Guest guest Posted April 26, 2009 Report Share Posted April 26, 2009 Hugo, Thanks for your clarification. Many of today's health improvements came with cleaner water and sanitation and not as a result of the vaccines used. While I am unfamiliar with the studies you cite, I can recall my research into the DPT vaccine at UCSD medical library where I read several of the books written about these illnesses and also the side effects of the vaccines for a presentation on the subject. There was a separate room dedicated just to the vaccine issue. What was clear to me was that in many such illnesses the vaccines had not been introduced prior to a decline in the illness. It is great to spin it like vaccines are the greatest, which the media and medical establishment do, but then we are ignoring the historical facts, which often fails to be mentioned. There are many issues at work here and lest we not forget the role that money, power and political will (media) all play. You might find some of these referenced studies helpful at http://www.healingwell.com/library/health/thompson2.asp . Hope this helps us all to learn more about this. Are you aware of Pasteur's recanting of the germ theory on his deathbed? Makes for interesting contemplation then about our internal terrain and how this is really part of our immune system. Go ! Michael W. Bowser, LAc Chinese Medicine subincor Sun, 26 Apr 2009 01:40:14 +0000 Re: Re: Vaccination - Whom can we trust? Hi Mike: --Mike B- Curious as to what you might consider effective for small pox, when it apparently was on its way out prior to any serious vaccine scheduling. Similarly, many other childhood illnesses were on a decline prior to vaccines as well. So how do we consider this data? I hear little discourse on the historical data and maybe we need to look at this stuff a bit further before we pat them on the backs for vaccinations. Just a thought. --- Woah, who's patting who on the back? Reinterpreting data that has already been interpreted and entered into the doctrine is difficult, and I can understand why some emotions are running high. I am not interested in wholesale rejections of anything, honestly. I believe in the genius of human beings and I've found that there's at least a grain of truth in everything and anything. I'm not sure there's anything that's entirely garbage. We'd have to go into some fairly involved buddhist doctrine which I am not sure I really grasp in order for me to be able to discuss this further, so: I work off two data points here, the first being a recent article in CMAJ where the conclusion was: " Pneumococcal vaccination does not appear to be effective in preventing pneumonia, even in populations for whom the vaccine is currently recommended. " Efficacy of pneumococcal vaccination in adults: a meta-analysis CMAJ 2009;180(1):48-58 The other is Cuba. Being an island with the ability to carry out massive vaccination gives it some special significance...I think. One study in 1999 compared pre and post vaccination invasive meningococcal disease in young children. The results in a very short time span (pre=1984-88, post=1989-94) were large. Unless the analysis is totally wrong, I cannot see how that happened except that the vaccination campaign was effective. (Impact of Antimeningococcal B vaccination in Cuba, Mem Inst Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, Vol. 94, 1999) A second more recent observational study (2005) concluded that meningitis cases in Cuba were on the decline after massive immunisation campaigns since the late 80s and early 90s. There was an earlier " massive campaign " in 1979 that did not have any real effects. (Bacterial meningitis in children and adolescents: an observational study based on the national surveillance system, BMC, Infectious Diseases, 2005, 5:103) I think both sides raise good questions and issues, and I personally would like to avoid throwing babies out with bath water. Apart from plain stupid things like using mercury as a preservative and so on, I believe we might keep in mind that the vaccination debacle may be more about the complexity of health and disease meeting an obsessively linear intervention. Vaccination likely has it uses, and yet, like much of modern medicine, is used in a brute, short-sighted, and one-dimensional manner.. I know, Mike, that you are questioning whether polio vaccination has done anything, but what accounts for a nearly 60% decline of polio cases in China in 2 years (1989-1991)? I am sure that the polio vaccine has behaved differently in different parts of the world, and I find it entirely believable that certain areas of the world were experiencing a decline in polio cases before vaccination started. After all, it is basic CM that there are many things that make a human being susceptible to the penetration of a microbe to deep levels, such as stress, climactic environs, adequate food, age and so on. Sheltering, feeding and nurturing peope is likely to decrease the incidence and mortality of any disease. Vaccination may be helpful in decreasing incidence and mortality in some situations where adequate food and shelter are not easily available, for instance. Thoughts? I'd like to finish off by saying that I am not a representative of the western medical-industrial complex counterculture. I am a junior representative of a lineage CM tradition. Hugo ________________________________ Hugo Ramiro http://middlemedicine.wordpress.com http://www.chinesemedicaltherapies.org Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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