONS

 

 

 

Another basic issue that has never been raised in the programming, or

evaluation contexts of Official Development Assistance supported mass

immunization, is the requirement for effective monitoring and research

on potential vaccinal adverse effects. The issue of vaccine dangers

and damage is obviously a rather unpleasant subject that no one really

enjoys thinking or talking about. In fact it appears to have been

totally ignored in both the planning and execution phases of Canada's

International Immunization Programme(CIIP). Furthermore, the recently

completed Qperational Review of CIIP 1986--1991, which according to

its sub-title was supposed to address inter alia " . . . lessons

learned in the first three years, " failed to even raise the two very

fundamental issues of vaccine effectiveness, and vaccine damage.120

 

 

 

In special PHC-EPI research conducted for the CIDA Evaluation

Division, the conclusion was reached that the extensive literature

written on the subject of immunization, adverse reactions and contra

indications, points clearly to the reality that " massive immunization

programs carry with them a number of very real risks and hazards.121

 

 

 

According to information recently provided by CIDA's Health and

Population Directorate the World Health Organization as of October,

1990 has instituted a policy for " adverse event monitoring " in

Developing World Immunization activities. A definitive policy

statement on this issue titled Monitoring

 

of Adverse Events Following Immunization, is apparently available as

of April 1991. The implications of VMO's recognition of the

significance of this issue to the setting of public policy priorities

for EPI research, monitoring and evaluation should be apparent. In

order to provide some background on why the WHO is now taking these

measures, a few critical observations follow.

 

 

 

In recognition of potential vaccine dangers, David Karzon of the

Vanderbilt University School of Medicine raises important policy

considerations with respect to mass immunization programs in the

Editorials section of the New England Journal of Medicine.

 

 

 

.. . . there are two compelling reasons for reinspection of the process

offormulating and implementing our immunization program: the emergence

of new societal considerations and responsibilities; and the need for

a fuller public disclosure of the costs of disease prevention . . . we

as a society have not recognized and accepted all the costs . . .

costs measured not only in dollars spent or saved, but also as adverse

biologic reactions.

 

 

 

Literally no drug or procedure used in medicine is risk free.

Immunizing antigens, originating from complex biological materials or

arising as genetically attenuated live agents, have their own peculiar

endogenous hazards, Complications . . . are particularly apt to be

visible in mass immunization campaigns. . . . The quality of the data

base for national decisions is critical because any vaccine

recommendation carries such a vast Potentialfor harm or good.122

 

 

 

It is unfortunate that UNICEF EPI field reports tend to dismiss the

concerns raised by " targeted " locals to the issue of vaccine damage,

as based on misinformation provided by unreliable local health staff,

or the ignorance of fearful mothers, both of whom need re-education.

For instance a recent UNICEF annual project report in discussing EPI

stated, " A WHO-UNICEF team found that drop out rates were high because

of the fear of side effects as expressed by mothers, (and)

misinformation about contraindications . . . as communicated by health

workers. . . . As a result, increased attention is being directed

toward health education. . . . " 123

 

 

 

To say the least, it seems incongruous that this issue is

paternalistically ignored as an insignificant concern raised by the

misinformed and the ignorant, when Canadian citizens are being alerted

by the media that the Canadian Government is expected to announce

" disaster relief " to families " of vaccine damaged children. " 124 This

relatively recent report suggests that vaccine damage is likely more

pervasive a problem than is generally acknowledged or believed. In

fact, it appears that chronic under-reporting of vaccine-induced

morbidity, disability, and mortality appears to be the norm. Probably

the most erudite scholar who has thoroughly investigated the issue of

vaccine hazards, is Sir Graham Wilson. As Honorary Lecturer in the

Department of Bacteriology at the London School of Hygiene and

Tropical Medicine, the following observations are excerpted from an

earlier lecture series delivered at that school.

 

 

 

The risks attendant in use of vaccines and sera are not as well

recognized as they should be. Indeed our knowledge of them is still

too small, and the incomplete knowledge we have is not widely

disseminated.. a very small proportion [of the actual numbers of

vaccine accidents] . . . have been described in the medical literature

of the world.

 

 

 

.. . . a large number of accidents--I suspect the majority--have never

been reported in print, either through fear of compensation claims, or

of giving a weapon to antivaccinationists . . . I have come to the

conclusion that no vaccine or antiserum can be regarded as completely

safe . . . no vaccine or antiserum that has yet been used has been

free from complications or accidents . . . [with respect to assessing

the " degree of possible danger " he indicates that] Unless both the

numerator and the denominator are known, quantitative assessments may

fall wide of the true mark. Moreover, the risk, even for a single

vaccine, is not uniform. It varies, among other things, with the

immunological status of the population concerned..

 

 

 

The inherent danger of all vaccination procedures should be a

deterrent to their unnecessary or unjustifiable use. Vaccination is

far too often employed, especially in the developing countries . . .

and should not be used as an [instead] excuse from applying the well

tried standard methods for the prevention of infectious disease. Most

important is it to realize the potential dangers of mass immunization.

In such an operation time does not permit an inquiry into the

suitability of each individual subject for vaccination.125

 

 

 

A strong echo of Wilson's conclusion that vaccine damage is

chronically under reported, is found in the official minutes of the

15th session of the US Panel of Review of Bacterial Vaccines and

Toxoids with Standards and Potency.

 

 

 

Many physicians are not cognizant of the importance of reporting

untoward reactions, or may be unaware of their clinical features.

Further, both physicians and manufacturers have been held liable for

damage suits by patients who may suffer adverse effects from

established vaccines. All of these factors undoubtedly discourage

reporting; without some other form of surveillance, definition of the

rates and significance of untoward reactions to current and future

vaccines cannot be ascertained.126

 

 

 

H.S. Martland, former Chief Medical Examiner for Essex County New

York, describes how the above unawareness actually translates into

practice:

 

 

 

Deaths from brain and spinal cord diseases (poliomyelitis,

encephalitis, and meningitis) resulting from . . . immunizations

sometimes are attributed to other causes, because doctors are not

sufficiently alerted to the connection between immunizations and the

deaths. . . .127

 

 

 

Neustadter maintains that the research on vaccine side effects by the

pharmaceutical industry remains seriously marginalized due to a

significant number of vaccine reactions going unreported, and the fact

that it is often difficult to attribute delayed effects with a

vaccine. He further suggests that the reason that the

medico-pharmaceutical industry has consistently failed to address the

unanswered question of the long term effects of vaccines, stems

largely from their overriding interest in the active promotion, and

rapid marketing of vaccines. Investigation of their adverse side

effects generally remains a non-priority issue, insofar as such

efforts may undermine the public's acceptance of their products.128 On

the other hand, Snead suggests that when laboratories go public to the

media and confirm that " no known problems " exist, this does not mean

that scientists have researched to the limits of their knowledge and

found no side effects, but rather that no research has actually been

done.129

 

 

 

Although there is compelling evidence that vaccine induced damage

remains chronically under-reported, it is of interest that B. Bloom of

the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, openly admits that there is

today an emerging reluctance on the part of medico-pharrnaceutical

industry to further develop vaccines, for both the developed and

Developing Worlds. According to Bloom, this reluctance stems from the

fact that financial losses due to the " liability " of established

vaccines, actually exceed the " profits " derived from them.130 In this

vein, Mendelsohn indicates that vaccine costs have " skyrocketed " as a

consequence of multiple jury awards to damaged children. In his words:

 

 

 

As more and more parents begin to recognize the link between vaccines

and their child's condition--epilepsy, convulsions, mental

retardation, cerebral palsy, Sudden Infant Death, etc.--lawsuits have

become commonplace. As drug companies exit the vaccine field, public

health authorities worry about vaccine shortages. 131

 

 

 

 

 

OF WHAT DO VACCINE PRODUCTS CONSIST?

 

 

 

It would be instructive to consider the range of

substances--additional to the attenuated virus etc. normally found in

vaccine products. Specific viruses and bacteria are grown in the

following substances, with their foreign proteins (antigens) including

those derived from: pig or horse blood; rabbit brain tissue; dog and

monkey kidney tissue; chicken and duck egg; and calf serum. (It is

generally acknowledged that any foreign substances including

proteins--which have not been filtered through the body's normal

digestive assimilative, and excretory processes, can be highly toxic

when freely ranging in the lymphatic and blood systems.) Other foreign

additives normally found in various vaccines include:

 

 

 

formaldehyde--(a known carcinogen)

 

thimerosal--(an organomercurial antiseptic--49% mercury--although the

mercury is " closely bound, " it nonetheless is a toxic metal difficult

for the system to eliminate)

 

aluminum potassium sulphate (toxic)

 

aluminum phosphate--(a toxic substance commonly used in deodorants)

 

lactalbumin hydrolysate

 

phenol (carbolic acid)--(extremely toxic, not permitted in anti-toxins)

 

acetone--(volatile, and can easily cross the placental barrier)

 

glycerin--(tri-atomic alcohol derived from decomposed fats which can

damage kidney, liver, lungs, local tissue; cause dieresis and possible

death.)132

 

Commenting on the inclusion of such substances in vaccine products, R.

Moskowitz indicates that " the fact is that we do not know and have

never attempted to discover what actually becomes of these foreign

substances, once they are inside of the body. " 133 Although there are

" rigid " precautions in licensing the use and quantity of these common

stabilizers and preservative, it certainly seems self-evident that

there should be further research to better determine what

relationship--if any--exists between such poisons, and various adverse

reactions.

 

 

 

 

 

SOME OBSERVED AND POTENTIAL ADVERSE EFFECTS OF SPACIFIC VACCINES AND

TOXOIDS--DIAGNOSABLE IN THE SHORT TERM

 

 

 

By principally focusing on stimulating the production of

antibody--which increasing evidence suggests is only one marginal

indicative factor among many in immunity to disease--while ignoring

the basic multiple determinants of natural immunity (health), viruses,

foreign antigens and proteins are placed directly into the body

tissues and are in turn carried throughout the circulatory system

(without censoring by the liver) giving them direct accessibility to

all of the body's vital organs and systems. Furthermore, it is an EPI

strategy that this short-circuiting of the body's natural defense

system is imposed at an extremely vulnerable time of life.134 The

stage has thus been set for the advent of a wide range of adverse

complications and sequelae.

 

 

 

What follows is a simple listing of observed side effects of specific

vaccines, or when noted toxoids. Practically all of the conditions

listed are commonly reported in the medical literature as linked to

the prior administration of the particular vaccine or toxoid noted. A

few conditions listed--such as the sudden infant death syndrome linked

to the pertussis vaccine--are not admitted by mainstream medicine as

an adverse effect of that particular vaccine, however the research as

referenced is reputable and points otherwise. (The vaccines covered in

this section have been confined to those prescribed in the Universal

Childhood Immunization program.)

 

 

 

 

 

MEASLES

 

 

 

atypical measles (a more serious form of measles)

 

encephalopathy (irreversible brain damage)

 

subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (progressive brain damage which

can lead to death)

 

ataxia (incoordination in voluntary muscular movements)

 

mental retardation

 

aseptic meningitis (inflammation of the membranes of spinal cord or brain)

 

seizure disorders

 

encephalitis (inflammation of the brain)

 

hemiparesis (half-body paralysis)

 

retinopathy and blindness

 

secondary complications can include:

 

juvenile-onset diabetes

 

Reye's syndrome

 

multiplesclerosis (degeneration of the central nervous system)135

 

 

 

 

 

PERTUSSIS (WHOOPING COUGH)

 

 

 

hyperactivity

 

anaphylaxis (hyper-reaction which can include convulsions,

unconsciousness and or death)

 

epileptic type convulsions

 

learning disorders (including IQ reduction)

 

encephalopathy

 

febrile seizures

 

invasive bacterial infections

 

hay fever

 

asthma

 

encephalitis

 

sudden infant death (SIDS)136

 

 

 

DIPHTHERIA

 

 

 

(The following has occurred with combined diphtheria-tetanus

vaccination, and could be associated with either.)

 

 

 

altered electroencephalogram readings

 

seizures137

 

 

 

TETANUS TOXOID

 

 

 

brachial plexus neuropathy (disease affecting nerves which serve the

arm, forearm and hand)

 

anaphylaxis

 

encephalitis

 

recurrent abscesses (at injection site)

 

abdominal pain

 

debility 138

 

POLIO (OPV--ORAL LIVE-VIRUS)

 

 

 

paralytic polio

 

congenital brain tumors (transmitted by mothers who received vaccine

during pregnancy)139

 

 

 

GENERAL (I.E., IN COMBINATION)

 

 

 

meningitis 140

 

 

 

EXTENT AND NATURE OF OBSERVABLE VACCINE DAMAGE

 

 

 

There is a considerable range in estimates given as to the frequency

of damage being produced by particular vaccines. A case in point is

the American manufactured DPT vaccine, for which the claim is made

that only 1 in 300,000 vaccinates exhibit permanent neurologic

damage,141 whereas other researchers suggest that permanent damage

levels can reach as high as 1 in 300.142 Coumoyer's research findings

fall between these two extremes for permanent neurologic or brain

damage. Her conclusions indicate that the following varied rate

reactions occur in vaccinates, per number of children vaccinated:

 

 

 

Persistent crying--1 in 20

 

High fever--1 in 66

 

High pitched screaming--1 in 180

 

Convulsions--1 in 350

 

Shock like condition or collapse--1 in 350

 

Acute brain disorder--1 in 22,000

 

Permanent brain damage--1 in 62,000

 

Death--1 in 71,600.143

 

Again to illustrate the great variation in estimates, a relatively

recent study at UCLA (see Cody et al, ref 136) found that as many as

one in every 13 children exhibited persistent high pitched crying

after receiving the DPT vaccine. In reference to this specific

reaction, physician B. Young states that " This may be indicative of

brain damage in the recipient child. " 144

 

 

 

According to data researched by Coulter and Fisher, of the 3.3 million

children vaccinated yearly in the US: 16,038 have high pitched

(encephalitic) screaming (which is considered by many neurologists as

indicative of central nervous system irritation); 8,484 have

convulsions; and 8,484 undergo collapse; " for an annual total of

33,006 cases of acute neurological reactions within 48 hours of a DPT

shot. " The authors further suggest that there is a strong basis for

concern with respect to the long term reaction to the DPT vaccine.

 

 

 

Severe neurologic sequelae may . . . occur after vaccination in the

absence of an acute reaction. When the baby reacts to a DPT shot with

" a slight fever and fussiness for a few days " this may be, and often

is, a case of encephalitis which is quite capable of causing even

quite severe long-term neurologic consequences . . . . They further

suggest that any who would dismiss this possibility, must first

establish a basis for distinguishing between post-vaccinal

encephalitis and encephalitis arising from other causes.145

 

 

 

As a final observation on the issue of short term vaccine dangers, is

the postulated linkage of immunization with the " mysterious " problem

of sudden infant death (SIDS) in which infants can die " suddenly and

quietly " in their cribs. Australian microbiologist Glen Dettman

explains that when large amounts of an antigen are given the body

responds by a massive release of adrenal products including: cortisol,

adrenalin, and an excessive level of endorphins, actually " as much as

a thousand times more than is normally released by the brain. " He goes

on to observe that:

 

 

 

The endorphins will suppress respiration and cardiac function. Thus if

a child with malnutrition, or an immune problem, is given a load of

antigen larger than it can handle--and this antigen may be an

immunisation--endorphins may result in respiratory or cardiac failure

and death.146

 

 

 

Torch's research indicates that two-thirds of 103 infants who were

victims of the sudden death syndrome had been immunized with DPT

vaccine within the 3 week period preceding death, with many dying

within a day of receiving the vaccine.147 In a widely debated

occurrence of SIDS in Tennessee (USA), in which eleven infant deaths

occurred within eight days of a DPT vaccination, (nine from the same

lot), and five within 24 hours of vaccination (four from the same

lot). Mortimer reported that the probability of this being mere chance

or coincidental to be between 2 and 5 in 1,000;148 whereas Shannon

reported a much lower chance association of 4 and 5 in 10,000.149

 

 

 

LONG TERM (DELAYED) POTENTIAL ADVERSE EFFECTS OF IMMUNIZATION

 

 

 

Leaving the continuing controversies that exist over the extent and

nature of observable adverse reactions to vaccines, we go on to the

equally serious spectre of delayed reactions and the larger unanswered

questions which surround the long term consequences of immunization.

(The material in both this and the following section on " Immunization

and Immune Malfunction " is afforded not necessarily as definitive and

factual conclusions, but rather as preliminary research observations

on vital--albeit controversial--issues and questions which undoubtedly

merit further examination, research and analyses.) We began the

exploration of this issue by reviewing some basic concepts and

concerns relative to the strongly suspected linkage between live viral

vaccines and the enormous escalation of varied auto-immune disorders.

 

 

 

Joshua Lederberg, a Stanford University School of Medicine geneticist

and Nobel Prize winner, was perhaps the first to raise the warning

that the use of live virus vaccines in mass immunization campaigns

represents " biological engineering on a rather large scale. " He goes

on to comment:

 

 

 

While these [vaccines] are thought to be of indubitable value for

preventing serious diseases, their global impact on the development of

human beings of a side range of genotypes is hard to assess at our

present stage of wisdom. . . . Live viruses are themselves genetic

messages used for the purpose of programming human cells for the

synthesis of immunogenic virus antigens.150

 

 

 

Researchers such as Buttram postulate that the use of live viral

vaccines in mass immunization programs introduces foreign genetic

material into the human system, which has precipitated an

unprecedented escalation of various auto-immune disorders in recent

decades. These are disorders wherein antibodies or immune cells

indiscriminately attack the tissues of one's own body-mind complex.151

 

 

 

Harvard graduate and physician, R. Moskowitz, explains how the live

viruses in vaccines can, in the long term, lead to such auto-immune

disease conditions. Vaccinal attenuated viruses attach their own

genetic " episome " to the genome (half set of chromosomes and their

genes) of the host cell, and are thus capable of surviving or

remaining latent within the host cells for years. The presence of this

foreign antigenic material within the host cell sets the stage for

their unpredictable provocation of various auto-immune phenomena such

as herpes, shingles, warts, tumors--both benign and malignant--and

diseases of the central nervous system, such as varied forms of

paralysis and inflammation of the brain.152

 

 

 

Markowitz further poses the caution that vaccines do not act by merely

producing pale or mild copies of the original disease, but all of them

commonly produce a variety of symptoms of their very own. In some

cases " these illnesses may be considerably more serious than the

original disease, involving deeper structures, more vital organs, and

less of a tendency to resolve spontaneously. Even more worrisome is

the fact that they are almost always more difficult to recognize. " 153

 

 

 

A British Medical Journal article by Miller et al, reports that

" Various German authors have described the apparent provocation of

multiple sclerosis by--vaccination against smallpox, typhoid, tetanus,

polio, and tuberculosis. " 154 No less disconcerting is the warning

raised by Rutgers University Professor R. Simpson when he addressed

science writers at a seminar sponsored by the American Cancer Society:

 

 

 

Immunization Programs against flu, measles, mumps, polio and so forth

may actually be seeding humans with RNA to form latent proviruses in

cells throughout the body. These latent proviruses could be molecules

in search of diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, multiple

sclerosis, systemic lupus erythematosus, Parkinson's disease, and

perhaps cancer.155

 

 

 

As if echoing Simpson, Dettman also raises the caution: that " some of

the attenuated strains of vaccines that we advocate may be implicated

with . . . a number of degenerative diseases including rheumatoid

arthritis, leukaemia, diabetes and multiple sclerosis. " 156

 

 

 

A study in Science reported a notable similarity between certain

diffffent viruses (including measles and influenza) and the protein

structure of the brains protective myelin sheaths. This being the

case, antibodies induced by live viral vaccines could well be cross

reacting and attacking brain cells.157 Medical historian Harris

Coulter has developed a systematic and comprehensive thesis that

childhood immunizations frequently result in a demyelinating

encephalitis.(As already noted, encephalitis [inflammation of the

brain] has been associated with the pertussis, tetanus, and measles

vaccines.) This condition prevents the normal development of the

protective myelin sheaths of the brain and nerve cells during infancy

and early childhood. Such adverse pathologic changes may, on a visible

level, lead to a range of leaming disabilities and behaviourial

problems, (As many as one in five elementary school children are now

considered to have some form of minimal brain damage. " 158 It is also

estimated that in the US over one million children are medicated with

powerful amphetamine drugs.159) 158, 159 which are now being

encountered in the West with increasing frequency.160

 

 

 

Bruce Rabin, a professor of pathology and psychiatry at Western

Psychiatric Institute, Pittsburgh has found evidence that

approximately one-third of all cases of schizophrenia are auto-immune

in nature, with immune bodies attacking the brain cells.161 When we

consider the alarming increase in the numbers of schizophrenic cases,

and the now credible " viral hypothesis of mental disorders, " 162

childhood vaccine programs can be considered as highly suspect in

playing a causative role.

 

 

 

Medical Professor, R. Mendelsohn summarily comments that:

 

 

 

While the myriad short-term hazards of most immunizations are known

(but rarely explained), no one knows the long-term consequences of

injecting foreign proteins into the body . . . . Even more shocking is

the fact that no one is making any structured effort to find out.

 

 

 

There is growing suspicion that immunization against . . . childhood

diseases may be responsible for the dramatic increase in auto-immune

diseases since mass inoculations were introduced. These are fearful

diseases such as cancer, leukaemia, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple

sclerosis, Lou Gehrig's disease, lupus erythematosus, and the

Guillain-Barré syndrome. . . . Have we traded mumps and measles for

cancer and leukaemia? 163

 

 

 

Noted Russian specialist in neuro-pathology, A.D. Speransky, concurs

with the foregoing premonitory insights when he warns that

post-vaccinal diseases might occur long after the operation has been

forgotten. He raises the disquieting observation that " . . . it is

conceivable that by these methods we may be crippling humanity. " 164

 

 

 

Whether considering the short or longer term dangers of immunization

programs, it is further unsettling when we consider the evidence that

the public cannot really place much confidence in organized medicine

to conduct itself in an honest and forthright fashion. For example, in

1982 the Forum of the American Academy of Paediatrics (AAP) rejected a

proposed resolution which would have ensured that the:

 

 

 

AAP make available in clear, concise language information which a

reasonable parent would want to know about the benefits and risks of

routine immunizations, the risks of vaccine preventable diseases and

the management of common adverse reactions to immunizations.165

 

 

 

 

 

EVIDENCES FOR IMMUNIZATION INDUCED IMMUNE MALFUNCTION

 

 

 

There is a growing body of evidence that vaccinations damage the

immune system itself. For example, during a placebo controlled trial

of acellular pertussis vaccines, a cluster of invasive bacterial

infections with fatal outcome occurred among vaccinated children, as

compared with unvaccinated children of the same birth grouping. A

review of the trial data led to the conclusion that " The hypothesis of

an immunosuppresive effect of the vaccines, which would explain the

deaths . . . could not be refuted by the data. " 166

 

 

 

It is the studied conclusion of H. Buttram and J. Hoffman (Harold

Buffram M.D., a graduate of Oklahoma Medical School, with a post

internship in internal medicine, has over 30 years of medical practice

in the State of Pennsylvania. John Hoffman Ph.D., is a Cell Biologist

and when interviewed was serving as a biomedical researcher in the

Department of Molecular Biology at the University of Wyoming), that

early childhood vaccination " cannot help but have adverse effects on

the immunologic system of the child, possibly leaving this system

crippled in its ability to protect the child throughout life . . . .

opening the way for other diseases as a result of immunologic

dysfunction. " 167

 

 

 

In reviewing their hypothesis of vaccine induced immune malfunction

the evidence they present is substantive (citing numerous references,

including four recognized textbooks on paediatrics and immunology),

and their line of reasoning convincing. The following observations are

made:

 

 

 

" For many years immunologists have been aware of a state of anergy

(immunological unresponsiveness) following certain vaccinations "

 

A US Center for Disease Control examination of 700 Peace Corps

volunteers who had undergone a set of multiple vaccine injections in

the US before departure, exhibited an extremely weakened immune system

response to the vaccine (HDCV) administered after their arrival overseas

 

Vaccination against one disease seems to provoke another (on this

point, a physician's report of 15 case histories, over a five year

period, where diphtheria-pertussis vaccination lead to paralytic polio

is described, and Sir Graham Wilson is quoted [this doc. ref 7], " when

a vaccine is injected . . . a latent infection that might have given

rise to no illness is converted into a clinical attack. " )

 

Vaccines have been implicated by numerous investigators as playing a

" causative or contributory role " to various auto-immune and

degenerative diseases, and suggests that their role in the onset of

allergies or their worsening, and lowered resistance to infections

needs to be further investigated

 

Given the one cell--one antibody rule, once an immune body (plasma

cell or lymphocyte) becomes committed to a given antigen, it becomes

inert and incapable of responding to other antigens or challenges to

the immune system. It is estimated that up 7 percent of the body's

overall immune capacity is committed in the natural immunological

response to the usual childhood diseases, whereas a child who

undergoes the course of routine childhood vaccines could be realizing

a committal level of up 70 percent

 

The consequences of this significantly higher committal could result

in increased susceptibility to other infections, allergies, and

auto-immune diseases. (This particular observation is based upon

sophisticated research carried out by the Arthur Research Corporation,

based in Tucson, Arizona.)

 

Evidence indicates that maternal immunization " may remove (abrogate)

immune defense from the level of the mucosa, thus potentially

weakening mucosal resistance " (immunologists have long recognized that

the mucosal surface serves as a " first line of defense " against infection)

 

Abnormal drops in the ratio of helper-to-suppresser T--lymphocyte cell

subpopulations in healthy subjects (a condition now associated with

AIDS, and possibly linked to transient hypogammaglobulinemia),

observed after tetanus booster immunization

 

Circumstantial evidence indicates that " cross-cultural " mass

immunization programs may be predisposing the onset of acquired immune

deficiency syndrome in " virgin soil " populations as found in the

Developing World, " which have not historically been subjected to the

common diseases of Western civilization "

 

There remains a great need to conduct careful studies on the potential

" immunosuppressive effects of vaccines, " particularly with respect to

" cross-cultural immunizations where exaggerated adverse responses

would more likely be detected "

 

Where there is already advanced impairment in a child's general immune

system, the injection of multiple antigens (vaccination), can weaken

it further to the point of precipitating death in the vaccinate

 

Before public endorsement is accorded to the extensive usage of

vaccines, certain preconditions should be addressed which include: a

comprehensive evaluation of the multiple factors which constitute the

etiologic basis of infectious disease; and the full range of factors

and influences which determine natural resistance to infection and

disease; with a full public disclosure of such research data.168

 

Despite the fact that immune malfunction is " often delayed, indirect,

and masked, (and) its true nature is seldom recognized, " there is now

sufficient evidence to suggest that growing disclosure of both the

short and longer term dangers of current vaccination programs will

serve to precipitate public demand for research to examine danger-free

alternative methods for the prevention of infectious diseases.169

 

 

 

J.E. Craighead, in summarizing the results of a workshop on " Disease

Accentuation after Immunization with Inactivated Microbial Vaccines, "

sponsored by the US National Institutes of Health, indicated that the

process of:

 

 

 

.. . . immuno-prophylaxis can be carried out safely only when the

natural history and pathogenesis of a disease is understood. In each

of the conditions considered at the workshop, this detailed knowledge

was lacking when vaccine trials were initiated in man. Had the

vaccines induced lasting solid immunity, prolonged protection might

have resulted, although this conclusion is far from certain. Moreover,

production of circulating antibodies or induction of cellular immunity

(or both) may be hazardous when local immune mechanisms of the mucosa

are not operative.

 

 

 

Accentuation of disease was an unexpected complication of immunization

in each of the conditions. Disease was accentuated when the subject

(vaccinate) was exposed again, experimentally or under natural

circumstances, weeks or even years after completion of the

immunization regimen. Prolonged, intensive surveillance of

immunization subjects apparently is a requirement. . . . One can only

wonder whether or not recipients of currently licensed vaccines . . .

that provide variable and transient immunity are being followed

adequately . . . . Accumulating evidence strongly suggests that

susceptibility to infection and disease is affected by still undefined

constitutional influences. 170

 

 

 

It is evident that Craighead's key question of what constitutes the

still undefined " influences " will be effectively resolved only when

the focus of selective medicine is able to make a radical shift

towards displacing its present adventitious arsenal of vaccines and

toxic drugs, with the normal and natural requisites of life and

health. This is stated because the historical record, and common sense

point to the latter approach as constituting the only sound basis for

ensuring--not undermining--immune functionality, thus effectively

resolving the actual underlying causes of both infectious and

degenerative disease in man.

 

 

 

THE ETHICS OF UNIVERSAL CHILDHOOD IMMUNIZATION

 

 

 

There is indeed more than sufficient evidence to warrant far greater

caution and questioning, than is now evident in the public

drumbeating, idealism, and unqualified affirmations promoting the

safety and effectiveness of Universal Childhood Immunization Programs.

In fairness, it can be noted that some cautions have been raised on

this issue from within medical circles. In summarizing an article on

whether prevention of post-immunization adverse effects is possible,

the editor(s) of Postgraduate Medicine recommend that:

 

 

 

Parents must be informed of the rare possibility of serious adverse

effects, including seizure and allergic reaction. Every physician who

administers vaccine therefore needs to become familiar with the

reactions that may occur with each immunologic agent used. The best

safeguard against litigation, when and if a serious reaction follows

vaccination, is the indication that these considerations were

discussed and that an informed choice was made.171

 

 

 

Nonetheless, we find that UCI-EPI as it has been generally conceived

and executed represents two major departures from the time honoured

ethics and traditions of medicine. These are:

 

 

 

that all forms of treatment should be individualized, particularly

when prescribing or injecting substances which carry the potential for

disease, disablement, and death; and

 

the objectively informed patient (or parent) should always have

absolute freedom to accept or reject any given measure or therapy, and

have reasonable opportunity to consider alternatives.172

 

Just as environmentalists rightly challenge the appropriateness and

right of big business interests to pollute our fragile natural

environment with man-made chemicals, there arises the more personal,

urgent and serious matter of protecting the precious body-mind complex

from foreign and complex biological products that may well be touted

as safe today, but condemned as dangerous tomorrow. Indeed scientists

and physicians now openly admit that they have only a limited

knowledge of the short term, and even less understanding of the long

term consequences of challenging the bio-immune systems of children

with a myriad of manufactured vaccines and related toxins.

 

 

 

This in turn poses the more basic question of whether medical and

political authorities have the actual right--by reason and moral

justice--to compel and expose unnumbered children the world over to

undertake what are in fact unnecessary and potentially dangerous risks

to their life and long term health. It is reprehensible that such

actions continue to be enforced by authorities, while parents and

local health workers are not accorded any practical knowledge of the

known dangers involved, and the extent to which there prevails a

general ignorance of the longer term consequences.173

 

 

 

It goes without saying that monopolization is just as dangerous in

public health as is it is in the field of general business. The human

experience has demonstrated time and again that monopoly and

compulsion in any field inevitably brings stagnation, whereas freedom

of choice and the opportunity to explore alternatives brings genuine

progress.174

 

 

 

BANE OR BOON? SELECTIVE MEDICINE IN PRIMARY HEALTH CARE

 

 

 

Given the fact that UCI stands at the forefront as a centrepiece in

the " selective medicine primary health care model " (around which has

grown a powerful multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry), we

must reconsider its overall relevance to human health. In selective

medicine the relationship becomes one where the professional alone

holds the authorized enlightenment and skills, while the community and

its people come to represent the baser qualities of ignorance and

subservient faith. This dynamic engenders in the community an

unhealthful respect for officially authorized solutions, even when

their effectiveness is in fact illusory. The Aboriginal peoples of N.

America have now reached the unenviable distinction of being not only

the most thoroughly immunized and medically drugged, but also the

sickest group on the continent (e.g., by the late 1970s, the Canadian

Aboriginal infant mortality rate was double that of the general

population, with life expectancy at 36 years compared with 62 years

among Canadians generally.)175

 

 

 

Furthermore, alarming evidence suggests that in many Aboriginal

communities there is a continuing escalation in degenerative diseases

and social malaise. Both paleopathological and historical data

convincingly indicate that when living a way of life closely

predicated upon natural law, and free of adventitious medical

interventions, North American Aboriginals were distinguished as being

one of the healthiest of world peoples.176

 

 

 

A more recent, albeit equally instructive picture can be fund among

the Maori (Polynesian) people, who likewise have been especially

earmarked by their national government (New Zealand) to receive the

benefits of selective medical intervention. A study covering the

period of 1968 to 1971 found that when compared with their racial

counterparts who live in the remote island nations of the Pacific, the

New Zealand Maoris appeared more inclined to suffer from infectious

disease, rheumatic fever, and tuberculosis. They also seemed

considerably more prone to develop degenerative conditions such as

heart disease and diabetes, afflictions which were then virtually

foreign to the remote island peoples. (In fact, among Maori women in

the age grouping of 35 to 55, coronary heart disease was four to five

times as frequent as among women of the same age group living on the

atolls of the central Pacific.)177

 

 

 

In the final analysis, disquieting evidence--much of which is not

cited in this research--suggests the overall irrelevance of selective

Western medicine to effecting longevity and ensuring general freedom

from a range of infectious and degenerative diseases. Furthermore, as

a system, it continues to significantly contribute to human morbidity

and mortality " 178 (e.g., it has been shown in the USA, Holland, Israel

and other developed nations that when physicians engage in a complete

strike, within a week to 10 days death rates actually plummet, in some

cases by as much as 60 percent).

 

 

 

It would be appropriate here to quote Illich's unambiguous observation

that " Society can have no quantitative standards by which to add up

the negative value of illusion, social control, prolonged suffering,

loneliness, genetic deterioration and frustration produced by medical

treatment. " 179 In reference to selective medicine's central focus on

absolving mankind from giving due respect to the natural laws of cause

and effect, Mahatma Gandhi shares the following perspective.

 

 

 

I was at one time a great lover of the medical profession. . . . I no

longer hold that opinion. . . . Doctors have almost unhinged us. . . .

I regard the present system as black magic. . . . Hospitals are

institutions for propagating sin. Men take less care of their bodies

and immorality increases. . . . ignoring the soul, the profession puts

men at its mercy and contributes to the diminution of human dignity

and self control. . . . I have endeavoured to show that there is no

real service of humanity in the profession, and that it is injurious

to mankind. . . . I believe that a multiplicity of hospitals is not

test of civilization. It is rather a symptom of decay.180

 

 

 

Evidence suggests that Western medicine's over specialization and

singular focus on pathology has literally obfuscated its perception

and undermined its faith in the preventive and restorative power of

the normal requisites of health. To a great extent it thus remains as

an inexact and ever shifting system of trial and error, apparently

more interested in maintaining its monopolistic pecuniary interests

and professionalist pride, than in opening itself to new avenues of

thinking and practice.

 

 

 

With all seriousness then we must raise the question as to whether we

can realistically expect the self-same medico-industrial system that

has for so long offered humankind little more than palliative and

pathological inducing vaccines and drugs, to offer us anything better.

(To obtain additional background on the practical impacts which the

medico-industrial system of the West is having on the Developing

World, please refer to Annex I--Problems With Developing World

Medicalization and the Traditional Medicine Alternative.) It is here

that we turn to consider the larger issue of what constitutes safer,

more effective and sustainable approaches to ensuring the development

and maintenance of human health.

 

 

 

 

 

--

 

 

 

SECTION II

 

 

 

TOWARDS MORE APPROPRIATE PRIORITIES IN DEVELOPING WORLD PRIMARY HEALTH

CARE

 

 

 

We should ascertain whether natural resistance to infections could be

conferred on man by definite conditions of life. Injections of a

specific vaccine or serum for each disease, repeated medical

examinations of the whole population, construction of gigantic

hospitals, are expensive and not very effective means of preventing

diseases and of developing a nation's health.

 

 

 

Alexis Carrel in Man the Unknown, p.207

 

 

 

 

 

THE REAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH

 

 

 

IN a recent article in the WHO publication World Health, Khan et. al

suggest that normatively health services in the Developing World

continue to be either substandard, inaccessible, unaffordable and

under-utilized, or to " suffer from a combination of these factors. "

The authors go on to comment that while the governments of many

nations " have spent millions on building physical infrastructures at

district levels, the over-all health status, especially of the urban

and rural poor remains deplorable. " 181

 

 

 

This and a number of like articles on Primary Health Care and UCI,

suggest that the prime weaknesses now requiring rectification relate

to inadequate local involvement in and the non-sustainability of

medical services. Without any intent to lessen the critical importance

of local participation and sustainability in development, I would put

forward the view that each of the specific problems and weaknesses as

identified, including the larger issue of overall ineffectiveness,

stem from the very principles and nature of conventional selective

medicine itself Primarily the medicine (both vaccines and drugs

representing the arsenal of what is postulated as a " war on disease " )

and secondarily the established system whereby it is " delivered, " is

what is ineffective. In place of the popular drumbeating for local

communities to further embrace and sustain this system, there are far

more urgent and fundamental health priorities that must be addressed.

 

 

 

In a chapter on " Health and the Human Environment " found on the

classic work Health, Food and Nutrition in Third World Development, M.

Sharpston provides critical insights on how multiple social and

environmental factors ultimately serve as the real determinants of

survival, or alternatively death. In his words " . . . there is a limit

to what conventional health services can achieve in an unchanged

physical and social environment. " He then refers to the experience of

a medical school affiliated hospital in Cali, Columbia which had a

special program for premature infants. During their period of critical

care, survival rates remained comparable to those found in North

American critical care settings, however within three months of being

discharged, 70 percent of the infants had died. With reference to

those regions within the Developing World where notable health

improvements have occurred he suggests that:

 

 

 

The most likely factors leading to health improvements . . . are a

rise in the levels of nutrition and the slow spread of modern ideas of

personal hygiene. Across the Developing World, per capita incomes are

rising, and transport systems are improving,, the result is more food,

better quality food, fewer localized food shortages, and a more varied

diet. In other words, the principal factor behind the improvement in

health . . . in Developing countries is probably not any form of

health measure, but economic development itself. . . . Mere exposure

to a disease agent need not produce clinical disease and very

frequently does not do so. Malnutrition is of such significance

essentially because it hampers the body's resistance. Malnutrition

acts " synergistically " with disease agents to increase the incidence

of clinical disease and aggravate its severity. " 182

 

 

 

In a very recent article focusing on the major influences on health in

the Developing World, Thomas McKeown, past Chairman of the World

Health Organization (WHO) Advisory Group on Research Strategy also

articulates a view that clearly takes the issue of human health out

delimiting bounds of selective medicine. His incisive conclusion follows:

 

 

 

.. . . evidence is now available from a number of Third World countries

that have advanced rapidly in health: China, Costa Rica, Cuba, India

(Kerala State), Jamaica, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and a few others.. . .

The improvement in health was almost entirely due to a reduction from

infectious disease. To assess priorities in health policies in the

Third World the chief requirement is therefore to come to a conclusion

about the reasons for the decline of the infections.

 

 

 

.. . . All the countries that advanced rapidly achieved a substantial

improvement in nutrition, which led to increased resistance. Indeed in

some countries this was the only important direct influence. It is

perhaps surprising that immunization appears to have contributed

relatively little to the advances . . . the reduction in mortality

occurred during a period when vaccine coverage was still low.

 

 

 

To anyone who has traveled extensively in the rural areas of the Third

World, the common causes of ill health may seem self-evident. Many

children are visibly malnourished, sanitary conditions are primitive,

drinking water is unclean, the food . . . is contaminated, and the

number of people competing for the means of life is clearly excessive.

Our conclusions concerning the determinants of health can be

epitomized by the simple statement that people must have enough to eat

and must not be poisoned.183

 

 

 

In a World Health article highly germane to the " determinants " as

raised by McKeown, Finland's H. Hellberg (a former Division Director

at the WHO) postulates that the success of any genuine effort to

alleviate disease in the Developing World must incorporate

" intersectoral and multisectoral action. " In his words " involvement of

specialists other than the traditional healing professions; water,

food, housing, sanitation and education are all important

prerequisites for health. If they are neglected curative repair . . .

may even be impossible. " 184

 

 

 

To conclude these critical observations on Developing World health

development priorities, it would prove instructive to consider the

similar conclusions reached by K.L. Standard (Professor and Head of

the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of the

West Indies).

 

 

 

.. . . . mere survival is not enough. With no improvement in their

standard of living and nutrition, they (children) frequently succumb

to infection, with repeated relapses . . . . It will be extremely

difficult to make further reductions in mortality rates in developing

countries without significantly raising standards of living, including

nutrition. Among the general measures of primary prevention that may

be considered, an increase of food production is of paramount

importance. Environmental sanitation deserves high priority, and

health education of the public is a key activity at both national and

community levels. . . . The final and permanent answer to the problem

will rest in. social and economic development . . . taking into

account the need for nutritional improvement of the present generation.

 

 

 

For obvious reasons, the highest priority must be given to preventive

measures. If good nutritional status is maintained in the first years

of life, successive attacks of most infectious diseases of moderate

virulence will probably produce no more than mild effects.. . .

Optimal maternal diet during pregnancy, prolonged breastfeeding,

progressive weaning with appropriate foods, and education of mothers

on infant-feeding practices are the basis of good nutritional status

in children.185

 

 

 

ECLIPSING THE SPIRIT OF ALMA ATA

 

 

 

It would be instructive at this point to go back to relatively recent

history to see how this vitally sound and rational perspective was

officially recognized at an international level, but then practically

scuttled in favour of the annamentarium of Universal Childhood

Immunization.

 

 

 

On the opening page of the recently completed Evaluation Assessment of

the Canadian International Development Agency's (CIDA) Health Sector

the observation is made that by the mid-seventies, " after more than 30

years of international health assistance, it had become apparent that

curative strategies that directly addressed disease causing agents had

failed . . . recipient countries . . . [in meeting] their long term

health needs. " 186 It was a recognition of this reality that presumably

led Canada and other industrialized nations to the signing of the

historic Alma Ata Declaration in 1978. The basic principles of Primary

Health Care as embodied in this Declaration follow:

 

 

 

 

 

The Principles of Primaly Health Care

 

As Emboclied in the Alma Ata Declaration

 

 

 

1 . Equitable Distribution-- addressing the root causes of ill health,

and ensuring health resources are equitably distributed among all

groups and across geographic regions

 

2. Community Involvement-- genuine health decision-making by the community

 

3. Multisectoral Approach-- due recognition of the key influence on

health of environmental (incl. nutritional), economic, and social

factors as well as health services

 

4. Appropriate Technology-- sociocultural acceptability and relevance.187

 

 

 

 

 

By 1980 CIDA published a public affairs statement on CIDA's

Involvement in Health thereby reaffirming that in its support of

Bilateral Primary Health Care initiatives in the Developing World, the

Agency would place central priority on: the training of health

auxiliaries; health and nutrition; essential education; adequate food

production; potable water supply; family planning; and provision of

simple equipment and supplies.188

 

 

 

Despite the virtual eclipsing of these priorities by Canada's

massively increased support for Universal Childhood Immunization in

the late 80's and into the 90's, the Canadian Govemment's Official

Development Assistance Policy as embodied in the 1987 policy document

Sharing Our Future, actually emphasizes that a fundamental priority of

CIDA " must be to supply all the basics of health " which is defined as

" clean water, sanitation, (and) adequate nutrition. " Furthermore there

was to be a mobilization of the poor at the community level as

" partners " in the design, implementation and evaluation of health

activities.189

 

 

 

Canada's aforenoted actions have not been singular, as it must be

noted that virtually all of the industrialized nations had likewise

overshadowed their earlier vision and commitment to ensuring

fundamental health improvement measures by instead allocating a major

portion of their " health " investments to mass artificial immunization

and selective curative programs. In response to this major reversal,

in November of 1985 alarmed community health specialists and

practitioners from several developed and developing nations convened

at Antwerp, and there articulated what is called The Antwerp Manifesto

For Primary Health Care. Some key excerpts from the Manifesto follow:

 

 

 

.. . . In spite of the lessons of history and of past experiences,

major and international donor agencies are diverting scarce resources

into a short term approach known as " selective primary health care. .

.. " This approach is in total contradiction with the fundamental

principles underlying Primary Health Care. These principles are:

 

 

 

The main roots of poor health lie in living conditions and the

environment in general, and more specifically in poverty, (and)

inequity . . . of resources in relation to needs

 

Since health is . . . of people, it is self defeating not to consider

them as partners who are able to play a great part in the protection

and improvement of their own health

 

Health services must provide . . . promotive and rehabilitative

measures. This has to be done in a coordinated and integrated way

which responds to the peoples needs.

 

This manifesto is issued because the proliferation of selective health

intervention programmes undermines . . . Primary Health Care. It is

issued also because these interventions purport to offer " quick

solutions " and " instant success " for which they divert scarce

resources from the solution of the real underlying and continuing

problems, thus helping to maintain ill health. In addition, experience

has taught us that selective interventions tend to become permanent

even though they are presented as " interim " responses only. . . . And

above all, the selective approach rules out the possibility of

people's participation in decision making about their own health.190

 

 

 

 

 

EMERGING--A MORE PRACTICABLE PRIMARY HEALTH CARE MODEL

 

 

 

Table E which follows on the next two pages, was developed with the

appreciated assistance of medical sociologist L. Chetelat. It provides

a clear picture of the paradigmatic contrasts existing between the

selective war on disease model as exemplified in Westem selective

medicine, and the emerging causal based approach to health sustenance

and restoration.

 

 

 

The causal model is strongly predicated on the principle that man's

relationship to the laws of nature (natural law) and life, must

undergird any effective health maintenance and or restoration

strategy. Such an approach is recommended as inherently more sensible,

balanced, and cost effective for attaining and sustaining public

health, whether among Developed or Developing World populations. The

causal based model strongly emphasizes the importance of strengthening

self-knowledge, self-responsibility, and self-care and thus far more

closely corresponds to the challenge and direction mandated in the

historic Alma Ata Declaration. It also affords genuine respect for the

integral principles which undergird the practice of participatory

development. As a final point its characteristic qualities of local

accessibility, manageability, affordability, and effectiveness herald

its great promise for humankind.

 

 

 

 

 

Table E--The War on Disease Approach Versus The Health Causal Approach

WAR ON DISEASE APPROACH HEALTH CAUSAL APPROACH

 

 

 

1. Orientation & Philosophy 1. Orientation & Philosophy

 

Disease is understood as an entity separate from and attacking the

patient. Recognition of acute disease as a systemic reparative process

inseparable from the person.

 

The body and mind are separated, with distinct diseases and organs

treated singly. Recognizes the body and mind as being inseparably one,

to be treated as a unity.

 

The focus on labeling, isolating, and destroying " disease, " i.e., its

entities, and symptoms. The focus on strengthening the protective and

regenerative health energies, and resources of the person.

 

 

 

2. Causality 2. Causality

 

The focus of causality is external to the patient--viruses, bacteria,

poisons, and in more recent time stresses in the environment. The

focus of causality is both internal to the person as it relates to

primary lifestyle practices, deficiencies, negative emotions, etc.;

and external as it relates to debilitative factors in the natural and

social environments.

 

 

 

3. Prevention & Cure 3. Prevention & Cure

 

Artificially separates preventative and curative measures. Recognizes

that health sustenance and restoration depend on the selfsame measures.

 

The emphasis is on removing or palliating symptoms. It aims at

achieving quick results. The emphasis is on removing causes through

lifestyle, psycho-spiritual, and other sustainable changes to

debilitative bio-nutritional, environmental, social, and political

conditions.

 

Relies on highly sophisticated technological and costly measures that

are not amenable to self and include: family based care, i.e.,

manufactured vaccines, organ transplants, drugs, etc. These measures

are noted for bearing harmful side effects (latrogenesis). Relies on

health building and restorative measures that are harmless,

non-invasive, efficacious,and uncostly. These include adequate and

quality nutrition, potable water, local (non-toxic) plant medicines,

enhanced natural environment, and other apropos regenerative measures.

 

 

 

4. Care Providers 4. Care Providers

 

The emphasis is on exclusive management and control of health and

disease by medical professionals who know all, while patients blindly

follow the " doctor's orders. " Emphasis is placed on the informed and

responsible involvement of people in understanding and managing their

own health needs.

 

Relies solely on the expertise of highly trained medical

professionals, holding occult knowledge, and unfathomable wisdom.

Builds upon the distinctive knowledge and inherent capacities of

individuals, families and communities. " Local healers " are prepared to

provide basic care, coupled with training in wellness principles and

family self care.

 

 

 

5. Cost 5. Cost

 

Cost is escalating to the point of being an unmanageable and

unsustainable burden on society. Cost is de-escalating, to the point

of being negligible.

 

 

 

6. Research 6. Research

 

Research focuses on tracking, isolating and destroying " disease " and

its associated entities. Research focuses on better understanding and

appropriating the fundamental requisites of life and health.

 

The absence of disease is considered the result of techno-medical

interventions. The absence of disease is recognized as the

consequences of compliance with the natural laws of creation.

 

 

 

7. Health Care Outcomes 7. Health Care Outcomes

 

Produces a system of disease care and disease scare. People learn to

fear, distrust and disrespect the natural world, and their own bodies.

Produces a system of health care based upon people developing a

practical knowledge of, trust in and respect for the natural world,

and for their own bodies.

 

People become unduly dependent on medical institutions and

authorities. This in turn diminishes self-respect and moral

responsibility, while coping strategies are diminished leading to

resignation, helplessness and hopelessness. People develop and carry

out coping strategies, which in turn will inevitably lead to better

health, along with longer and fuller life.

 

 

 

--

 

 

 

SECTION III

 

 

 

A CONSIDERATION OF ALTERNATIVES TO

 

ENSURING NATURAL IMMUNITY

 

 

 

THE SOIL AS CHIEF DETERMINANT OF HEALTH AND THE FOUNDATION OF PUBLIC

HEALTH POLICY

 

 

 

In recognition of the indubitable axiom that all forms of life derive

their basic sustenance from the earth itself, it remains equally

evident that any policy to ensure public health must first and

foremost be predicated on ensuring the quality and integrity of the

soil. Prominent British horticulturist Sampson Morgan offers the

following incisive observation.

 

 

 

My long continued studies in the dust have convinced me that diseases

in soils, plants and men arise from conditions, brought about by the

introduction of poisons and by imperfect environment,- and experiments

have satisfied me beyond doubt that this is the natural and correct

explanation.191

 

 

 

Indeed there is a substantial basis for suggesting that it is of the

highest importance that health and development ministries in both

industrialized and Developing World nations should henceforth

predicate their strategic health policies upon a practical recognition

that the treatment and condition of the soil is by far the most

critical determinant of health (whether in plants, animals, or human

beings). In his seminal research on the underlying causes of the

outstanding health and longevity among the population of Hunza--a

society that until very recently has remained essentially free of

medical intervention--G.T. Wrench aptly concluded:

 

 

 

The importance of the method of culture of food is primary, radical,

and fundamental in the matter of health. It exceeds all other aspects

of nutrition. . . Nature endows life with a powerful, eternal capacity

to renew itself healthfully, given the right conditions. The genes

know nothing of diseases.192

 

 

 

Shelton seconds this conclusion in his observation that through the

relatively simple measure of building up our soils, crops can be freed

of fungal infections. In his view fungi, which live at the expense of

living plants, " are incapable of successfully attacking one that is

completely healthy. . . . In plant, as in animals, the nutritional

status largely determine the . . . soundness . . . of tissue

developments.193

 

 

 

INSIGHTFUL EXPERIMENTS

 

 

 

The historically significant experiments of Sir Albert Howard, British

Imperial Economic Botanist, based in India in the first quarter of

this century, confirm the correctness of this view. Through natural

soil feeding and regeneration methods, the plants and crops under his

management demonstrated continuous improvements to the point of being

impervious to all forms of disease as well as insect pests. Speaking

of his organic gardens and orchards at Indore, he stated that during

seven years of observation " I cannot recall a single case of insect or

fungus attack. " Indeed it was his studied opinion that:

 

 

 

.. . . plant diseases . . . only attack unsuitable varieties or crops

improperly grown. Their true role in agriculture is that of censors

for pointing out the crops which are imperfectly nourished. Disease

resistance seems to be the natural reward of healthy and

well-nourished protoplasm. The policy of protecting crops from pests

by means of sprays, powders and so forth is thoroughly unscientific

and radically unsound; even when successful, this procedure merely

preserves material hardly worth saving. The annihilation or avoidance

of a pest . . . are mere evasions.

 

 

 

However, Sir Howard's most vital findings pertained to the animals

feeding on his crops who in turn developed total freedom from disease

and deformities.

 

 

 

For twenty-one years I was able to study the reaction of the well-fed

animals to epidemic diseases such as rinderpest, hoof-and-mouth

disease, septicaemia, and so forth, which frequently devastated the

countryside. None of my animals were segregated, none were inoculated;

they frequently came in contact with diseased stock. No case of

infectious disease occurred.194

 

 

 

This calls to mind a personal interview I conducted with A.

Kalokerinos, Chief Medical Officer at the Aboriginal Health Clinic in

Redfern (Sydney), Australia. He related an experience wherein cattle

feeding on grass grown on re-mineralized soil, were grazing literally

nose to nose--at the fence line--with another herd infected with hoof

and mouth disease. Without the benefit of any specific protective

measures including vaccines, the uninfected herd manifested total

immunity.

 

 

 

In returning to the subject of insect pests, we find that there is

clear evidence that insects have an innate ability to detect mineral

defeciencies and imbalances--even at a subtle level--in plants, and

selectively devour only those which are deficient or imbalanced.

According to horticulturist S. Mueller " Satellite photographs of

Africa have shown how gigantic flights of locusts will cover thousands

of miles ignoring healthy vegetation, then descending and destroying

fields where the soil is wom out.195

 

 

 

This and the earlier observations made on the relationship of microbes

to human disease, parallels the view that pathogenic microorganisms

act as nature's censors, proliferating only when the host's

psychophysiology has been imbalanced and weakened by factors such as

stress, malnutrition, endo and environmental toxins, etc. Sir Howard's

experiences with the building of natural immunity in plants had been

preceded by such great soil scientists as Julius Hensel in Germany,

and Sampson Morgan in England, whose findings were later replicated by

Dr. Charles Northern and Albert Savage in North America.

 

 

 

These scientists employed soil re-mineralization and regeneration

techniques, employing the use of ground stone dust or sea vegetation,

and green (plant) compost, and the periodic aeration of plant or tree

roots through cultivation. The results were indeed phenomenal.

Marketed spinach grown on ordinary soil contained from 600 to 1,600

parts per billion of iodine, whereas spinach grown on re-mineralized

soil contained as high as 640,000 parts per billion. Testing revealed

that various vegetables grown in Savage's " mineral garden " possessed

as much as 400% more iron and other minerals than crops grown by

standard methods.196

 

 

 

SOIL RE-MINERALIZATION--A RETURN TO PRIMEVAL CONDITIONS

 

 

 

The necessity of soil re-mineralization is based on the premise that

over the millennia the earth's surface has undergone a progressive

erosion of both its major and trace minerals. As well, the widespread

and serious de-mineralization problem has been vastly exacerbated in

this century by deforestation, massive mono-culture cropping, and

heavy agrochemical dependency. Today the only place where the full

range of vital minerals can be found is in the seabeds where streams

and rivers have carried them, or in the earth's rocks. Thus the

utilization of sea plants and rock dust became a central feature in

strategic efforts to achieve balanced soil re-mineralization.

 

 

 

The place of soil re-mineralization--as a fundamental health

strategy--is corroborated not only by experimenters in improving plant

and animal wellness, but as well in prehistoric fossil records. For

instance, paleopathologist Roy L. Moodie has found that " the early

faunas were free of disease " and that " the most ancient bacteria were

harmless, " i.e., non-pathogenic in nature. He maintains that " There

are no known cases or examples of infection, no tumors, few traumatic

lesions or injuries of any kind prior to Devonian " and that " the

earliest animals were free from disease.197 It is also worth noting in

this regard that the earliest book of antiquity in the Judeo-Christian

record, Genesis, gives no account of any specific human diseases, and

as well makes no reference to conditions such as imbecility,

blindness, deaffiess, or other deformities.

 

 

 

SOIL DIETETICS AND DISEASE

 

 

 

In reviewing a modern text-book of domesticated crop diseases, one is

as appalled by their number and variety as one is by the list of human

illnesses in a text-book of medicine. The correlation is remarkable.

We find in both a number of deficiency diseases; excess diseases;

parasitic diseases; virus diseases; diseases due to insufficient or

defective water, oxygen and sunlight; those associated with excessive

heat or cold; chemical induced diseases (i.e., spraying/drugging); and

last but not least multiple degenerative and deformity diseases. How

did the major share of these diseases come into being? By cause, or

mere chance? Wrench answers:

 

 

 

I take it that what has happened to man has happened no less to his

domesticated plants. Science has effected a marvelous progress in

variety and fragmentation, but at the same time it has torn plants

from their traditional conditions upon which their health depends. . .

.. here is, no doubt, I think, that modern man has made plant life in

his own image.198

 

 

 

Part of today's larger shift toward environmental responsibility and

sustainability, are the commendable efforts to reduce excessive

dependency on soil and plant chemicals in agricultural methods.

However, the growing impetus toward " organic " approaches to

agriculture relies heavily upon manure fertilizers. On this point

Shelton comments that " . . . it has long been known that heavy

manuring of the soil results in the plants grown thereon being subject

to parasitic infestation because of their lack of health.199

 

 

 

Morgan also contends that fertilizers derived from stable manure or of

animal origin (as well as chemicals), were significantly injurious to

the health of soil and plants. In fact, he maintains that their

widespread use has served to create conditions of disease and

degeneration consecutively in soil, plant, animal and human life. In

his words:

 

 

 

I have proved that susceptibility to disease is greatest with large

dressings of dung. It is the main cause of fungoid infections of

plants . . . and bad eyesight, bad teeth, and kindred troubles in

human beings. . . . As to [chemical] fertilizers, they often deplete

the soil of its fertility and induce acidity. . . . 200

 

 

 

His experimental work in England in the early part of this century,

closely paralleled those of Sir Howard in India. The farms surrounding

his own--all employing conventional agribusiness methods--were struck

again and again over the years by multiple forms of disease and a

variety of pests. Morgan's vast fruit orchards, vegetable gardens and

grain fields thrived, totally immune' to these perennial problems.201

(For more background discussion on the need and potential for

achieving an enhanced agricultural system that is more conducive to

ensuring natural immunity, in plants, animals, and man please refer to

Annex II--Agrochemical Agriculture--the Need for a Saner Alternative.)

 

 

 

Another notable and much more recent horticultural experimenter who

bears mentioning is Australian David Phillips. In his outstanding book

From Soil to Psyche, he maintains that when plants are deprived of

vital organic and mineral nutrients and instead are stimulated to

undergo enforced growth--as in the case of chemical

fertilization--such plants " react by a wild development of cellular

structure which is deficient in trace elements and amino acids. " He

goes on to affirm that:

 

 

 

Such poorly constituted crops cannot avoid, and must inevitably

attract, any prevalent form of disease. At our own organic farms, not

one papaya tree was lost during the severe disease epidemic of 1973

which followed Eastern Australia's 1972 partial drought. Every

newspaper reported the severe plant losses of up to 90 percent of

plantations from " three strains of virus. . . "

 

 

 

It was no strange or mystical phenomenon that our farm, with its

organically mulched plants, registered not even a decline in crop

production while other farmers in the district were bemoaning their

huge losses.202

 

 

 

KEY NUTRITIONAL MEASURES IN PREVENTING INFECTIOUS DISEASE

 

 

 

Until lately disease was regarded as a sin of commission by some

unseen and subtle agency. The vitamins are teaching us to regard it .

.. . as a sin of omission on the part of civilized and hyper-civilized

man. By our habit of riveting our attention on microbes and their

toxins we have sadly neglected the side of the question which concerns

itself with our own bodily defenses.

 

 

 

Prominent British Physician--Leonard Williams

 

 

 

Given the necessity for limiting the scope of this document, and the

wide ranging dimensions which the issue of alternatives represent, it

would be impracticable to attempt to highlight all the promising

directions for systematic applied research on strengthening natural

immunity that exist. However, given the singular recognition that is

being accorded to the role of nutrition as a lifestyle factor in both

the prevention and treatment of infectious and degenerative diseases,

it clearly represents a primal area for undertaking far more intensive

applied research and experimentation.(The scope of viral, toxin and

bacterial associated conditions to be considered in this section on

nutrition and infection will not necessarily be delimited to the

UCI-EPI childhood diseases.)

 

 

 

It seems remarkable that some of the most significant experimental and

clinical based research literature that exists on the relationship

between nutrition and infectious disease were published in the first

half of the twentieth century. Much of this early and now largely

forgotten applied research documented the considerable preventive and

therapeutic values of the newly discovered vitamins. Given that the

relationship between nutrition and health represents in itself a vast

and complex subject, for brevity's sake this discussion on nutritional

measures will necessarily be limited to an examination of the two

vitamins which both clinical research and practice have revealed as

holding the most significant role in the prevention and alleviation of

various infectious diseases, i.e., Vitamins A and C.

 

 

 

VITAMIN A

 

 

 

Vitamin A is recognized as an essential nutrient for maintaining

normal physiologic functions, including cellular differentiation,

membrane integrity, vision, immunologic responses and growth.

Literature dating back as far as the 1920's has noted an association

between Vitamin A deficiency and an increased incidence and severity

of infection,203 which led to the labeling of Vitamin A as the

" anti-infective Vitamin " by Clausen. 204 In more recent time, Vitamin

A deficiency has received considerable attention in international

health circles. This has been largely due to various field studies

which have linked Vitamin A deficiency with an increased risk of

childhood morbidity and mortality.205, 206, 207

 

 

 

Of these,206 it was observed by the field researchers that preschool

children with mild xerophthalmia (night blindness and bitot's spots, a

condition clearly attributable to Vitamin A deficiency) were dying at

a rate ranging from 4 to 12 times greater than that of neighboring

children with normal eyes and vision. (This represented an 18 month

longitudinal study of 4,600 Javanese [indonesian] preschool children

from six separate communities.)

 

 

 

In fact such relationships persisted even after stratifying for the

presence or absence of respiratory disease, protein energy

malnutrition, and diarrhoea. The researchers asked but did not answer

why mildly Vitamin A-deficient children died at such increased rates,

" especially those who were [apparently] well nourished and seemingly

free of diarrhoea and respiratory disease, " which are considered the

major causes of childhood mortality in developing countries.

 

 

 

The first major controlled field study to be published in an

established medical journal detailing an observed relationship between

Vitamin A deficiency and infectious disease, 207 reported on the

results of a randomized, community trial of Vitamin A supplementation

in northern Sumatra (Indonesia). 450 villages were randomly assigned

to either participate in a Vitamin A supplementation scheme (229

villages), or serve for one year as a control (221 villages). The

study observed that among children aged 1 to 6 years at baseline, the

death rate in the 221 control villages--which did not receive the

vitamin nor any placebo--was 49% greater than in those villages where

supplementation was given. (Although the study was actually designed

to examine nutritional blindness, these unanticipated results were

found when comparing mortality rates between the treatment and the

control villages.)

 

 

 

Despite such promising findings, the posture of the medical community

has generally been one of either questioning the " validity " of the

research methodology and findings, or of putting the brakes on

initiating any actual policy and or programming changes. To quote a

1990 statement of Kjolhede and Gadomski of Johns Hopkins University in

response to the various Sommer et al studies:

 

 

 

Because scientific evidence relating to Vitamin A is being generated

by diverse sources, and because there is a paucity of data strictly

relevant to childhood survival in developing countries, the

implications of these and other findings have been dijficult to

translate into specific policies and programmatic recommendations.208

 

 

 

According to secondary research carried out by Mamdani and Ross, and

reported in their exhaustive article " Vitamin A supplementation and

child survival: magic bullet or false hope?, " 209 Vitamin A deficiency

represents " . . . a major nutritional problem among preschool children

in many countries of Africa, Asia, as well as some areas of Central

and and South America. " In fact an estimated 250,000 young children

will go blind each year due to a lack of Vitamin A in their diets,

while another 250,000 will experience lesser degrees of permanent

impairment of vision due to corneal damage; (According to West and

Sommer, an estimated 700,000 preschool children will develop active

corneal lesions; and 6,700,000 new children will manifest mild Vitamin

A deficiency annually. As well--at any one time--an estimated 20 to 40

million are suffering from mild levels of Vitamin A deficiency.) 210

with up to 75 percent of the blinded children dying within a few

months of the blinding episode. The literature indicates that the

association between " severe Vitamin A deficiency and infant and child

mortality has been established for some time. " The authors go on to

conclude that:

 

 

 

An association between Vitamin A deficiency and infectious diseases,

in particular diarrhoea, respiratory infections and measles--which are

among the most important causes of death during childhood in the

Developing World--has significant policy implications. . . .

 

 

 

Overall, the balance of evidence suggests that Vitamin A deficiency

does lead to an increased risk of infections such as measles,

respiratory infections and diarrhoea, and hence to an increased risk

of death. Conversely, the evidence suggests--but as yet does not prove

conclusively--that Vitamin A supplementation, or other strategies' 211

(Other strategies include the fortification of selected commercial

foods which are commonly consumed, and dietary modifications. The

latter measure includes a " long term solution, " i.e., the increased

production of Vitamin A-rich foods through home, school, and community

gardens, wherever climate and soil conditions permit. An example where

the increased production and distribution of garden produce--coupled

to basic nutrition education--worked well was the Applied Nutrition

Program in Tamil Nadu, India. Mothers diagnosed as anaemic and

VitaminA deficient were given access to this produce. Examination,

after six months, revealed " considerable " improvements to their

general nutritional status, along with the " disappearance of all the

clinical signs of Vitamin A deficiency. 211) for improving Vitamin A

status, would lead to a decrease in the incidence and/or the severity

of these infections and of the substantial mortality associated with

them. The magnitude of this potential effect remains unclear, however,

though the evidence from the Indonesian studies implies that it may be

substantial.212

 

 

 

It is encouraging that as of 1987 the following nations have already

adopted home gardening as a national priority: Barbados, Chile,

Colombia, Dominica, Honduras, India, Indonesia, the Philippines and

SriLanka.213

 

 

 

VITAMIN C

 

 

 

In introducing the subject of Vitamin C, it would be fitting to share

the following observation made by the Australian

microbiologist/physician team of Dettman and Kalokerinos, who over

many years have conducted wide ranging research--both secondary and

original--on the prophylactic and therapeutic potential of Vitamin C.

 

 

 

If you were offered a substance that could assist with the endogenous

production of interferon and PGE1, that activated enzyme systems,

assisted with mineral uptake and collagen production, aided healing,

prevented capillary fragility and stimulated renal function, was

capable of curing both viral and bacterial infections, was a universal

detoxifier effective against drugs and venomous bites and was

currently being used more and more in the treatment of degenerative

diseases, you would rightly scoff. More particularly if you were told

that this substance was Vitamin C, yet all these claims and more have

been documented and put to clinical trial.214

 

 

 

As we go on to examine what is indeed a vast body of experimental and

clinical data on Vitamin C, we find that there are indeed substantive

evidences for its efficacy as a low cost, perfectly safe, and wide

spectrum anti-viral, anti-toxic and anti-bacterial agent.

Internationally noted biochemist Irwin Stone has alone described and

documented a wide range of applied biomedical research and clinical

experience employing 122 literature citations--spanning a 40 year

period showing its marked efficacy as a prophylactic and therapeutic

agent.215 In obtaining and reviewing a number of the original source

documents cited by Stone--relative to Vitamin C and the infectious

diseases--it was both amazing and perplexing that so little of this

vital knowledge which was discovered earlier in this century is being

further researched and or utilized today.

 

 

 

I. Viral Infections

 

 

 

Within a relatively limited timeframe after the 1933 discovery of

ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) and its identification as an anti-scorbutic

(scurvy) substance, a diverse range of researchers found that ascorbic

acid had significant potential as a wide-spectrum antiviral agent.

Throughout the 30's in rapid succession Jungeblut showed that ascorbic

acid would inactivate the virus found in poliomyelitis; 216 Holden and

Molley, inactivation of the herpes virus; 217Lagenbusch and Enderling,

inactivation of the virus found in hoof and mouth disease; 218 and

Amato, inactivation of the rabies virus.219 It should be noted that

Jungeblut observed that the " antiviral " effect of Vitamin C is not due

to the acid reaction of the ascorbic acid, since it occurs also when

the latter has been adjusted to a pH at which the virus remain

" unharmed. " 220

 

 

 

Jungeblut continued his experimental work at Columbia University with

primates in which he demonstrated that a scheduled administration of

ascorbic acid both enhanced resistance to poliomyelitis, and in cases

of infection markedly reduced the severity of the disease. His

experiments also demonstrated a very marked superiority in the level

of effectiveness of natural source ascorbic acid, versus the

laboratory synthesized product. For example in one experimental

series, " the percentage of non-paralytic survivors following treatment

with natural Vitamin C was about six times as large as that of the

untreated controls, " whereas " in the animals treated with synthetic

Vitamin C this percentage was only twice that of the controls.221

(Despite such promising early findings, no serious or systematic

efforts were made by organized medicine during this historical time

period to incorporate the vitamin as a prophylactic or therapeutic agent.)

 

 

 

However, the later results achieved in the direct clinical practice of

North Carolina physician F. Klenner approached the extraordinary. He

graphically describes--from his own practice and other sources--the

substantive efficacy of this vitamin in preventing and/or reversing

pathological and life threatening conditions which literally extend

over " the entire gamut of medical knowledge. " The following list

details the range of conditions as described in this and other journal

articles by Klenner. Although viral related conditions are being

discussed in this section, a few bacterial diseases have been included

in this list and are italicized for identification (the list also

includes some serious toxic and degenerative conditions).

 

 

 

TABLE F -- CONDITIONS SUCCESSFULLY PREVENTED AND OR REMEDIATED

EMPLOYING VITAMIN C infectious hepatitis virus pneumonia

 

influenza diphtheria

 

virus encephalitispoliomyelitis pertusis (whooping caugh)

 

measles chicken pox

 

parotitis (mumps) tetanus (lockjaw)

 

mononucleosis rheumatic fever

 

scarlat fever botulism

 

heavy metal intoxication poisonous insect, spider and snake bites

 

trichinosis* bacillary dysentary

 

malignancies post-operative deaths

 

childbirth labor (easing and shortening) postpartum hemmorages (prevents)

 

cardiovascular diseases peptic and duodenal ulcers

 

pancreatitis severe burns (mostly external treatment)

 

radiation sickness carbon mooxide poisoning

 

barbiturate poisoning222

 

 

 

*In Klenner's successful reversal of trichnosis, a combination of

Vitamin C and para-aminobenzoic acid were used.

 

 

 

He describes the role played by ascorbic acid in intercellular

reactions and its neutralization and perceived control of virus

production. Its enzymic action contributes to the breakdown of virus

nucleic acid to adenosine deaminase which converts to inosine. The end

result are purines which are " extensively catabilized. " As well, when

ascorbic acid joins the available virus protein, it results in a new

macromolecule which acts as the " repressor factor. " In fact it has

been " demonstrated that when combined with the repressor, the operator

gene, virus nuclcic acid, cannot react with any other substance and

cannot induce activity in the structural gene, therefore inhibiting

the multiplication of new virus bodies.223

 

 

 

Writing in an early article published in the Journal of Southern

Medicine and Surgery, he ascribes the relative limitations in success

as attained in much of the earlier experimental results with Vitamin

C, to the very low dosage levels used. Conversely, the key to his

unprecedented clinical achievements lay in the much higher dosage he

administered. He comments:

 

 

 

The years of labor in animal experimentations; the cost in human

effort and " grants, and the volumes written, make it difficult to

understand how so many investigators could have failed in

comprehending the one thing that would have given positive results

[i.e., to the degree Klenner attained] a decade ago. This one thing

was the size and frequency of its administration. 224

 

 

 

In the same article he goes on to describe:

 

 

 

a measles epidemic in which " Vitamin C was used prophylactically, " in

which without exception all who received 1 gram every six hours either

intravenously or intramuscularly " were protected from the virus. "

 

In treating 60 acute cases of poliomyelitis, (in a number, the

diagnosis was confirmed by lumbar puncture, with cell counts ranging

from 33 to 125) for the first 24 hours, 1 to 2 grams depending on

age--of Vitamin C was administered every second to fourth hour

(intramuscularly in children up to four years). For the following 48

hour period the 1 to 2 gram dosage was given only every sixth hour,

with all 60 patients diagnosed " clinically well " within 72 hours from

the commencement of treatment.

 

Six cases of virus encephalitis were similarly treated with Vitamin C

injections, and all without exception made dramatic recoveries.

 

Diphtheria was successfully treated using the same intensive treatment

method " in half the time required to remove the membrane and get

negative smears by antitoxin.225

 

Summarily, Klenner could well affirm that " we have been able to

assemble sufficient clinical evidence to prove unequivocally that

Vitamin C is the antibiotic of choice in the handling of all types of

virus diseases. " As well he demonstrated--through trial and

experimentation--that where tissue levels of the vitamin are

maintained, an environment that is extremely unfavourable for

virtually all forms of viral infection is created in the human body.226

 

 

 

II. Bacterial Infections

 

 

 

Within five years of the discovery of Vitamin C, research studies were

being published in the medical literature on the clear association

between scurvy and the prescorbutic state (both evidencing Vitamin C

deficiency) to a range of infections (both bacterial and viral) in

guinea pigs and humans.227

 

 

 

Beginning in this same time period other applied researchers

discovered that ascorbic acid has both bacteriostatic (inhibiting) and

bactericidal (destroying) properties. For example, researchers Gupta

and Guha, demonstrated that 2 milligram percent (2 mg% is equivalent

to 2 parts of ascorbic acid to 100,000 parts of bacterial suspension)

inhibited staphylococcus aureus, and B. typhosus. The same inhibitive

effect was produced at 5 mg% for B. diphtheria, and streptococcus

hemolyticus.228 Whereas Sirsi reported that 10 mg% was sufficient to

destroy virulent strains of M. tuberculosis.229 Other researchers

found that ascorbic acid was effective in completely neutralizing and

rendering harmless a wide variety of bacterial toxins. These included:

diphtheria--Jungeblut and Zwemer,230 tetanus Jungeblut; 231

staphylococcus--Kodama and Kojima; 232 and dysentery--Takahashi. 233

 

 

 

In a revealing nutritional status survey conducted close to

mid-century on the aboriginal population in Northern Manitoba

(Canada), it was found that the most prevalent micro-nutrient

deficiency was Vitamin C, i.e., on average less than 1/71 the

recommended daily allowance. At the time, the death rate from

tuberculosis among this group stood at 1,400 per 100,000 in comparison

to 27 per 100,000 in the white population. The researchers concluded

" . . . it is probable that the Indian's great susceptibility to many

diseases, paramount amongst which is tuberculosis, may be attributable

.. . . to their high degree of malnutrition arising from lack of proper

foods.234

 

 

 

Charpy reports on a clinical trial where 15 grams (15,000 milligrams)

of ascorbic acid were administered daily to a group of extremely

advanced (terminal) Tuberculosis patients. (Of the six to be tested

one actually died before the trial could begin). The five patients who

were fortunate enough to receive this treatment, all underwent a

spectacular transformation in their general condition, and not only

left their beds, but within a six to eight month period had regained

from 20 to 70 pounds in body weight. As an added point of interest,

each patient had cumulatively taken about 3 kilograms (3,000,000

milligrams) of ascorbic acid during the test period with absolute

safety and perfect tolerance.235

 

 

 

Hochwald employed injections of 1/2 gram of ascorbic acid every

one-and-a-half hours (6 grams in a 12 hour period) in croupous

pneumonia until the fever and local symptoms subsided. The speed with

which this treatment worked was so rapid that it was actually possible

within the first day to practically eliminate all local symptoms of

infection including the fever, and to attain a normalization of blood

counts.236

 

 

 

Two articles in the Canadian Medical Association Journal reported on

oral Vitamin C therapy i.e., 1/2 gram the first day, followed by an

average 1/5gram each day thereafter--on 29 pertussis (whooping cough)

patients. The researchers concluded that " this treatment markedly

decreases the intensity, number and duration of the characteristic

symptoms.237

 

 

 

In DeWit's clinical experimentation in the Netherlands 1/2 gram of

ascorbic acid was administered daily in the treatment of children with

pertussis for a period of one week, after which it was gradually

reduced stepwise. Of the 90 children treated (who were divided into 3

comparable groups) the duration of the illness was 15 days for those

receiving the injections, 20 days for oral recipients, and 34 days for

the control group who did not receive the vitamin in any form, but had

alternately received the newly developed vaccine.238

 

 

 

Other clinical trials on the reversal of human bacterial infections by

ascorbic acid exist in the biomedical literature, e.g., in the

treatment of leprosy, typhoid fever and dysentery. In these various

reports, without exception, the level of success as reported

correlates directly with the amount of dosage administered.239

 

 

 

III. Phagocytotic Activity

 

 

 

From an historical perspective, it is of interest that as early as

1943 Cotingham and Mills demonstrated the necessity for the presence

of ascorbic acid in maintaining defensive phagocytotic activity.240 It

appears that their important discovery remained largely unknown.

However, three decades later the rediscovery and public pronouncement

of this same finding by DeChatelet et al, did at least generate wide

newspaper coverage, if not any real impact on medical practice.241

 

 

 

IV. Conclusion

 

 

 

Not unlike earlier clinicians who employed Vitamin C prophylactically

and therapeutically, R. Catheart's extensive clinical experience led

him to conclude that proportional to the level of ascorbic acid

depletion, there would follow human immune system failure,

consequently increasing the susceptibility and potential manifestation

of a wide range of disorders including various acute, secondary, and

chronic infections (viral and bacterial), allergic reactions,

inflammatory and collagen diseases, as well as an impaired ability to

heal.242

 

 

 

It was the Noble Prize Laureate Linus Pauling who made the observation

that:

 

 

 

I have been astonished . . . that in the last quarter of the twentieth

century a single substance would be recognized to be helpful no matter

what disease a person is suffering from. . . . Vitamin C is such a

substance . . . by its involvement in many biochemical reactions in

the human body it makes the body's natural defenses more powerful, and

it is these natural defenses that provide most of our resistance to

disease.243

 

 

 

In considering the practical implications and strategic importance of

the knowledge of Vitamin C relative to the issue of child survival in

the Developing World, it would be worthwhile to conclude this

discussion of Vitamin C with the following summarization of Canadian

Physician W. McConnick.

 

 

 

From increasing evidence of the anti-toxic and anti-infectious action

of Vitamin C, and from personal clinical experience in the

prophylactic and therapeutic application of this vitamin, the author

is firmly convinced that the major factor in bringing about . . . [the

major decline in] infectious disease incidence has been the steady and

phenomenal increase in the consumption of Vitamin C-rich fruits . . .

during the period in question.

 

 

 

In many cases of deficiency, where the dietary intake indicates a

subnormal intake of Vitamin C over a lengthy period, the correlated

clinical history shows repeated occurrence of infectious processes. .

.. . The author has made intensive application of Vitamin C therapy,

orally and parenterally, in many . . . infectious diseases . . . with

results in every case even more rapid and favorable than could be

expected from the use of the modern antibiotics, and with the added

advantage of complete exemption from toxic or allergic reactions. 244

 

 

 

 

 

A New and Better Strategy

 

 

 

From the foregoing evidence it is clear that a markedly greater

emphasis on the development of home, school, and community

horticultural and gardening crop production of Vitamin A and C rich

foods designed to increase local consumption--coupled to appropriate

cormnunity nutrition education campaigns, could in and of itself make

significant inroads in reversing the phenomena of infectious disease

in today's Developing World.

 

 

 

GENERAL CONCLUSION ON APPROPRIATE ALTERNATIVES

 

 

 

To summarize and conclude the vital issue of what constitutes a more

appropriate policy alternative in the effective prevention of human

disease--whether infectious or degenerative--we must return to what

are the original and thus fundamentally legitimate sources of health

immune system success. There is indeed an abundance of evidence

confirming the fact that multiple lifestyle factors are not only

effective in preventing and reversing degenerative diseases, but the

full range of infectious diseases as well. Having already reviewed two

key nutrient factors in relation to the prevention and cure of

infections, what follows is a concise cross-sampling of research

demonstrating the role of other lifestyle and nutrition factors in

strengthening natural immunity.

 

 

 

Evidence suggests that physical exercise can enhance natural killer

cell ftinction; and elevate interferon, serum leukocyte, and

interleukin-1 levels. (Interleukin-1 enhances both B and T lymphocyte

activity and is involved in the body's initial response to infection

and inflammation; 245 while interferon is known to arrest the

reproduction of viruses, and is vital in reversing many forms of viral

infection including hepatitis, chicken pox, herpes simplex and zoster

etc.246

 

Recent studies have documented that even sub-clinical levels of

" malnutrition and deficiencies of vitamins, minerals and trace

elements " have been linked to the " impairment of immune responses.247

 

A reduction in dietary fat in humans, correlates with a strengthening

of natural killer cell activity.248 It has also been shown in vitro

that polyunsaturated fats weaken lymphocyte ability to respond to

antigens.249

 

Even brief periods of sleep deprivation (7 hours) have been linked to

dramatic decreases in basic host immune responses.250

 

" Stressful conditions can profoundly suppress immune responses of

blood and splenic lymphocytes, including T-cell mitogenesis, natural

killer cell activity, production of interleukin-2 (IL-2) and

interferon, and IL-2 receptor _expression. " 251

 

Bodily exposure to ultraviolet rays as found in natural sunlight,

significantly strengthens the immune system. For example:

 

* It increases the number of lymphocytes, antibodies (mostly gamma

globulins), and lymphocyte produced interferon. As well, the

effectiveness of neutrophils in engulfing bacteria can be at least

doubled; 252

 

 

 

* A 12 year study of male college students revealed that only 10

minutes of irradiation with ultra violet light, up to 3 times weekly

during the winter months, reduced colds by up to 40.3 percent; 253

under similar treatment during Winter, there was observed a greatly

increased resistance to a range of infectious diseases in Russian

children.254

 

 

 

* Truly dramatic results have been and can be achieved in treating a

broad range of both viral and bacterial associated diseases.255

 

 

 

* The current medical concept pictures a sun that is destructive to

human health, i.e., responsible for accelerating the aging of the

skin, and the prime causative factor behind the now endemic onset of

skin cancers. However, extensively documented research on the health

effects of both sunlight and nutrition by Kime clearly point to the

fact that " the highly refined western diet plays the leading role,

both in the aging process and in the development of skin cancer.256

 

 

 

Alcohol is an " immunosuppressive drug with far reaching consequences, "

e.g., it interferes significantly with antibacterial defense, and

adversely affects cell-mediated immunity, thereby increasing risks for

viral infections, tuberculosis, and neoplasia (tumor formation).257

Alcohol inhibits the normal function of B lymphocytes, with as little

as 3 ounces (2 drinks) reducing antibody production to1/3 normal

amounts.258 It has been documented that there is increased

susceptibility to HIV (AIDS associated virus), with the virus growing

more rapidly when even moderate intake levels (e.g., 4 beers) are

taken, immune suppression lasting 3-7 hours with T-cells producing

less interleukin-2, and T-suppresser cells producing less of the

soluble immune response suppression factor.259

 

 

 

 

 

Smoking of cigarettes weakens host defenses against bacteria and

viruses, including the impairment of macrophage function.260

 

Table G on the following page provides a fully rational explication of

the dynamic processes and factors determining health (natural

immunity) and disease. In reviewing this table, we may safely conclude

that our individual and collective states of " health " and " disease "

depends essentially upon our understanding of and respect for nature.

Indeed we must come to the ultimate realization that it is in the very

best interest of humankind to seek and to obey the voice of nature,

with the assurance that the consequences of this commitment will be

sound and lasting health of both body and mind.

 

 

 

 

 

--

 

 

 

Table G -- Psycho-Physiological Integrity-The Health and Disease Continuum

 

 

 

Life healing--i.e., vital systemic cleansing, balancing, reparative

and renewal processes--with varied infectious disease symptoms being

severe and acute manifestations are continuously at work, at all

stages from the highest level of functioning and on downward to the

point of death. The efficacy of these healing processes depend solely

upon the appropriate and moderate provision of the following primal

and lawful requisites of human life.

 

 

 

Air (pure, with electrically balanced ion levels)

 

Water (in potable form, employed for bodily--internal and

external--cleansing, and environmental sanitation)

 

Sunlight (early morning and late afternoon, including regular exposure

to living quarters)

 

Exercise (physical, mental, social and spiritual faculties)

 

Rest (physiological and psycho-emotional)

 

Sound Nutrition (i.e., a balanced variety of unrefined and

unadulterated plant foods derived from mineral rich-living soil)

 

Positive Thinking (including positive/constructive motives, emotions

and relationships)

 

Psycho-Bio-Physical lntegrity depends upon the foregoing requisites,

coupled with: sound heredity; non-abuse of the central nervous system;

and general freedom from adverse influences, e.g., chemicals, drugs,

radiation, foreign antigens, trauma and physical injuries. Whether

through inheritance [i.e., pre-dispositional weaknesses] or in one's

own life, DENIAL OF THESE BASIC LIFE REQUISITES, OR THE INTRUSION OF

THESE ADVERSE INFLUENCES, CONSTITUTES THE PRIMARY AND SUSTAINING

CAUSES UNDERLING THE MULTIPLE SYMPTOMS OF PSYCHO-BIO-PHYSICAL

DEGENERATION (PHYSICAL AND MENTAL DISEASE). The distinction between

" prevention " and " cure " is an artificially contrived notion and does

not exist in nature, viz. the self-same primal, i.e., original causes

by which systemic (psychophysiological) health is maintained, also

serve as the only sound measures by which lost health can be restored.

 

 

 

Compliance with primary psycho-physiological laws ensures an increase

and strengthening of inherent vital force and immunity leading to High

Level Healtlh.

 

 

 

Death > Degeneration > Impairment > Low > Medium > High health

 

 

 

Non-Compliance with primary psycho-physiological laws ensures a

weakening of inherent vital force and immunity, leading to

Degeneratlon and Death

 

 

 

Death < Degeneration < Impairment < Low < Medium < High Health

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

--

 

 

 

CONCLUSION

 

 

 

Belief in artificially induced immunization is actually predicated on

an assumed technological ability to annul the natural bio-system laws

of cause and effect. It is in essence an imaginative belief that we

can improve upon nature's original design and purpose through

deceitfully manipulating her to our own heedless benefit. It would be

fitting at this point to quote from Kime:

 

 

 

We may believe that we are responsible to nothing but our own

pleasure, that we may freely violate and disregard natural law and

then artificially manipulate the deleterious consequences. We may

believe that we can eat poorly, sleep rarely, work constantly,

exercise sparingly, and avoid any physical consequences by some wonder

drug. . . It requires no discipline and no sacrifice. . . .

 

 

 

[However] For all our advances in science, we still remain humbly,

pitifully dependent upon the forces of nature: air, water, food, and

sunlight. It seems in fact, the more advanced our technology becomes,

the more capable we are of destroying ourselves . . . by more

insidious inroads into our health.261

 

 

 

Finally, it is indeed incontrovertible that the only sure answer to

the frightening dilemma that indiscriminately employed artificial

universal childhood immunization now poses, is a counter-public health

policy which supports a studied and respectful return to the original

and immutable laws of life and health, thus encouraging people of all

nations to return to the grand design as embodied in the creation by

an all wise Creator.

 

 

 

REFERENCES

 

 

 

 

 

***Note: Some may understandably raise the concern that a number of

the references cited are not directly related to Development and the

Developing World, and secondly are not uniformly recent. In response

to this point, it remains obvious that the conventions of Western

Selective Medicine are inherently predicated on a Western perspective

of health and disease. Consequently it seems only consistent and

apropos that Western based applied research and experience can and

should be brought to bear in any serious effort to constructively

examine these areas.

 

 

 

On the issue of the how recent the data is, it is one of the foibles

of Westernized thinking (particularly in the medical field) that

unless an observation or a practice is very recent, it should be held

suspect as being obsolete and due for relegation to the trash can.

'Ibis view is correct only insofar as erroneous concepts undergird a

system, and faulty theories and ever changing practices have no better

foundation than unanchored and footloose empiricism. More precise

sciences such as astronomy, and physics continue to heavily utilize

and build upon older research sources and practices, some even going

back over many centuries. The reason this is so, is because insofar as

the principle ---> practice ----> observation continuum is correct and

valid, the data remains unchanging and unaffected by the vagaries of

both time and circumstances.

 

 

 

1 World Health Organization, Publication No. 6, Rev. 1, Geneva,

Switzerland, June, 1983.

 

 

 

2 Etherington, A., & Associates, Assessment of the CIDA Health

Sector--Profile of Health Project Disbursements 1984-1988, prepared

for CIDA Policy Branch, Evaluation Division; and Health Section,

Professional Services Branch, Hull, Canada, February, 1989, Executive

Summary, p. iv.

 

 

 

3 Hawes, F. et at, Canada's International Immunization

Programme--Operational Review 1986-1991, Final Report, Intercultural

International, prepared for: ICDS; and CIDA, Ottawa, Canada, November,

1989, Summary P. 1, and Main Report p. 37

 

 

 

4 Etherington, A., Assessment of the CIDA Health Sector Integrated

Paper, prepared for: CIDA Policy Branch, Evaluation Division; and

Health Sector, Professional Services Branch, Hull, Canada, February,

1989, p. 16.

 

 

 

5 Ibid, Executive Sunnnary, p. v.

 

 

 

6 Bloom, B.R., " Vaccines for the Third World, " World Health, World

Health Organization, Geneva Switzerland, June-July-August, 1990, p. 14.

 

 

 

See also:

 

 

 

Nature, Vol. 342, November, 1989.

 

 

 

7 lbid, p. 13.

 

 

 

8 Grant, J., " Simple, Available and Effective Interventions, " A Shift

in the Wind, Vol. 18, UNICEF, May, 1984,p. 7.

 

 

 

9 The LJN Department of Public Information and the United Nations

University, " The Immunization Success Story " in Development Forum,

Vol. XVI, No. 1, January-February, 1988, Cover Page Story.

 

 

 

10 Etherington, A., Assessment of the CIDA Health Sector--Integrated

Paper, p. 3.

 

 

 

11 Fulginiti, V.A., " Immunization: Current Controversies, " The Journal

of Pediatrics, Vol. 101, No. 4, 1982, p.487.

 

 

 

12 UNICEF Thailand, " Progress Report on the Utilization of the

Contribution of $8,220,000 Cdn--Integrated Services Project for

Children, " Bangkok, Thailand, March 21, 1988.

 

 

 

13 Mathurosapas, R., Factors Associated with High and Low EPI Coverage

in Thailand, Faculty of Public Health, Mahidol University, Thailand, 1986.

 

 

 

14 World Health Organization, Expanded Programme of Immunization

Immunization Policy, WHO-EPI-General, Rev. 1, Geneva, Switzerland,

July, 1986.

 

 

 

15 Dick, G., Practical Immunization, MTP Press Ltd., (a member of the

Kluwer Academic Publishers Group), Falcon House, Lancaster, England,

1986, pp. 2-5.

 

 

 

16 lbid, pp. 29-77.

 

 

 

17 Chetelat, L.J., A Synthesis of Key Issues for Evaluation in Primary

Health Care, Food and Nutrition and Expanded Programs of Immunization,

prepared for Canadian International Development Agency, Policy Branch,

Evaluation Division, Hull, Canada, January, 1990, pp. 139 142.

 

 

 

18 Dick, G., Immununization, Update Books, London, England, 1978

 

 

 

See also:

 

 

 

Dick, G., Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, Vol. 167,

1974, pp. 371-374

 

Hill, L., " Primary Immunization Deficiency in Children, " Thorax 25,

1970, p. 254

 

Bousfield, G. " Reactions to Immunization, " British Medical Journal,

February 23, 1974, P. 327

 

Dettman, G., " Aboriginal Infant Health and Mortality Rates, " The

Medical Journal of Australia, April 7, 1973, pp. 711 and 712

 

Kalokerinos, A., Every Second Child, Thomas Nelson, Australia, 1981

 

Vessal, S., and Kravis, L., " Imunologic Mechanisms Responsible for

Adverse Reactions to Routine Immunizations in Children, " Clinical

Pediatrics, Vol. 15, No. 8, 1976, pp. 688-696

 

19 Kalokerinos, A., and Dettman, G., " Viral Vaccines Vital or

Vulnerable, " The Australasian Nurses Journal, August, 1980, p. 27

 

20 Guthrie, C., UNICEF Canada's " Field Trip Monitoring Report on The

Integrated Services Project for Children, " observations covering

Nakhan Phenom and Mudaban provinces, January 16, 1989, p. 44

 

 

 

21 Noble, G.R., et at, " Acellular and Wbole-Cell Pertussis Vaccines in

Japan: Report of a Visit by US Scientists. " Journal of the American

Medical Association, Vol. 257, 1987, pp. 1351-1356

 

 

 

22 Chetelat, L.J., A Synthesis of Key Issues for Evaluation in Primary

Health Care, p. 159. Also, Personal Communications with the

International Development Research Centre's Health Sciences Division,

September-October, 1989

 

 

 

23 Williamson, J.W., Assessing and Improving Health Outcomes: The

Health Accountinig Approach to Quality Assurance, Ballinger Publishing

Co., Cambridge, 1978, p. 5

 

 

 

24 Dick, G., Practical Immunization, p. 1

 

 

 

25 Cheraskin, E., et at, Diet and Disease--Medical Proof of Their Life

and Death Relationship, Keats Publishing Inc., New Canaan,

Connecticut, Health Science Edition pub., 1977, p. 369

 

 

 

See also:

 

 

 

Chandra, R., " Nutrition as a Critical Determinant in Susceptibility to

Infection, " World Review--Nutr. Diet, Vol. 25, 1976

 

Hook, R., and Hutcheson, D., " Impairment of the Primary Inunune

Response in Early-Onset Protein-Calorie Malnutrition, " Nutrition

Reports International, Vol. 13, 1976

 

Jose, D., et at, " Long Term Effects on Immune Function of Early

Nutritional Deprivation, " Nature, Vol. 241, 1973

 

Moscatelli, P., et al, " Defective Immunocompetence in Fetal

Undemutrition, " Helvetica Paediatrica Acta, Vol. 31, 1976

 

Newberne, P., and Gebhardt, B., " Pre- and Post-Natal Malnutrition and

Responses to Infection, " Nutrition Reports International, Vol. 7, 1973

 

Puffer, R., and Serrano, C., " The Role of Nutritional Deficiency in

Mortality Findings of the Inter-American Investigation of Mortality in

Childhood, " Pan American Health Orizanization, Vol. 7, 1973

 

McGrath, W.R., Bio-Nutronics, A Signet Book, New American Library,

Times Mirror, Bergenfield, New Jersey, 1972, P. 216

 

Hoffer, A., and Walker, M., Orthomolecular Nutrition, Keats Publishing

Inc., New Canaan, Conneticut, 1978, P. 209

 

McDougall, J.A., A Challenging Second Opinion, New Century Publishers

Inc., Piscataway, New Jersey, USA, 1985, p. 307, etc.

 

26-Edierington, A., Vol. I--Program Evaluation of Canada's

International Immunization Program, Cowater International, for the

Canadian International Development Agency, Ottawa, March, 199 1, pp.

22 and 30

 

 

 

27 Banerji, D., " Hidden Menace in the Universal Child Immunization

Program, " International Journal of Health Services, Vol. 18, No. 2,

Haywood Pub. Co. Inc., 1988, p. 294

 

 

 

28 Chetelat., L.J., A Synthesis of Key Issues for Evaluation In

Primarv Health Care, (based on the author's precis on Banedi's " Hidden

Menace " article), P. 157

 

 

 

29 Banerji, D., " Hidden Menace in the Universal Child Immunization

Program, " p. 296

 

 

 

30 Rifken, S.B., and Walt, G., " Why Health Improves: Defining The

Issues Concerning 'Comprehensive Primary Health Care' and 'Selective

Primary Health Care,' " Social Science and Medicine, Vol. 23, pp. 562

and 563.

 

 

 

31 Chetelat, L.J., A Synthesis of Key Issues for Evaluation in PHC, P. 156

 

 

 

32 Stewart, G., British Medical Journal, January 31, 1976, reprinted

in The Australasian Nurses Journal by Dettman, G., and Kalokerinos,

A., in the article " 'Mumps' the word but you have yet another vaccine

deficiency, " June, 1981, p. 17

 

 

 

33 " Immunization Public Health Protector?, " Issued under NIB National

Office of Health Development, Ottawa, Canada, 1979, pp. 1 and 2

 

 

 

34 Bumet, M., Auto Immunity and Auto Immunune Disease, MTP, London,

England, 1973, Chapter 3

 

 

 

35 James, W., Immunization--The Reality Behind The Myth, Bergin &

Garvey Publishers Inc., S. Hadley, Massachussetts, 1988, p. 64, refers

to original source reference: Report No. 272, British Medical Council,

London, England, May, 1950

 

 

 

36 Allan, B., Australian Journal of Medical Technology, Vol. 4,

November, 1973, pp. 26 and 27]

 

 

 

see also:

 

 

 

Dettman, G., and Kalokerinos, A., " Second Thoughts About Disease--A

Controversy and Bechamp Revisited, " Journal of the International

Academy of Preventive Medicine, Vol. IV, No. 1, Houston, Texas, July,

1977 and reprinted by Committee of the Biological Research Institute,

Warburton, Victoria, Australia, (p. 15 in this reprint edition)

 

37 Polk, B.F., et al, " An Outbreak of Rubella (German Measles) among

Hospital Personnel, " The New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 303,

No. 10, September 4, 1980, pp. 541-545

 

 

 

38 James, W., Immunization, p. 100

 

 

 

39 " Immunization Public Health Protector?, " pp. 10 and 11

 

 

 

40 Shelton, H., " Basis of Resistance, " the Hygienic Review, Vol. 38,

No. 9, May, 1977, P. 196

 

 

 

See also:

 

 

 

" Immunization Public Health Protector?, " p. 1 1

 

41 James, W., Immunization, p. 64

 

 

 

42 Novikoff, A., and Holtzman, E., Cells and Organelles, Holt,

Rinehart and Winston Inc., 1970

 

 

 

See also:

 

 

 

Bradbury, S., The Optical Microscope, Edward Arnold Pub. Ltd., 1976

 

Lacey, A., Editor, Light Microscopes in Biology, A Practical Approach,

IRL Press, Oxford University Press, 1989

 

43 Bird, C., " The Rife Microscope, " Technology Tomorrow, February,

1980, pp. 5-14

 

 

 

44 Seidel, R.E., and Winter, E., " The New Microscopes, " Journal of the

Franklin Institute, Vol. 237, No. 2, February, 1944, pp. 103-130

 

 

 

See also:

 

 

 

Lee, R., " The Rife Microscope or 'Facts and Their Fate,' " Lee

Foundation for Nutritional Research, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA

(commentary on the Seidel and Winter article, undated)

 

" Local Man Bares Wonders of Germ Life, " San Diego Union, November 3, 1929

 

" Science's Latest Strides in War on Ills Disclosed, Development by San

Diegan Hailed as Boon to Medical Research, " Los Angeles Times,

November 22, 1931

 

" Here is Most Powerful Microscope, " Los Angeles Times, November 27, 1931

 

" What's New in Science--The Wonderwork of 193 I, " Los Angeles Times

Sunday -Magazine, December 27, 1931

 

Jones, Newell, " Rife Bares Startling New Conceptions of Disease

Germs, " San Diego Tribune, May 11, 1938

 

" Giant Microscope May Yield Secrets of Bacteria World, " Los Angeles

Times, June 26, 1940

 

Lynes, B., and Crane, J., The Rife Report, The Cancer Cure That

Worked--Fifiy Years of Supression, Marcus Books, Toronto, Canada, 1987

 

45 Carrel, A., Man the Unknown, Harper Brothers, New York and London,

1935, p. 207

 

 

 

46 Dubos, R., " Second Thoughts on the Germ Theory, " Scientific

American, May, 1955, pp. 31-35

 

 

 

47 Dubos, R., Mirage of Health, Harper, New York, NY, 1959, p. 73

 

 

 

48 Maxcy-Rosenaw Preventive Medicine and Public Health, edited by

Sartwell, P.E., 10th Edition, Appleton-Century-Crofts, New York, USA,

1973, p. 117

 

 

 

49 Buttram, H.E., and Hoffman, J.C., Vaccinations and Immune

Malfunction, The Humanitarian Publishing Co., Quakertown, Penn., USA,

1985, p. 22

 

 

 

50 Duesberg, P.H., " Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Acquired

Immunodeficiency Syndrome: Correlation but Not Causation, " Proceedings

of the National Academy of Science USA, Vol. 86, February, 1989, pp.

755-764; Interview [with Duesberg], " AIDS " , Spectrum, No. 38,

September/October, 1994, Belmont, New Hampshire, USA, pp. 26-34

 

 

 

See also:

 

 

 

Adams, J., AIDS, The HIV Myth, St. Martin's Press, New York, NY, 1989

 

Fumento, M., The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS: How a Tragedy has been

Distorted bv Media and Partisan Politics, Basic Books, New York, NY, 1990

 

Duesberg, P., " AIDS Acquired By Drug Consuption and Other

Non-Contagious Risk Factors, " Pharmac. Ther. No. 55, United Kingdom,

pp. 201-277, 1992 (This article contains 17 pages of reference citations.)

 

DeMeo, J., " HIV is Not the Cause of AIDS: A Summary of Current

Research Findings, " Pulse of the Planet, No. 4, 1993, pp. 99-105

 

Root-Bernstein, R., Rethinking AIDS: The Tragic Cost of Premature

Consensus, Free Press, New York, NY, 1993

 

51 Sonnabend, J.A., " Fact and Speculaton About The Cause of AIDS, "

AIDS Forum, Vol. 2, No. 1, New York, May, 1989, pp. 3-12

 

 

 

52 James, W., Immnunization, pp. 55-87

 

 

 

53 Ibid, (modified and adapted from--Table 1, " Two Theories of

Disease, " P. 65)

 

 

 

54 McCormick, W.J., " Vitamin C in the Prophylaxis and Therapy of

Infectious Diseases, " Archives of Pediatrics, Vol. 68, No. 1, January,

1951

 

 

 

See also:

 

 

 

McCormick, " The Changing Incidence and Mortality of Infectious Disease

in Relation to Changed Trends in Nutrition, " The Medical Record,

September, 1947, reprinted by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional

Research, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA

 

55 Table I--Data presented at the British Association for the

Advancement of Sciences (Presidential Address), in The Dangers of

Immunization, The Humanitarian Society, Quakertown Penn., USA, 1979;

source cited: Porter 1971

 

 

 

56 Table II--McKeown, T., The Role of Medicine--Dream, Mirage, or

Nemesis?, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, UK, 1979, p. 103

 

 

 

57 Table III--lbid p. 105 and data from Waltzkin, H., " ...Analysis of

the Health Care Systems of Advanced Capitalist Societies, " in The

Relevance of Social Science for Medicine, edited by Eisenberg, L., and

Kleinman, A., 1980; source cited: Kass, 1971

 

 

 

58 Table IV--Based on McKeown, T., The Role of Medicine--Dream,

Mirage, or Nemesis?, Princeton University Press, 1979, p. 104

 

 

 

59 Table V--Based on Taylor, R., Medicine Out of Control, Sun Books,

Melbourne, 1979, Figure 1.1, p. 9 and text p. 8; source cited;

Australian Bureau of Census and Statistics, Demography Bulletins,

Canberra, Australia

 

 

 

60 Table VI--The Dangers of Immunization; source cited: Dingle, J.,

Scientific American, 1973

 

 

 

61 Table VII--Based on Taylor, R., Medicine Out of Control. Figure

1.2, p. 11; source cited: Crofton, J. and Douglas, A., " Epidemiology

and Prevention of Pulmonary Tuberculosis, " in Respiratory Diseases,

Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford, UK, 1969; and data from

McKeown, T., The Role of Medicine, (Basil Blackwell edition) p. 92

 

 

 

62 Table VIII--Based on Hoole, F.W., Evaluation Research and

Development Activities. Sage Publications, Newberry Park, California,

Figure 2.3, p. 58

 

 

 

63 Table IX--Ekanem, E.E., " A 10 Year Review of Morbidity from

Childhood Preventable Diseases in Nigeria: How Successful is the

Expanded Programme of Immunization (EPI)? " Department of Community

Health, College of Medicine, University of Lagos, Nigeria, published

in Journal of Tropical Pediatrics, Vol. 34, Oxford University Press,

England, 1988, Figure 1, p. 324

 

 

 

64 Table X--Ibid

 

 

 

65 Table XI--Based on Taylor, R., Medicine Out of Control, Figure 1.3,

p. 12; sources cited: Glover, J., " Incidence of Rheumatic Diseases, "

Lancet, 1:499, 1930; and WHO, Geneva, " Annual Epidemiological and

Vital Statistics 1950-196 I, " World Health Annual Statistical Reports

(causes of death) 1962-1975

 

 

 

66 Table XII--Based on Waltzkin, H., " . . . Analysis of the Health

Care Systems. "

 

 

 

67 Table XIII--Epidemiology data for years 1978-1987 taken from UNICEF

Evaluation Publication No. 6, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, May

27, 1988; and data for years 1988 and 1989, obtained in personal

communication from the Pan American Health Organization, EPI Unit,

August 21, 1990

 

 

 

68 Table XIV--Ibid

 

 

 

69 Table XV--Ibid

 

 

 

70 Table XVI--Ibid

 

 

 

71 Table XVII--Ibid

 

 

 

72 Table XVIII--Ibid

 

 

 

73 Mendelsohn, R., " The Medical Time Bomb of Immununization Against

Disease, " East West Journal, November, 1984, p. 51

 

 

 

74 Mendelsohn, R., " The Truth About Immunizations, " The People's

Doctor--A Medical Newsletter for Consumers, Vol. 2, No. 4, Evanston,

Illinois, p. 6

 

 

 

75 Morton, A.R., " The Diptheria Epidemic in Halifax, " Canadian Medical

Association Journal, Vol. 45, 1941, p. 171

 

 

 

76 McCormick, W.J., " The Changing Incidence and Mortality of

Infectious Disease in Relation to Changed Trends in Nutrition, " The

Medical Record, Toronto, Canada, September, 1947, Reprint No. 5a, Lee

Foundation for Nutritional Research, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA, p. 4

 

 

 

77 Eller, C.H., and Frobisher, M. Jr., " An Outbreak of Diptheria in

Baltimore in 1944, " American Journal of Hygiene, Vol. 42, 1945, P. 179

 

 

 

78 Dettman, G., and Kalokerinos, A., " Second Thoughts About Disease, "

p. 16

 

 

 

79 Cournoyer, C., What About Immunization? A Parent's Guide to

Informed Decision Making, Private Research Publication, Canby, Oregon,

USA, 4th Edition, 1987, p. 5

 

 

 

80 Clymer, E.M., et al, The Dangers of Immunization, The Humanitarian

Society, Quakertown, Penn., USA, 1983 Edition, p 47

 

 

 

See also:

 

 

 

Neustaedter, R., The Immunization Decision--A Guide for Parents, The

Family Health Series, North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, California,

1990, pp. 50 and 51

 

81 James, W., Immunization, p. 31

 

 

 

82 Cournoyer, C., What About Immunizations?, p. 5

 

 

 

83 Ekanem, E.E., " A 10 Year Review of Morbidity from Childhood

Preventable Diseases in Nigeria, " Journal of Tropical Pediatrics, Vol.

34, December, 1988, p. 325

 

 

 

84 Dayton, L., " Measles Vaccination May Not Protect for Life, " New

Scientist, Vol. 4, Vancouver, Canada, November, 1989, p. 6

 

 

 

85 Shasby, D.M., et al, " Epidemic Measles in a Highly Vaccinated

Population, " New England Journal of Medicine, 296: 1987, pp. 585-589

 

 

 

See also:

 

 

 

Gustafson, T.L., et at, " Measles Outbreak in a Fully Immunized

Secondary School Population, " New England Journal of Medicine, 316:

1987, pp. 771-774

 

Weiner, L.B., et al, " A Measles Outbreak Among Adolescents, " Journal

of Tropical Pediatrics, Vol. 90, 1987, pp. 17-20

 

Hull, H.F., et al, " Risk Factors for Measles Vaccine Failure Among

Immunized Students, " Pediatrics, Vol. 76, 1985, pp. 518-523

 

86 Mendelsohn, R., " The Medical Time Bomb of Immunization Against

Disease, " p. 43

 

 

 

87 Markowitz, L.E., " Patterns of Transmission in Measles Outbreaks in

the United States, " New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 320, 1989,

pp. 75-81

 

 

 

88 " Measles--Quebec " MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report),

Vol. 38 (a), 1989, pp. 329 and 330

 

 

 

89 Kalokerinos, A., and Dettman, G., Viral Vaccines, Vital or

Vulnerable, published by: The Conunittee of the Biological Research

Institute, Warburton, Victoria, Australia, p. 27. (Note article of

same title--but different content--is also referenced in the August,

1980 issue of the Australasian Nurses Journal)

 

 

 

90 Kenya, P.R., " Measles and Mathematics: Control or Eradication, "

(Kenya Medical Research Institute, Nairobi) East African Medical

Journal, Vol. 67, No. 12, December, 1990

 

 

 

91 Wixen, J.S., " Twentieth-Century Miraclemaker, " Modem Maturity,

December, 1984-January, 1985, p. 92

 

 

 

92 Hearings Before the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Connnerce,

House of Representatives, " Eighty-Seventh Congress, Second Session on

HR 10541, May, 1962, pp. 94-112

 

 

 

See also:

 

 

 

The American Journal of Public Health, Vol.45, Sup.1-63,1955

 

93 Section Panel on " Preventive Medicine and Preventive Health " at the

120 " Annual Meeting of the Illinois State Medical Society, May 26,

1960--reported in the Illinois Medical Journal, August and September

issues, 1960

 

 

 

94 James, W., Inununization, p. 28

 

 

 

95 Ibid

 

 

 

96 Neustaedter, R., et al, Immunizations, Are They Necessary?, Hering

Family Health Clinic, Berkeley, California, 1981, p. 19

 

 

 

See also:

 

 

 

Delarue, F., L'intoxication vaccinate, Editions de Seuil, Paris

France, 1977, p. 57

 

97 US House of Representatives, Hearings on HR 10541, p. 113.

(Reported in the Toorak Times, Melbourne Australia, October 5, 1986)

 

 

 

98 Mendelsohn, R., " The Medical Time Bomb of Immunization Against

Disease, " p. 52

 

 

 

99 Sutter, R., et al, " Outbreak of Paralytic Poliomyelites in Oman.

Evidence for Widespread Transmission Among Fully Vaccinated Children, "

Lancet, Vol. 338, September, 1991, pp. 715-720

 

 

 

See also:

 

 

 

Patriarca, et al, " Randomised Trial of Alternative Formulations of

Oral Poliovaccine in Brazil, " Lancet, February, 1988, pp. 429-432

 

Kim-Farley, R., et al, " Outbreak of Paralytic Poliomyelitis in

Taiwan, " Lancet No. 11, 1984, pp. 1322-1324

 

Deniing, M., et al, " Epidemic Poliomyelitis in the Gambia Following

Control of Poliomyelitis as an Endemic Disease: Part 11. The Clinical

Efficacy of Trivalent Oral Polio Vaccine, " American Journal of

Epidemiology, (in press)

 

100 Fulginiti, V., " Controversies in Current Immunization Practices:

One Physician's Viewpoint, " 1976, in Morris, J.A., Statement Submitted

to US Senate Committee on Labor and Human Relations. Subcomniittee on

Investigations and General Oversight, June 30, 1982. (Dr. Morris

served as Director of the Slow, Latent, and Temperant Virus Section of

the US Bureau of Biologics, Food and Drug Administration)

 

 

 

101 Stewart, G.T., British Medical Journal, January 31, 1976

 

 

 

See also:

 

 

 

Stewart, G.T., " Vaccination Against Whooping Cough: Efficiency vs.

Risks, " Lancet, 1977, p. 234

 

102 Medical Tribune, January 10, 1979, p. 1

 

 

 

103 Ekanem E.E., " A 10 Year Review of Morbidity from Childhood

Preventable Diseases in Nigeria, " Journal of Tropical Pediatrics, Vol.

34, p. 325, December, 1988

 

 

 

104 Neustaedter, R.,The Immunization Decision, p. 32

 

 

 

 

 

105 Cournoyer, C., What About Immunizations? p. 12

 

 

 

106 lbid

 

 

 

107 Johnson, DM., " Fatal Tetanus After Prophylaxis with Human Tetanus,

Imnune Globulin, " Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol.

207, 1969, p. 1519

 

 

 

108 Cournoyer, C., What About Immunizations? p. 12

 

 

 

109 Epidemiology data for years 1978-1987 taken from UNICEF Evaluation

Publication No. 6, May 27, 1988; and data for years 1988 and 1989,

obtained from the Pan American Health Organization, EPI Unit, August

21, 1990

 

 

 

110 Buttram, H.E., and Hofftnan, J.C., " Bringing Vaccines Into

Perspective, " (reference to " vaccines, a therapy in question, "

Theropocia, June, 1981, p. 23) Mothering, Vol. 34, Winter Edition,

1985, p. 43

 

 

 

111 Creighton, C., " Vaccination, " Ninth Edition of the Encyclopedia

Brittanica, pp. 29 and 30

 

 

 

112 Dettman, G., and Kalokerinos, A., " Viral Vaccines Vital or

Vulnerable, " Australasian Nurses Journal, August, 1980, p. 30

 

 

 

113 Ibid, p. 29

 

 

 

114 " Natural History of Smallpox, " in the New Scientist, November,

1978, p. 30

 

 

 

115 Dettman, G., and Kalokerinos, A., " Viral Vaccines, " p. 29

 

 

 

116 Hoole, F.W., Evaluation Research and Development Activities, Sage

Publications, Newberry Park, California, Figure 2.3, p. 58

 

 

 

117 James, W., Immunization, p. 18

 

 

 

118 Dettman, G., and Kalokerinos, A., " Viral Vaccines, " ANJ article, p. 30

 

 

 

119 Belshe, R.B., Editor, Textbook of Human Virology, PSG Publishing

Co. Inc., Littleton, Massachusetts, USA

 

 

 

See also:

 

 

 

Andrews, Sir Christopher, et at, Viruses of Vertebrates, Bailliere

Tindall, London, UK, Fourth Edition, (Figure 33.5 Sharing Distribution

of Human Monkeypox Cases, courtesy of I. Arita, Smallpox Eradication

Unit), p. 944

 

120 Hawes, F., Canada's International Inununization Programme:

1986-1991, full document

 

 

 

121 Chetelat, L.J., A Synthesis of Key Issues for Evaluation in

Primary Care, p. 142

 

 

 

122 Karzon, D.S., " Immunization on Public Trial, " The New England

Journal of Medicine, Vol. 297, No. 5, August 4, 1977, pp. 275 and 276

 

 

 

123 UNICEF Canada, Annual Report on the Northeast Thailand Integrated

Services Project for Children, Toronto, March 31, 1990, P. 5

 

 

 

124 Reported in the Toronto Star, December 10, 1989, P. B5

 

 

 

125 Wilson, G.S., The Hazards of Immunization, The University of

London, Athlone Press, London, UK, 1967, pp. 4-6 and 282-289 (Still in

print)

 

 

 

126 Mendelsohn, R., " The Truth About Immunization, " p. 7

 

 

 

127 " Immununization Public Health Protector?, " p. 4

 

 

 

128 Neustaedter, R.,The Inununization Decision, pp. 72 and 73

 

 

 

129 " Links Between Contaminated Vaccines, Cancer and AIDS, " Townsend

Letter for Doctors, May, 1989, p. 254, (review of Snead, E.

documentary video, " Is it AIDS? Or Leukemia or Immunization Related

Syndrome " )

 

 

 

130 Bloom B.R., " Vaccines for the Third World, " p. 15

 

 

 

131 Mendelsohn, R., " Immunization Controversies Continue, " The Peoples

Doctor--A Medical Newsletter for Consumers, Vol. 2, No. 10, Evanston

Illinois, USA

 

 

 

132 James, W., Immunization, pp. 10 and 72

 

 

 

See also:

 

 

 

Cournoyer, C., What About Inmiunizations?, P. 3

 

133 Moskowitz, R., " Immunizations: The Other Side, " Mothering, Vol.

31, Spring Edition, 1984

 

 

 

134 James, W., Immunization, pp. 14 and 15

 

 

 

135 Fenical, G.M., " Neurological Complications of Immunization, "

Annals of Neurology, No. 12, 1982, pp. 119- 128

 

 

 

See also:

 

 

 

White, F., " Measles Vaccine Associated Encephalitis in Canada, "

Lancet, No. 2, 1983, pp. 683 and 684

 

Zilber, N., et al, " Measles Vaccination and Risk of Subacute

Sclerosing Panencephalitis (SSP), " Neurology, Vol. 33, 1983

 

St. Geme, J.W., et al, Exaggerated Natural Measles Following

Attenuated Virus Immunization, Pediatrics, Vol. 57, 1976, pp. 148-150

 

Neustaedter, R., The Immunization Decision, pp. 55-58

 

Mendelsohn, R., " The Medical Time Bomb of Immunization Against

Disease, " p. 49

 

136 Cody, C.L., et al, " Nature and Rates of Adverse Reactions

Associated with DPT and DT Inununizations in Infants and Children, "

Pediatrics, Vol. 68, pp. 650-660

 

 

 

See also:

 

 

 

Baraff, L.J., et al, " Possible Temporal Association Between

Diptheria-Tetanus-Toxoid-Pertussis Vaccination and Sudden Infant Death

Syndrome, " Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, No. 2, 1983, pp. 7-11

 

Jacobson, V., et at, " Relationship of Pertussis Immunization to the

Onset of Epilepsy, Febrile Convulsions and Central Nervous System

Infections: A Retrospective Epidemiologic Study, " Tokai Journal of

Experimental Clinical Medicine, Vol. 13, Supplement, pp. 137 ,142,

1988. ( " Records of 2,199 children with febrile seizures were reviewed

and a significant association between the first febrile seizures and

the scheduled age of pertussis immunization was noted, " such

association was not significant with epilepsy and CNS infections.)

 

Hutcheson, R., " Follow-up on DPT Vaccination and Sudden Infant

Deaths--Tennessee, " MMWR, March 30, 1979

 

Kalokerinos, K., and Dettman, G., " A Supportive Submission, " The

Dangers of Immunization, Biological Research Institute, Warburton,

Victoria, Australia, 1979, p. 74

 

Coulter, H.L., and Fisher, B.L., DPT: A Shot in the Dark, Harcourt,

Brace, Jovanovich Publishers, San Diego, USA, 1985

 

Thompson, L., " DPT Vaccine Roulette, " 60 minute documentary produced

for WRC-TV, Washington, DC, April, 1982

 

Hyman, J., " Children at Risk: The DPT Dilemma, " The Democrat &

Chronicle, Rochester, N-Y, 1987

 

137 --Mendelsohn, R., " Immunization Update, " The People's Doctor--A

medical Newsletter for Consumers, Vol 10, No. 5, Evanston, Illinois, USA

 

 

 

138 Church, J.A., and Richards, W., " Recurrent Abscess Formation

Following DPT Inununizations: Association with Hypersensitivity to

Tetanus Toxoid, " Pediatrics, Vol. 75, 1985, pp. 899 and 900

 

 

 

See also:

 

 

 

Mendelsohn, R., " More Anti-Vaccine Arguments, " The Peoples

Doctor--Medical Newsletter for Consumers, Vol. 8, No. 12, Evanston,

Illinois, USA

 

Neustaedter, R., The Immunization Decision, p. 33

 

139---Mendelsohn, R., " The Medical Time Bomb of Immununization Against

Disease, " p. 52

 

 

 

See also:

 

 

 

Neustaedter, R., The Immunization Decision, pp. 40 and 41

 

140 Sabath, L., et at, " Antigen Induced Transient Hypersusceptibility:

A Cause of Sporadic and Fulminant Infection in Normals, " Clinical

Research, Vol. 35, No. 617A, 1987. (This case controlled study found

that childhood purulent meningitis victims had a higher record of

recent inununization, than children of comparable age who were free

from meningitis.)

 

 

 

141 Alderslade, R., et al, " The National Childhood Encephalopathy

Study, " in Whooping Cough, Reports from the Committee on Safety of

Medicines and the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization,

Department of Health and Social Security, Her Majesty's Stationery

Office, London, 1981, pp. 79-154

 

 

 

142 James, W., Immunization, p. 14

 

 

 

143 Cournoyer, C., What About Immunizations?, pp. 8 and 9

 

 

 

144 James. W., Immununization, p. 13

 

 

 

145 Coulter, H., and Fisher, B., DPT: A Shot in the Dark, Avery

Publishing Group, Garden City Park, New York, 1991

 

 

 

See also:

 

 

 

Coulter, H.L., Vaccination, Social Violence, and Criminality--The

Medical Assault on the American Brain, Center for Empirical Medicine,

Washington, DC, USA, 1990

 

146 Dettrnan, G., " SIDS--Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, " Blackmores

Communicator--The Professional Services Newsbrief of Blackmore

Laboratories, Vol. 6, Sydney Australia and Auckland New Zealand, May, 1983

 

 

 

147 Torch, W., " Diptheria-Pertussis-Tetanus (DPT) Immunization: A

Potential Cause of the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), "

Neurology, No. 32, 1982, p. A169

 

 

 

148 Mortimer, E., Jr., " Pertussis Immunization: Problems,

Perspectives, Prospects, " Hospital Practice, October, 1980, pp. 103-118

 

 

 

149 Shannon, D., and Kelly, D., " SIDS and Near-SIDS, " New England

Journal of Medicine, 306: (17), 1982, pp. 959-1028

 

 

 

150 Lederberg, J., Science, October 20, 1967, p. 313

 

 

 

151 Buttram, H., " Live Virus Vaccines and Genetic Mutation, " Health

Consciousness, April, 1990, pp. 44 and 45

 

 

 

152 James, W., Immunization, p. 15

 

 

 

153 Markowitz, R., " The Case Against Immunizations, " Journal of the

American Institute of Homeopathy, Washington, DC, 1983, Institute reprint

 

 

 

154 Miller, et al, " Multiple Sclerosis and Vaccinations, " British

Medical Journal, April 22, 1967, pp. 210-213

 

 

 

155 James, W., Immunization, p. 15

 

 

 

156 Dettman, G., " Immunization, Ascorbate and Death, " Australian

Nurses Journal, December, 1977

 

 

 

157 Jahnke, U., et al, " Sequence Homology Between Certain Viral

Proteins and Proteins Related to Encephalomyelitis and Neuritis, "

Science, Vol. 29, July 19, 1985, pp. 282-284

 

 

 

158 Shaywitz, S., and Bennet, A., " Diagnosis and Management of

Attention Deficit Disorder: A Pediatric Perspective, " Pediatric

Clinics of North America, Vol. 31, No. 2, April, 1984, pp. 428-457

 

 

 

See also:

 

 

 

Shaywitz, S., and Bennet, A., American Psychiatric Association

(Journal), 1987, pp. 44-47

 

Cowart, V., " Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Physicians

Helping Parents Pay More Heed, " Journal of the American Medical

Association, Vol. 259, May 13, 1988, pp. 2647-2652

 

159 Buttram, H., " Live Virus Vaccines and Genetic Mutation, " p. 44

 

 

 

160 Coulter, H., Vaccination, Social Violence and Criminality,

Washington, DC, 1990, (entire work)

 

 

 

161 McGuire, R., " Brain Auto-Antibodies in 33% of Schizophrenics, "

Medical Tribune, July 14, 1988, p. 6

 

 

 

162 Morozov, P., editor, " Research on the Viral Hypothesis of Mental

Disorders, " in Advances in Biological Psychiatry, Vol. 12, published

by Karger, S., New York, 1983, pp. 52-75

 

 

 

See also:

 

 

 

Crow, T., " Is Schizophrenia an Infectious Disease?, " Lancet, 1:8317,

1972, pp. 173-175

 

Halonen, P., et al, " Antibody Levels to HSV-1, Measles, and Rubella

Virus in Psychiatric Patients, " British Journal of Psychiatry, Vol.

125, 1974, pp. 461-465

 

163 Mendelsohn, R., " The Medical Time Bomb of Immunization Against

Disease, " pp. 47 and 48

 

 

 

164 " Immunization Public Health Protector?, " p. 8

 

 

 

165 Mendelsohn, R., " The Medical Time Bomb of Immunization Against

Disease, " p. 48

 

 

 

166 Storsaeter, J., et al, " Mortality and Morbidity from Invasive

Bacterial Infections During a Clinical Trial of Acellular Pertussis

Vaccines in Sweden, " Pediatrics Infectious Disease Journal, Vol. 78,

1988, pp. 637-645

 

 

 

167 Buttram, H.E., and Hoffman, J.C., " Bringing Vaccines Into

Perspective, " Mothering, Vol. 34, Winter Edition,1985, p. 42

 

 

 

168 Buttram, H.E., and Hoffman, J.C., Vaccinations and Immune

Malfunction, pp. 5-18, article in ref 167

 

 

 

See also:

 

 

 

" Vaccinations and lmmune Malfunction, " Mothering, Vol.28, Summer

Edition, 1983, pp.31 and32

 

169- lbid (article ref.), p. 32

 

 

 

170 Craighead, J.E., " Report of a Workshop: Disease Accentuation After

Immununization with Inactivated Microbial Vaccines, " at the National

Institutes of Health, Bethesda Maryland, in Journal of Infectious

Diseases, (University of Chicago), Vol. 131, No. 6, June, 1975, pp.

749-754

 

 

 

See also:

 

 

 

Nader, P., et al, " Severe Illness (Atypical Exanthem) Following

Exposure to Natural Measles: 11 Cases in Children Previously

Inoculated with Killed Vaccine. " American Pediatrics Society

Abstracts, 1967, p. 13

 

Kim, H., et at, " Respiratory Syncytial Virus Disease in Infants

Despite Prior Administration of Antigenic Inactivated Vaccine, "

Progress in Medical Virology, Vol. 13, 1971, pp. 239-270

 

171 Zimmerman, B., and Stone, A., " Allergic Reactions Associated with

Viral Vaccines, " Progress in Medical Virology, Vol. 82, No. 5,

October, 1987, pp. 225-232

 

 

 

172 Buttram, H.E., and Hofftnan, J.C., Vaccinations and Immune

Malfunction, p. 46

 

 

 

173 Coulter, H.L., and Fisher, B.L., DPT, p. 407

 

 

 

174 Buttram, H.E., and Hoffman, J.C., Vaccinations and Immune

Malfunction, p. 47

 

 

 

175 Epidemiological Data Presented in Canadian Parliamentary Debates,

Ottawa, Canada, June 14, 1978

 

 

 

176 Obomsawin, R., " Traditional Lifestyles and Freedom from the Dark

Seas of Disease, " Community Development Journal--An International

Forum, Oxford University Press, Vol. 18, No. 2, Oxford, England,

April, 1983

 

 

 

177 Prior, I., " The Price of Civilization, " Nutrition Today, Vol. 6,

No. 4, July-August, 197 1, pp. 3 and 11

 

 

 

178 Illich, I., Limits to Medicine--Medical Nemesis? The Expropriation

of Health, Penguin Books, Middlesex, England, 1977

 

 

 

See also:

 

 

 

Taylor, R., Medicine Out of Control, (see ref 59 for complete information)

 

Mendelsohn, R.S., Confessions of a Medical Heretic, Warner

Books--Warner Communications Company, New York, NY, USA, 1979

 

Corea, G., The Hidden Malpractice--How American Medicine Mistreats

Women, Jove Publications, New York, NY, USA, 1978 Edition

 

Tushnet, L., The Medicine Men--The Myth of Ouality Medical Care In

America Today, Warner Books Inc., New York, NY, USA, 1969 Edition

 

Inglis, B., The Case for Unorthodox Medicine, G.P. Putnam's Sons and

Berkley Publishing Corp., New York, NY, USA, 1969 Edition

 

179 Illich, I., Tools for Conviviality, Fitzhenry and Whiteside Ltd.,

Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 1963, p. 7

 

 

 

180 Gandhi, Mahatma, The Health Guide, published by Shri Anand T.

Hingorani, Navajivan Trust, Ahmedabad, India, 1965, pp. 5- 1 0

 

 

 

181 Kahn, K.S., et al, " A Health Care Paradox, " World Health,

Published by the World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland, May, 1989

 

 

 

182 Sharpston, M.J., " Health and the Human Environment, " in Health,

Food and Nutrition in Third World Development, Ghosh, PK. editor,

prepared under the auspices of the Center for International

Development, University of Maryland, and the World Academy of

Development and Cooperation, Washington, DC, International Development

Resource Book No. 6, Greenword Press, a division of Congressional

Information Service Inc., Westport, Conn. USA, 1984, pp. 85 and 80

 

 

 

183 McKeown, T., " The Road to Health, " World Health Forum, Published

by the World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland, Vol. 10, 1989,

pp. 410 and 411

 

 

 

184 Helberg, H., " An Evolving Process, " World Health Forum, published

by the World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland,

January-February, 1988

 

 

 

185 Standard, K.L., " Infections and Malnutrition--Child Mortality, " in

Epdemiology and Community Health in Warm Climate Countries,

Cruickshank, R., et al, editors, Churchill Livingstone, Edinburgh, UK,

1976, pp. 45-48

 

 

 

186 Etherington, A., Assessment of the CIDA Health Sector Integrated

Paper, p. 1

 

 

 

187 Chetelat, L.J., A Synthesis of Key Issues for Evaluation in

Primary Health Care, p. 2

 

 

 

189 Ibid, p. 3

 

 

 

189 Sharing Our Future--Canadian International Development Assistance,

Canadian International Development Agency, Hull, Canada, 1987, P. 37

 

 

 

190 " Proceedings of the Meeting on Selective Primary Health Care, "

November 29-30, 1985. Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp,

Belgium, 1985

 

 

 

191 Morgan, S., Clean Culture--The New Soil Science, Health Research,

Mokelunme Hill, California, USA reprint of 1918 Edition, p. 6

 

 

 

192 Wrench, G.T., The Wheel of Health--The Sources of Long Life and

Health Among the Hunza, Shocken Books, New York, 1972 reprint of 1938

Edition, pp. 91 and 107

 

 

 

193 Shelton, H.M., " Basis of Resistance, " Hygienic Review, Vol. 37,

No. 9, San Antonio, Texas, USA, May, 1977, p. 194

 

 

 

194 Howard, Sir A., " The Role of Insects and Fungi in Agriculture, "

The Empire Cotton Growing Review, Vol. XIII

 

 

 

195 Mueller, S., " A Horticulturist Speaks Out on Health, " Health

Science, April-May Issue, 1980, p. 28

 

 

 

196 Bernard, R.W., Super Foods From Super Soil, Health Research,

Mokelunme Hill, California, 1956, p. 13

 

 

 

197 Moodie, R.L., " Paleopathology: An Introduction to the Study of

Ancient Evidences of Disease, " and Moodie, " The Antiquity of Disease, "

quoted by Hubbard, R.A., in Historical Perspectives of Health, undated

private publication, Professional Health Media Services, Loma Linda,

California

 

 

 

198 Wrench, G.T., The Wheel of Health, pp. 117-118

 

 

 

199 Shelton, H.M., " Basis of Resistance, " p. 194

 

 

 

200 Morgan, Clean Culture, p. 21

 

 

 

201 lbid (whole text.)

 

 

 

202 Phillips, David A., From Soil to Psyche, Woodbridge Press

Publishing Company, Santa Barbara, California, USA, 1977, pp. 193 and 194

 

 

 

203 Kjolhede, C., and Gadomski, A., " Ten Best Readings in . . .

Vitamin A, " Health Policy and Planning: 5 (1):, Oxford University

Press, Oxford, England, 1990, p. 88

 

 

 

204 Clausen, S., " The Pharmacology and Therapeutics of Vitamin A, "

Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 111, 1938, pp. 144-154

 

 

 

205 Sommer, A., et al, " Increased Mortality in Children with Mild

Vitamin A Deficiency, " Lancet, No. 2, 1983, pp. 585-588

 

 

 

206 Sonuner, A., et at, " Increased Risk of Respiratory Disease and

Diarrhoea in Children with Pre-Existing Mild Vitamin A Deficiency, "

American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 40, 1984, pp. 1090-1095

 

 

 

207 Sommer, A., et al, " Impact of Vitamin A Supplementation on

Childhood Mortality: A Randomized Controlled Community Trial, " Lancet,

Vol. I, 1986, pp. 1169-1173

 

 

 

208 Kjolhede, C., and Gadomski, A., " Ten Best Readings in ... Vitamin

A, " p. 88

 

 

 

209 Mamdani, M., and Ross, D., " Vitamin A Supplementation and Child

Survival: Magic Bullet or False Hope?, " Health Policy and Planning: 4

(4), Oxford University Press, Oxford, England, 1989, pp. 273 and 274

 

 

 

210 West, K., and Sommer, A., " Delivery of Oral Doses of Vitamin A to

prevent Vitamin A Deficiency and Nutritional Blindness: A

State-of-the-Art Review, " UN Administrative Committee on

Coordination--Sub-Committee on Nutrition State-of-the-Art series,

Nutrition Policy Discussion Paper #2, Food Policy and Nutrition

Division, Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome, Italy, 1987

 

 

 

211 Eastman, S., " Vitamin A Deficiency and Xerophthalmia: Recent

Findings and Programming Implications, " Assignment Children, UNICEF,

NY, 1987

 

 

 

212 Mamdani, M., and Ross, D., " Vitamin A Supplementation and Child

Survival: Magic Bullet or False Hope?, " p. 287

 

 

 

213 lbid, pp. 274, 289 and 290

 

 

 

214 Dettman, G., and Kalokerinos, K., " The Spark of Life, " Health and

Healing: Journal of Alternative Medicine, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1981 (This

article was originally accepted by the Royal Australian College of

Practicioners, but not published because--according to a letter

prepared by the Chairman of its Editorial Advisory Panel-- " an article

giving a contrary opinion . . . was not obtainable. " )

 

 

 

215 Stone, I., The Healing Factor--Vitamin C Against Disease, Grosser

and Dunlop Publishers, (produced in cooperation with Whitehall,

Hadlyme and Smith, Inc.), New York, NY, USA, 1974 Edition, pp. 70-89

and 202-212

 

 

 

216 Jungeblut, C., " Inactivation of Poliomyelitis Virus In Vitro by

Crystalline Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid), " (Department of Bacteriology,

College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University), Journal of

Experimental Medicine, Vol. 62, 1935, pp. 517-521

 

 

 

217 Holden, M., and Molley, E., " Further Experiments on Inactivation

of Herpes Virus by Vitamin C (1 -ascorbic acid), " Journal of

Immunology, Vol. 33, 1937, pp. 251-257

 

 

 

218 Langenbusch, W., and Enderling, A., " Einfluss der Vitaniine auf

das Virus der Maulund Klavenseuch, " Zentralblatt fur Bakteriologie,

Vol. 140, 1937, pp. 1 12-115

 

 

 

219 Amato, G., " Azione dell'acido ascorbico sul virus fisso della

rabia e sulta tossina tetanica, " Giomale di Bafteriologia, Virologia

et Immunologia, Vol. 19, 1937, pp. 843-849

 

 

 

220 Jungeblut, C., " Inactivation of Poliomyelitis Virus in Vitro by

Ascorbic Acid, " Experimental Medicine, Vol. 62, p. 203

 

 

 

221 Jungeblut, C., " Further Observations on Vitamin C Therapy in

Experimental Poliomyelitis, " (Department of Bacteriology, College of

Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University), Journal of Experimental

Medicine, Vol. 65, 1937, pp. 127-146

 

 

 

See also:

 

 

 

Ibid, Vol. 66, 1937, pp. 459-477

 

Ibid, Vol. 70, 1939, pp. 315-332

 

222 Klenner, F., " Observations On the Dose and Administration of

Ascorbic Acid When Employed Beyond the Range of A Vitamin In Human

Pathology, " The Journal of Applied Nutrition, (official publication of

the International College of the International College of Applied

Nutrition), La Habra, California, USA, Vol. 223, No. 3 and 4, Winter,

1971, pp. 60-89

 

 

 

See also:

 

 

 

References 221--223

 

223 lbid, pp. 64 and 65

 

 

 

224 Klenner, F., " The Treatment of Poliomyelitis and Other Virus

Diseases with Vitamin C, " Southern Medicine and Surgery, Vol. 111,

1949, pp. 209-214

 

 

 

225 lbid

 

 

 

226 Klenner, F., " The Use of Vitamin C as an Antibiotic, " Journal of

Applied Nutrition, Los Angeles, California, USA, Vol. 6, 1953, pp. 274-278

 

 

 

See also:

 

 

 

Klenner, F., " Massive Doses of Vitamin C and the Virus Diseases, "

Southern Medicine and Surgery, Vol. 113, 1951, pp. 101--107

 

227 Faulkner, J., and Taylor, F., Vitamin C and Infection, Annals of

Internal Medicine, Vol. 10, 1937, pp. 1867-1873

 

 

 

See also:

 

 

 

Perla, D., and Marmorsten, " Role of Vitamin C in Resistance, " Archives

of Pathology, Vol. 23, pp. 543-575, and pp. 683-712

 

228 Gupta, G., and Guha, B., " The Effect of Vitamin C and Certain

Other Substances on the Growth of Microorganisms, Annals of

Biochemistry and Experimental Medicine, Vol. 1, 1941, pp. 14-26

 

 

 

229 Sirsi, M., " Antimicrobial Action of Vitamin C on M. Tuberculosis

and Some Other Pathogenic Organisms, " Indian Journal of Medical

Sciences, Vol. 6, Bombay, India, pp. 661 and 662

 

 

 

230 Jungeblut, C., and Zwemer, R., " Inactivation of Diphtheria Toxin

in Vivo and in Vitro by Crystalline Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid),

Proceedings of the Society of Experimental Biology and Medicine, Vol.

32, 1935, pp. 1229-1234

 

 

 

231 Jungeblut, C., " Inactivation of Tetanus Toxin by Crystalline

Vitamin C (1-ascorbic acid), " (Department of Bacteriology, College of

Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University), Journal of Immunology,

Vol. 33, No. 3, 1937, pp. 203-214

 

 

 

232 Kodama, T., and Kojima, T., " Studies of the Staphylococcal Toxin,

Toxoid and Antitoxin, Effect of Ascorbic Acid on Staphylococal Lysins

and Organisms, " Kitasato Archives of Experimental Medicine, Vol. 16,

1939, pp. 36-55

 

 

 

233 Takahashi, Z., Nagoya, Journal of Medical Science, Vol. 12, 1938,

p. 50

 

 

 

234 Moore, P., et at, in Canadian Medical Association Journal, Vol.

54, 1946, p 233

 

 

 

235 Charpy, J., " Ascorbic Acid in Very Large Doses Alone or With

Vitamin D2 in Tuberculosis, " Bulletin de I'Academie Nationale de

Medecine, Vol. 132, Paris, 1948, pp. 421-423

 

 

 

236 Hochwald, A., " Observations on the Effect of Ascorbic Acid on

Croupous Pneumonia, Wien Archiv fur Innere Medizin, Vol. 29,1936, pp.

353-374

 

 

 

237 Onnerod, M., and Unkauf, B., " Ascorbic Acid Treatment of Whooping

Cough, " Canadian Medical Association Journal, No. 37, 1937, p. 134

 

 

 

See also:

 

 

 

Onnerod, M., et al, " A Further Report on the Ascorbic Acid Treatment

of Whooping Cough, " Canadian Medical Association Journal, No. 37,

1937, p. 268

 

238 DeWit, J., " Treatment of Whooping Cough with Vitamin C, "

Kindergeneeskunde, Vol. 17, 1949, pp. 367-374

 

 

 

239 LEPROSY:

 

 

 

Gatti and Goana, " Ascorbic Acid in the Treatment of Leprosy, " Archiv

Schiffe-und Tropenhygiene, Vol. 43,1939, pp.32

 

 

 

Ferreira, D., " Vitamin C in Leprosy, " Publicacoes Medicas, Vol. 20,

1950, pp. 25-28

 

 

 

TYPHOID FEVER:

 

 

 

Szirmai, F., " Value of Vitamin C in Treatment of Acute Infectious

Diseases, " Deutshes Archive fur KlinischeMedizin, Vol. 85,1940, pp.

434-443

 

 

 

Drummond, J., " Recent Advances in the Treatment of Enteric Fever, "

Clinical Proceedings, Vol. 2, South Aftica, 1943, pp. 65-93

 

 

 

DYSENTARY:

 

 

 

Veselovskaia, T., Effective of Vitamin C on the Clinical Course of

Dysentery, Voenno-Meditsinskii Zhumal, Vol. 3, Moscow, 1957, pp. 32-37

 

 

 

Sokolova, V., " Application of Vitamin C in Treatment of Dysentery, "

Terapevticheskii Arkhiv, Vol. 30, Moscow, 1958, pp. 59-64

 

 

 

Other readings on Vitamin C and bacterial infections:

 

 

 

Kuribayashi, K., et al, " Effect of Vitamin C on Bacterial Toxins, "

Japanese Journal of Bacteriology, Vol. 18,1963, pp. 136-142

 

 

 

Sweany, H., et al, " The Body Economy of Vitamin C in Health and

Disease, " Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 116, 1941,

pp. 469-474

 

 

 

Dujardin, J., " Use of High Doses of Vitamin C in Infections, " Presse

Medical, Vol. 55, 1947, p. 72

 

 

 

240 Cottingham, E., and Mills, C., " Influence of Temperature and

Vitamin Deficiency Upon Phagocyfic Functions, " Journal of Immunology,

Vol. 47, 1943, pp. 493-502

 

 

 

241 DeChatelet, L., et al, " Ascorbic Acid: Possible Role in

Phagocytosis, " paper presented at the 62nd Meeting of the American

Society of Biological Chemists, San Francisco, USA, June 18, 1971

 

 

 

242 Cathcart, R., " Clinical Trial of Vitamin C, " Medical Tribune, June

25, 1975

 

 

 

See also:

 

 

 

Cathcart, R., " Vitamin C, Titrating to Bowel Tolerance, Anascorbemia,

and Acute Induced Scurvy, " Medical Hypothesis, Vol. 7, 1981, pp. 1359-1376

 

 

 

243 Pauling, L., How to Live Longer and Feel Better, Avon Books of the

Hearst Corporation, New York, 1986, pp. 177 and 178

 

 

 

244 McCormick, W., " Vitamin C in the Prophylaxis and Therapy of

Infectious Diseases, " Archives of Pediatrics, Vol. 68, No. 1, January,

1951, pp. 3 and 7

 

 

 

245 Simon, H., " Exercise and Infection, " The Physician and Sports

Medicine, Vol. 15, 1987, pp. 135-141

 

 

 

246 White, K., " Interferon: The Promise . . . and Reality, " Medical

Tribune, Vol. 19, October 16, 1978, p. 31

 

 

 

247 Sauberlich, H., " Implications of Nutritional Status in Human

Biochemistry, Physiology and Health, " Clinical Biochemistry, Vol. 17,

April, 1984

 

 

 

See also:

 

 

 

Chandra, R., " Nutritional Regulation of Immunity and Infection, "

Journal of Ped., Gastroentorology. and Nutrition, Vol. 5, pp. 844-852

 

248 Barons, et al, " Dietary Fat and Natural Killer-Cell Activity, "

American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 50, 1989, pp. 861-867

 

 

 

249 Coffnan, L., " Effects of Specific Nutrients on the Immune

Response, " Medicine and Clinicians--North American, Vol. 69, July,

1985, p. 5

 

 

 

250 Brown, R., et al, in Brain Behaviour and Immunity, Vol. 3,1989,

pp. 320-330

 

 

 

251 Wiess, J., et al, " Behavioural and Neural Influences on Cellular

Immune Responses: Effects of Stress and Interleukin-1, " Journal of

Clinical Psychiatry, Vol. 50, Supplement 5, 1989, pp. 43-53

 

 

 

See also:

 

 

 

Girard, D., et al, " Psychosocial Events and Subsequent Illness--A

Review, " Western Journal of Medicine, Vol. 142, March, 1985, pp. 358-363

 

252 Belyayev, I., et al, " Combined use of Ultraviolet Radiation to

Control Acute Respiratory Disease, " Vestn Akad Med Nauk SSSR, Vol. 3,

1975, p. 37

 

 

 

See also:

 

 

 

Zabaluyeva, A., et at, " The Mechanism of Adaptogenic Effect of

Ultraviolet, " Vestn Akad Med Nauk SSSR, Vol. 3, 1975, p. 23

 

Frick, G., " Effect of UV on Blood Picture, " Folia Haemat, Vol. 101,

1974, p. 871

 

Rylova, S., " Effect of Short Wave Ultraviolet Rays on the Phagocytic

Activity of Leucocytes in Patients Suffering from Rheumatoid

Polyarthritis, " Vop Kurort Fizioter, Vol. 32, 1967, p. 344

 

Murphy, J., and Sturm, E., " The Lymphocytes in Natural and Induced

Resistance to Transplanted Cancer, " Journal of Experimental Medicine,

Vol. 29, 1919, pp. 25-35

 

253 Maughan, G., and Smiley, D., " The Effect of General Irradiation

with Ultraviolet Upon the Frequency of Colds, " Journal of Preventive

Medicine, Vol. 2, 1928, p. 69

 

 

 

254 Zabaluyeva, A., " General Inununological Reactivity of the Organism

in Prophylactic Ultraviolet Irradiation of Children in Northern

Regions, " Vestn Akad Med Nauk SSSR, Vol. 3, 1975, p. 23

 

 

 

255 Miley, G., " The Knott Technic of Ultraviolet Blood Irradiation in

Acute Pyogenic Infections, " New York Journal of Medicine, Vol. 42,

1942, p. 38

 

See also:

 

Hollaender, A., and Oliphant, J., " The Inactivating Effect of

Monochromatic Ultraviolet Radiation on Influenza Virus, " Journal of

Bacteriology, Vol. 48, 1944, p. 447

 

 

 

Downes, A., and Blunt, T., " Researches on the Effect of Light Upon

Bacteria and Other Organisms, " Proceedings of the Royal Society of

Medicine, Vol. 26, 1877, p. 488

 

 

 

256 Kime, Z., Sunlight Could Save Your Life, World Health

Publications, Penryn, California, USA, 1980, p. 315

 

 

 

257 MacGregor, R., " Alcohol and Immune Defense, " Journal of the

American Medical Association, Vol. 256, No. 11, September 19, 1986

 

 

 

258 Aldo-Benson, M., et al, Abstract No. 7966, Federation of American

Sciences for Experimental Biology, May, 1988

 

 

 

259 Bagasra, O., Abstract No. 3111, Federation of American Sciences

for Experimental Biology, Reproduced from a May, 1988, presentation

 

 

 

260 Journal of Infectious Diseases, Vol. 154, 1986

 

 

 

261 Kime, Z., Sunlight Could Save Your Life, Author's Preface

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ANNEX l

 

 

 

PROBLEMS WITH DEVELOPING WORLD MEDICALIZATION

 

AND THE TRADITIONAL MEDICINE ALTERNATIVE

 

 

 

 

 

By: Raymond Obomsawin

 

 

 

The medicalization of large parts of the Third World . . . has

occurred in the context of the destruction of whole systems of

traditional philosophies in the name of science and health. Present

patterns of dependence are a product of this . . . evolution. The

addictive nature of the new pill culture may as one of its unwanted

consequences have played a role in creating and sustaining poverty in

the Third World. The price of foreign products is often out of

proportion to the purchasing power of the poor, who thus may squander

a large part of their income in the pursuit of what may be illusory

hopes of benefit.. . . Pharmaceuticals are an inappropriate solution

to many major health problems and . . . their consumption often does

not meet the health needs of people.

 

 

 

Goran Sterky, Dag Hammarskjold Foundation, Uppsala, Sweden.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE DISTURBING DILEMMA OF DEVELOPING WORLD MEDICALIZATION

 

 

 

Some leading international health officials, such as Robert Bannerman

of the World Health Organization, have legitimately raised the concern

that " orthodox " and " conventional " health care services--as devised

for and administered to Developing World populations--remain

culturally alienating and " economically unobtainable. " He also

maintains that, whether in the Developed or Developing Worlds, the

disparity between the actual benefits and the high costs of Western

medicine continues to be an issue of major socioeconomic and political

concern. As part of this picture, it is noted that in the Developing

World, roughly one third of all health care costs are devoted to " the

drug bill alone, " with relatively poor countries importing such drugs

against payments in scarce hard currency.1

 

 

 

Charles Medawar, Director of a London-based research unit, Social

Audit Ltd., has conducted extensive international research on the

issue of medicalization practices in the Developing World. He has

documented the following disturbing conclusions in an article on the

need for the strengthening of international regulation in

pharmaceutical practice:2

 

 

 

The major proportion of pharmaceuticals on the world market are

" unessential and/or undesirable products "

 

there are well documented cases of the ongoing marketing of

pharmaceuticals to the Developing World that are known to be

inherently unsafe and dangerous

 

excessive prescribing constitutes a major cause of " adverse

reactions, " with " chronic and serious under-reporting " of adverse

reactions being the norm (Estimates of the extent of under-reporting

of adverse reactions in the United Kingdom, " which has one of the most

sophisticated post-marketing surveillance systems in the world'

through the mechanism of the UK Committee on Safety of Medicines,

range from 90 to 99 percent.)

 

information from tests and trials on drugs typically ranges from

inadequate to appalling (in most clinical trials, the sample sizes are

too small and the length of treatment too short to substantiate the

claims made on the strength of them)

 

most prescribing information is partial, unreliable and incomplete,

with the benefits routinely " emphasized and over-emphasized, " while

the disadvantages and potential dangers are routinely played down or

ignored

 

in most countries (especially in the Developing World), the right to

redress of damaged patients or clients is extremely limited, or does

not exist at all

 

as a rule, decisions about medicines are almost totally dominated by

professional and commercial interests, and are usually carried out in

secret, with public accountability for the medical system and its

practitioners severely restricted

 

Internationally, the pharmaceutical industry devotes about 1 percent

of its research and development expenditures on " poor world " diseases,

despite the fact that no " good drug treatments " exist for over half of

the diseases specific to the poor countries.

 

Medawar also provides evidence which suggests that the World Health

Organization's (WH0) intimate cooperation and " contractual relations

with many pharmaceutical companies, " inter alia, cripples its capacity

to effectively represent and support the most fundamental health needs

of the Developing World through developing a system of care in which

the most prevalent and serious health needs are met. Multisectoral

measures which are safe, effective, simple, and uncostly hold the

answer to attaining sustainable and long term health improvement.

Indeed, without due leadership in this direction he contends that

" Health for All by the year 2000 must appear a sham. "

 

 

 

Even where the WHO has been able to advocate a more rational public

sector approach to medical practice in the Developing World, as in its

1981 Action Program on Essential Drugs and Vaccines, the fact remains

that in most Developing World countries there is readily available in

the private sector from 10 to 20 times as many pharmaceutical products

as the 250 which are recommended in the Organization's Action Program.

 

 

 

According to Sterky " . . . in some Third World countries, up to 75

percent of the drugs moving in the market may be outside the control

of health ministries. " This active trade in up to 4,000 drug products

is largely monopolized by powerful transnational corporations. In

fact, it is estimated that 90 percent of the world's production of

commercially marketed pharmaceuticals originates in the industrialized

countries, with this percentage growing.3

 

 

 

 

 

INDIA--AN ALARMING CASE IN POINT

 

 

 

Trisha Greenhalgh's seminal survey of 2,400 individual patients under

treatment in the public and private medical sectors of India is

illustrative of conditions which are becoming increasingly prevalent

throughout much of the Developing World.4 It will thus be reported on

in some detail.

 

 

 

Her research confirmed that drugs which have a high incidence of side

effects or a " significant risk of fatal idiosyncrasy " are being sold

over the counter and prescribed by doctors for trivial complaints.

Chloramphenicol, barbiturates, anabolic steroids and high dosage

oestrogen preparations " are used freely, often from bizarre

indications and in unsuitable dose regimens. "

 

 

 

She refers to one national study which estimates that India is

experiencing between five to ten thousand deaths annually, from

chloramphenicol-induced aplastic anaemia alone. High dose

estrogen-progesterone (EP) although containing warnings of

teratogenicity (potential to cause birth defects) remain the cheapest

and most widely employed pregnancy test in the country.

 

 

 

Furthermore, medical drugs which have been banned in Western countries

due to their dangers are actively prescribed, dispensed and marketed.

A few cases include: phenylbutazone, which has been associated with

more deaths in Britain than any other drug; and clioquinol which is

officially accepted as a " safe drug, " in apparent ignorance of the

major scandal in which literally tens of thousands of people were left

crippled from the drug, with its manufacturer, Ciba Geigy conceding

full blame.

 

 

 

Greenhalgh further reports that the pharmaceutical industry argues

that " these drugs have not been shown to be hazardous to the Asian

population, " and that it awaits the results of post-marketing

surveillance before withdrawing them. In her words " this is less a cry

for objectivity, than a justification for exploiting the sorry state

of medical audit. " Indeed, case records are rarely kept by doctors

engaged in private practice, and polypharmacy remains rife, so most

adverse drug reactions remain inevitably undetected. Even if they were

detected, there exists no system for the reporting of suspected

reactions, and there is no official procedure or mechanism for

alerting doctors of suspected adverse reactions in new drugs.

 

 

 

This situation is further compounded by the fact that to all

appearances with the exception of teaching hospitals, postgraduate

education in clinical pharmacology remains the " unchallenged province

of representatives from the pharmaceutical industry. "

 

 

 

Simple solutions appear to be ignored. For example, 30 percent of all

child deaths in the nation are due to diarrhoea, yet in over 90

percent of such cases oral rehydration is ignored by practicing

medical doctors. In the population, millions are known to have a

Vitamin A deficiency, with as many as 30 thousand children being

blinded each year. This occurs despite the fact that " a fresh mango

provides many weeks supply of Vitamin A for a child and costs much

less than a bottle of vitamin syrup. "

 

 

 

To conclude this summary of Greenhalgh's findings, I would share her

following observation.

 

 

 

.. . . one cannot ignore the long term effects [and the ethical

implications] of encouraging a poorly educated population to develop

blind faith in the infallibility of modern medicine, and the magical

properties ofprescribed pills . . . . people who are too poor to buy

rice are being led to believe that they need a cough mixture for every

cough, an antibiotic for every sore throat, and a tranquiliser to

solve the problems of everyday life.

 

 

 

 

 

A COMPELLING VOICE OF PROTEST

 

 

 

Mira Shiva, Coordinator of the Voluntary Health Association of India,

drawing upon her practical experience as a medical doctor in her home

country, protests that low cost, self reliant, and indigenous " health

care alternatives " have been unduly marginalized with the rapid growth

of the medical-industrial complex. Indeed, while clinics and drug

dispensing units,, nursing homes, drug marketing outlets, and

diagnostic labs have literally mushroomed throughout the nation, at

rapidly escalating costs, there has been " no significant and

substantial change in the health status of the people. "

 

 

 

She further contends that:

 

 

 

Simple health care solutions, for example changes in diet, simple

massages, home remedies and herbal medicines, which are as relevant

today as in the past . . . have been gradually excluded from the

health care scene, because of an assumed superiority of modern drugs

for all kinds of health problems. This assumed " scientificity " has not

been demonstrated by comparing the existing and new pharmaceuticals

with alternative therapies in terms of efficacy, side effects, drug

interaction, costs, acceptability, and availability.

 

 

 

Shiva also puts forward the view that the worldwide indigenous

traditions encompassed a superior holistic concept of health and

disease, in which the use of medicines served to complement and not

displace more fundamental and broadly based nutritional and

environmental provisions. She concludes by stating that:

 

 

 

.. . . the concept of the universalization of the pharmaceutical

medical solution . . . irrespective of the nutritional and health

status of patients [and or recipients] in deprived areas, is

irrational. . . . It also indicates an unhealthy First World bias on

the part of drug exporters, transferors of technology and propounders

of myths.5

 

 

 

THE TRADITIONAL MEDICINE ALTERNATIVE

 

 

 

The human experimentation with and exploration of plant medicines has

evolved over the millennia to what is a current usage of some 20,000

plant species, which remarkably--according to scientists Phillipson

and Anderson, of the School of Pharmacy on London-- " form the major

sources of medicine for the population of the majority of the World.6

 

 

 

Nonetheless--as the preceding sections portray--initially in the First

World and now universally, there has been an aggressively pursued and

increasingly actualized goal to displace this traditional knowledge

and practice system, with commercially marketed Western

pharmaceuticals. Commercially subsidized and influenced

university-based medical curricula have fimctioned to shift the focus

and faith of medical practitioners--and in turn those they practice

upon--from plant medicines, towards what is considered a modernized

pharmacopoeia. This public faith receives continual reinforcement

through the medium of public media advertising. (It should be noted

that approximately 75% of modem commercial pharmaceuticals are

strictly synthetic chemical substances,7 that without exception, bear

toxic and thus harmful side effects.)

 

 

 

It is widely acknowledged that synthetic agents can be far more easily

patented and thus profited from. This, inter alia, has led

Pharmacological researchers such as de Smet (Royal Dutch Association

for the Advancement of Pharmacy, the Hague, Netherlands) and Rivier,

(Institute of Legal Medicine--The University of Lausanne, Switzerland)

to suggest that the predominant view that traditional plant medicines

are of marginal value " could well be an economic verdict, rather than

a well balanced scientific judgment. " They go on to " deplore the

commonly held belief that the study of traditional agents is nothing

but an evaluation of outdated exotic, which cannot be relevant for

Western Medicine.8 Their view is backed by Labadie, who has conducted

extensive research on traditional plant medicine at the State

University of Utrecht in the Netherlands. He confirms that although it

" in general represents a still poorly explored field of research, "

there is nonetheless a compelling basis for recognizing " the

international relevancy of research and development in the field of

traditional drugs. . . .9

 

 

 

This relevancy that Labadie speaks of, has in part arisen from the

growing recognition of the practical limitations, high costs, and

iatrogenic features incidental to allopathic (conventional) medicine,

with such awareness being the most prevalent in the First World, where

it has been the most widely practiced. Consequently, there has arisen

in very recent decades--from the lay to professional levels--a

significant counter-movement towards according " natural, " (variously

termed e.g., nature based, lifestyle, and holistic) approaches to

health care more prominent recognition and employment.

 

 

 

An important part of this increasingly worldwide trend has been the

prominent re-emergence of an integrated science termed

ethno-pharrnacology. Although it central focus is on traditional

pharmacognosy (medicines derived from natural sources), it is

necessarily interdisciplinary in scope encompassing the functional

co-relationship and integration of scientific data in the areas of

cultural anthropology, archaeology, linguistics, history, botany,

toxicology, botany, chemical physics, and biochemistry. Furthermore,

it entails both the preventive and therapeutic dimensions of medicine.10

 

 

 

University of Messina pharmaco-biologist Anna de Pasquale in

conducting a detailed historical review of plant derived medicine,

which she has coined " The Oldest Modern Science, " came to the

conclusion that

 

 

 

The re-examination of nature in the search for new therapeutic means

has obtained remarkable results. The study of ancient official drugs,

which had fallen into disuse . . . has brought about a re-discovery of

therapeutic means used for millennia . . . . [ethnopharmacology], this

millenarian precursor of medical sciences, is still alive and vital

and it has its own place in the future of man. It possesses all the

premises to enable it to give a substantial contribution to a more

efficacious and rational research of medicaments. . . .11 (Eugene

Linden's September 23, 1991 article in Time " Lost Tribes Lost

Knowledge, " cites M. Balick's (Director of the New York Institute of

Economic Botany) observation that only 1,100 of the earth's 265,000

species of plants have been thoroughly studied by Western scientists,

but as many as 40,000 may have medicinal or undiscovered nutritional

value for humans. He concludes with the recommendation that

traditional " healers . . . can help scientists greatly focus their

search for plants with useful properties. " )

 

 

 

Anne Mcllory's article " Medical secrets of the forest " in the February

18, 1991 issue of The Toronto Star speaks of the renewed interest of a

limited number of Western scientists in the " enormous " potential of

traditional plant medicines. Such interest has of course taken on much

greater urgency as the forests, and the elders who've retained this

knowledge appear to face impending extinction. One noteworthy example

where this renewed interest has richly paid off is found in the rosy

periwinkle, which now ftimishes an extract providing Western medicine

with an 80 percent recovery level for the once fatal condition of

childhood leukaemia.

 

 

 

In going back to the 1978 Alma Ata Conference on Primary Health Care,

we find pragmatic approval given--at a political level--to the

recommendation that essential drugs and biologicals be locally

produced and distributed " at the lowest feasible cost. " In concert

with this recommendation, the Conference recognized the need to curb

the growing over-dependency on medical drugs. It was further affirmed

that " proved traditional remedies be incorporated in primary health

care, including the establishment of effective " supply systems. " 12 In

the Words of Medawar, " The importance of local medical need is

recognized in the AlmaAta recommendation on drugs, partly in the

provisions on local manufacture and use of indigenous remedies. " 13

 

 

 

From within the WHO, Bannerman has since gone on to play a vital role

in encouraging a renewed reliance upon " well known and tested herbal

medicines in primary health care. " He refers to a growing interest on

the part of Developing World governmental and research institutions in

Africa, Asia, and Latin America with respect to the possibilities of

further developing and re-utilizing their own medicinal plant

resources. He forcibly argues that:

 

 

 

.. . . medicinal plants are generally locally available and relatively

cheap, and there is every virtue in exploiting such local and

traditional remedies when they have been tested and proven to be

non-toxic, safe, inexpensive and culturally acceptable to the

community. . . . There are many records of traditional therapies

employing herbal medicines that are said to be effective against

common ailments and usually without any side-effects. . . The

cultivation of medicinal plants and herbs can also be linked with the

production of vegetables and fruit with high nutritive value that

should be of particular benefit to mothers and children.

 

 

 

(While conducting an evaluation mission in Northeast Thailand, the

writer, in the company of UNICEF Officer Dr. Supote Prasertsri,

visited the Reanunakorn District Health Centre to examine its

experimental traditional plant medicine program. Program Director

Pradit Tongyus--who also directs the Centre's health, mental health,

nutrition and sanitation services--explained why he was inspired to

establish the program. His own son developed a serious urinary

infection which failed to respond to regular antibiotic treatments

throughout 10 days of hospitalization. Upon turning to a known local

plant medicine, virtually all symptoms of infection subsided within a

10 hour period. He went on to describe various local plant medicines

which had proven to be non-toxic and highly efficacious in the

remediation of a wide range of conditions such as: burns; herpes

simplex; snake and scorpion bites, kidney stones, ulcers, and high

blood pressure. Indeed, such reputable attestations exist worldwide,

and only await honest inquiry and further clinical testing.)

 

 

 

As well, Bannerman recommends that community health workers be

afforded with a working knowledge of the therapeutic value of local

medicinal plants, including their identification, cultivation,

collection, preparation, and therapeutic application. He maintains

that provisions for such training and practice represent a fundamental

strategy to the strengthening local and community self-reliance in

health care.14

 

 

 

One of the key arguments of those who would oppose this is view, is

that before such medicines can be employed there must be extensive and

detailed testing of each specific plant medicine, extraction and

refinement of the active ingredients, followed by official recognition

and approval. However, there are some basic reasons why this

conventional drug development methodology is not only impracticable,

but as well unnecessary.

 

 

 

A significant number of plant medicines have been used successfully

for centuries, and in some cases millennia. Where there has been a

long and established history of efficacy, no apparent adverse side

effects, and social acceptance, the only common sense response is to

fully permit and encourage continued usage. Researchers such as de

Smet and Rivier forcefully maintain that the endorsement of and

reliance upon traditional plant medicines in the Developing World,

cannot and should not be made conditional upon the full assemblage and

weighing of " chemical, pharmacological, clinical and toxicological

evidence, " as such requirements " would be untenable in the developing

countries . . . where Western alternatives for traditional therapies

may be unavailable, unpayable or socially unacceptable. "

 

 

 

Consequently, the most practical course recommended--as a means of

attaining more " immediate health care improvement " --is to conduct

simple assays on a series of traditional plant medicines, rather than

undertake costly and detailed chemical, clinical and toxicological

studies of each and every particular medicine.15 As an added and

important point, internationally such " simple assays " --as well as some

very sophisticated pharmacological and clinical studies--already exist

on a number of traditional plant medicines, with the former primarily

found in the bio-etbnographic, and the latter in the bio-science

literature.

 

 

 

 

 

CRITICAL CONCLUSIONS AND DIRECTIONS

 

 

 

As a fitting synthesis of the issues and concerns as raised in this

paper, we can turn to the outstanding work of the Dag Hammarskjold

Foundation in Uppsala, Sweden. The Foundation convened a landmark

international seminar in 1985 on the issue of attaining Another

Development in Pharmaceuticals. The following salient observations are

derived from the " Summary Conclusions " of the Foundation's report on

the seminar, which had both public and private sector representation

from Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia.

 

 

 

The pharmaceutical industry has evolved and been sustained, in part,

by encouraging the vision of human health problems as being solvable

only by technological means. A contrived international " pill-popping

culture " may be in the short-term economic interests of the industry,

however it effectually undermines the vital long term interest of

attaining " indigenous, " and " self-reliant " health development.

 

There has been too great a tendency to dismiss traditional medicine as

unscientific and superstitious, while accepting unquestioningly all

that is new. This is true despite the fact that traditional forms of

medicine at times " yield better results " than those which can be

obtained by the use of " modem pharmaceuticals. "

 

Perhaps more important than the actual nature of traditional remedies,

was the holistic perception of the nature of illness and the healing

process. This view often led to the use of therapies which enhanced

the healing process through treating the whole being, rather than the

specialized " targeting " of specific symptoms.

 

Medical policies and practices must be " ecologically sound, " viz.

avoiding the " unnecessary pollution of patients bodies with toxic

chemicals. " The pharmaceuticals market should be replaced by programs

and therapies for better health. The crisis will be solved only by a

fundamental change both in the training of health workers, and in the

thinking of a community which has " been seduced into believing that

every ill can be solved by a little pill. "

 

Both the mystique of professional monopolies of expertise and

transnational corporation monopolies of technology, which in concert

deny development to the South, " must be shattered. " Medicine should be

" endogenous, " that is primarily derived from the cultural, human and

material resources available to each society.16

 

It is the view of the writer, that to ignore these conclusions and

oppose these recommendations will be but to help insure the

continuation of oppression, poverty, and disease throughout the

Developing World. Furthermore, it will serve to deny both the

developed and developing nations with the enormous opportunity of

properly assessing and accessing a vastly untapped reservoir of vital

experiential knowledge, insights, and plant medicines which may

tragically perish with the older generation of increasingly

marginalized and threatened indigenous " nature based " societies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

REFERENCES

 

 

 

1 Bannerman, R., " The Role of Traditional Medicine in Primary Health

Care, " in Traditional Medicine and Health Care Coverage--A reader for

health administrators and practitioners, 1983, edited by Bannerman,

R., Burton, J., and Wen-Chieh C., The World Health Organization,

Geneva, Switzerland, p. 319

 

 

 

2 Medawar, C., " International Regulation of the Supply and Use ofP

harmaceuticals, " in Development Dialogue, Vol. 25, 1985, The Dag

Hammarskjold Foundation, Uppsala, Sweden, p. 16-34

 

 

 

3 Sterky, Goran, " Another Development in Pharmaceuticals: An

Introduction, " in Development Dialogue, Vol. 2, 1985, The Dag

Hanunarskjold Foundation, Uppsala, Sweden, pp. 5 and 6

 

 

 

4 Greenhalgh, T., " Drug Prescription and Self-Medication In India: An

Exploratory Survey, " in Social Science and Medicine, Vol. 25, No. 3,

1987, Pergamon Journals Ltd., Great Britain, pp. 307-316

 

 

 

5 Shiva, M., " Towards a Healthy Use of Pharmaceuticals--An Indian

Perspective, " in Development Dialogue, Vol. 25, 1985, The Dag

Hammarskjold Foundation, Uppsala, Sweden, pp. 69-72

 

 

 

6 Phillipson, J. David, and Anderson, L., " Etlmopharinocology and

Western Medicine, " in Journal of harmocolo Vol. 25, 1989, Elsevier

Scientific Publishers Ireland Ltd., pp. 61 and 65

 

 

 

7 lbid, p. 71

 

 

 

8 de Smet, P., and Rivier, L., " A General Outlook on

Ethnopharmocology, " in Journal of Ethnopharmocology, Vol. 25, 1989,

Elsevier Scientific Publishers Ireland Ltd., pp. 130 and 131

 

 

 

9 Labadic, R., " Problems and Possibilities in the Use of Traditional

Drugs, " plenary lecture presented at the Second International Congress

on Traditional Asian Medicine, September, 1984, Surabay, Indonesia

 

 

 

10 de Smet, P., and Rivier, L., " A General Outlook on

Ethnopharacology, " p. 127, and see, de Pasquale, A. " Pharmacognosy:

The Oldest Modern Science, " in Journal of Ethnopharmacology, Vol. 11,

1984, Elsevier Scientific Publishers Ireland Ltd., p. 13

 

 

 

11 de Pasquale, " Pharmacognosy, " pp. 13 and 16

 

 

 

12 Primary Health Care, Report of the International Conference on

Primary Health Care Jointly Organized by the WHO and UNICEF, at

Alma-Ata, USSR, September 6-12, 1978, published by the WHO, Geneva,

Switzerland, 1978

 

 

 

13 Medawar, " International Regulation of Pharmaceuticals, " p. 19

 

 

 

14 Bannerman, " The Role of Traditional Medicine, " p. 326

 

 

 

15 de Smet, P., and Rivier, L., " A General Outlook on

Ethnopharmacology. " pp. 135 and 136

 

 

 

16 Dag Hanimarskkiold Seminar on Another Development in

Pharmaceuticals, June 3-6, 1985, " Summary Conclusions, " in Develoment

Dialogue, Vol. 2, 1985, The Dage Hanunarskjold Foundation, Uppsala,

Sweden, pp. 130-143

 

 

 

See also:

 

 

 

Akerele, O., (The World Health Organization), " The Best of Both

Worlds: Bringing Traditional Medicine Up-To-Date, " Social Science and

Medicine, Vol. 24, No. 2, 1987, pp. 177-181

 

van der Geest, S., (University of Amsterdam), " Pharmaceuticals in the

Third World: The Local Perspective, " in Social Science and Medicine,

Vol. 25, No. 3, 1987, pp. 373-376

 

" Kyerematen, G., and Ogunlana, E., (University of Uppsala Biomedical

Centre), " An Integrated Approach to the Pharmacological Evaluation of

Traditional Materia Medica, " Journal of Ethnopharmacology, Vol. 20,

1987, pp. 191-207

 

Huizer, G., " Indigenous Healers and Western Dominance: Challenge for

Social Scientists?, " Social Compass, XXXIV/4, 1987, pp. 415-436

 

Quah, S., Editor, The Triumph of Practicality--Tradition and Modernity

in Health Care Utilization in Selected Asian Countries, Social Issues

in Southeast Asia Programme, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies,

Singapore, 1989

 

Leslie, C., Editor, Asian Medical Systems: A Comparative Study,

University of California Press, Berkely, California, USA, 1977

 

Ademuwagun, Z., et at, Editors, (representing the universities of

Ibadan, Tennessee, and Iowa State), African Therapeutic Systems,

(African Studies Association, Brandeis University, Waltham, Mass.,

USA, Crossroads Press, 1979

 

ANNEX II:

 

AGROCHEMICAL AGRICULTURE THE NEED FOR A SANER ALTERNATIVE

 

 

 

 

 

By: Raymond Obomsawin

 

 

 

 

 

THE DILEMMA OF CHEMICAL FERTILIZATION

 

 

 

The worldwide use of commercial chemical fertilizers and pesticides

has increased by factors of 9 and 32 respectively, during the recent

35 year period.1 For an appreciation of the impact of this on soil and

plant nutrition we should consider the observation of Chesworth:

 

 

 

Geochemically, farming is a kind of rape, with annual harvests

removing plant nutrients one or two orders of magnitude faster than .

.. . (natural processes) can replace them. . . . The inherent fertility

of soil, a renewable resource, is largely ignored in modern mechanized

agriculture in favour of chemical fertilizers largely mined from

non-renewable deposits. A saner attitude once should be re examined as

a possible basis for future strategies.2

 

 

 

A highly significant practical concern is the increasingly high costs

associated with agrochemical fertilizers, coupled to their incapacity

to provide a range of essential micro nutrients to the soil.

 

 

 

Since the energy crises of the seventies, the cost of artificial

fertilizer has increased at least three fold, and most tropical

countries are faced by severe restrictions in foreign currency. The

second drawback is that commercial fertilizers are invariably

incomplete. They look after N, P and K, but most of the minor

nutrients are left out . . . With this form of agriculture becoming

increasingly beyond the means of the Developing World, alternatives

are needed. 3

 

 

 

A further critical question that is rarely given due consideration is

the popularly promulgated belief that synthetically developed

chemicals bear no difference from those which naturally occur in the

biosphere. In response to this view, eminently successful

horticulturist D. Phillips contends that such a view overlooks the

highly vital " life force " factor. In his words " A synthetic chemical

can appear to represent a natural one only to the extent that a waxen

image is a dummy of its living model. " 4

 

 

 

 

 

PESTICIDE POISONS

 

 

 

Throughout the Developing World, it is estimated that close to a

million people are annually poisoned by pesticides, of which 40,000

die. It is also well worth noting in comparison with the Developed

World, " the incidence of pesticide poisoning is 13 times higher in the

Third World. " To give but one example, in Sri Lanka where there was

not a single death from malaria in 1978, in that same year it is

estimated that there were 1,000 deaths from pesticide poisoning.5

 

 

 

Not only is there an accelerated use of pesticides as pests adapt to

and resist these poisons, but the pesticide manufacturers make them

ever more deadly. This all seems very strange, when we consider that

extensive research conducted by Cornell University Entomologist, David

Pimentel (editor of the Handbook of Pest Management in Agriculture,

CRC Press, 1981) and others, confirms that data covering the last four

decades indicate a direct cause and effect relationship between

pesticide dependency--along with other large scale agribusiness

techniques and highly significant increases in crop losses due to pest

damage.

 

 

 

" The share of crop yields lost to insects has nearly doubled (7% to

13%) during the last 40 years, despite a more than 10-fold increase in

the amount and toxicity of synthetic insecticide used. " As if this

wasn't damning enough, it has also been found that " often less than 0.

1 % " of pesticide applications actually reach the targeted pest(s).6

 

 

 

BIOLOGICALLY SOUND ALTERNATIVES TO PESTICIDES

 

 

 

To give only one example in the developing world of the potential for

local alternatives to toxic pesticides, while visiting Thailand's

Reanunakom District Health Centre's Traditional Herbal Medicine

Program (Nakhon Phanom Province), I found that there has been

successful development of and early field trials for non-toxic plant

source alternatives to chemical pesticides. The biological product

shown, had as its base a locally growable variety of lemon grass.

 

 

 

In my discussion with the Program Coordinator P. Tongyus, it became

evident that there remains a considerable potential for villages to

raise the basic ingredients as a means of replacing their present

dependence on commercial chemical pest control products. Furthermore,

there remains potential for large scale industrial production of such

non-toxic herbal pest control products, if interest could be further

generated, investments made, and appropriate marketing channels

established.

 

 

 

THE PROMISE OF CLEAN ORGANICULTURE METHODS

 

 

 

It is also of compelling interest that little acknowledged, albeit

superior agricultural methods such as the " clean culture " system (see

pp. ??? in main text) developed by Sampson Morgan bear great promise

not merely for preventing disease and human degeneration, but for

alleviating the crippling effects of starvation in the underdeveloped

regions of earth.

 

 

 

At the time of Morgan's experiments the average potato yield for the

world, stood at about 6 tons per acre, that of wheat 15 bushels. In

the words of Morgan, I broke all records for potatoes . . . digging

fine samples at the rate of 65 tons an acre, a success never achieved

by any other experimenter. " As for wheat, he was able to produce up to

100 bushels per acre. He correctly perceived that the bankruptcy of

the soil means the impoverishment of the people; both in quality and

quantity of food provided. In his words " 'ne colossal loss of

foodstuffs through the present system is criminal. " His products

included the largest apple that had ever been recorded at 34-1/2 oz

and nearly I-1/2 ft in circumference. Additionally " clean culture "

methods produced plants far more impervious to adverse weather

conditions, including frost. The shelf life of produce was also

greatly extended.7

 

 

 

A further major benefit of clean culture--of great significance to

more and regions--is the fact that porous rock based " mulches " are

generally highly potent in reducing evaporation of water from the

soil. In fact, evidence suggests that such mulches actually serve to

extract " moisture from humid atmospheres. " 8

 

 

 

A RECENT INTERNATIONAL INITIATIVE IN CLEAN ORGANICULTURE

 

 

 

With support from Canada's International Development Research Centre,

the University of Guelph (Ontario) Department of Land Resources

Science--in cooperation with various Tanzanian universities in the

late 80's undertook an historic applied research initiative on the

potential of locally accessible rock dust (what the University has

coined as agro-geology) applications to restore what has become

largely infertile and acid soils in the Mbeya, Morogoro and Mbozi

regions of Tanzania.

 

 

 

At its outset, Johnson Somoka of Sokoine University of Agriculture in

Tanzania realistically projected that through rock dust fertilization:

 

 

 

vital micronutrients will be replaced

 

reductions in dependency on commercial chemical fertilizers will be

achieved

 

farmers can anticipate -potential increases of 50% to 70% in crop yields.

 

(This particular project's level of success, and potential for

replication was assessed upon its completion in 1991.)9

 

 

 

 

 

REFERENCES

 

 

 

 

 

1 MacNeill, et al, CIDA and Sustainable Development, The Institute for

Research on Public Policy, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1989

 

 

 

2 Chesworth, W., " Late Cenozoic Geology and the Second Oldest

Profession, " Department of Land Resource Science, University of

Guelph, Guelph, Canada, published in Geoscience Canada, Vol. 9, No. 1,

1981, pp. 54-56

 

 

 

3 Chesworth, W., et al, " Agricultural Alchemy: Stones Into Bread, "

Episodes, Vol. 1983, No. 1, p. 3

 

 

 

4 Phillips, David A., From Soil to Psyche, Woodbridge Press Publishing

Company, Santa Barbara, California, USA, 1977, p. 195

 

 

 

·5 Chetelat, L.J., A Synthesis of Key Issues for Evaluation in Eaanded

Programs of Immunization, prepared for CIDA Policy Branch, Evaluation

Division, Hull, Canada, January, 1990, p. 36

 

 

 

6 Pimental, D., personal communication, May 8, 1990; Pimental, D., et

at, Environmental and Economic Impacts of Reduciniz US Agricultural

Pesticide Use, draft text, Cornell University Department of

Entomology, October, 1989, p. 4; and Pimental, D., and Levitan, L.,

Pesticides: " Amounts Applied and Amounts Reaching Pests, " Bioscience,

American Institute of Biological Science, Washington, DC, Vol. 36, No.

2, February, 1986, p. 86

 

 

 

7 Morgan, S., Clean Culture--The New Soil Science, Health Research,

Mokelumne Hill, California, reprint of 1918 Edition, whole text

 

 

 

8 Chesworth, Agricultural Alchemy, p. 5

 

 

 

9 Toomy, G., " Agrogeology--Rocks in the Service of Soil " --The IDRC

Reports, Ottawa, Canada, July, 1986, pp. 12-13

 

 

 

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