When my oldest child was a baby, after telling the health visitor I didn’t vaccinate, she promptly exclaimed, “Oh well, she’s lucky as she has herd immunity from the vaccinated children to protect her!”
She then went on to say that not everyone had the luxury of my decision because if less than 95% of children were vaccinated, then it wouldn’t work anymore. I thought this was a silly concept because if vaccination truly worked, then any child who was vaccinated would be protected from disease, no matter how many ‘infectious’ unvaccinated kids there were, and if the 95% herd immunity figure was a genuine argument, it only points to one thing: the medical profession don’t really believe in the effectiveness of their own vaccines.
What Is The Herd Immunity Theory?
The herd immunity theory was originally coined in 1933 by a researcher called Hedrich. He had been studying measles patterns in the US between 1900-1931 (years before any vaccine was ever invented for measles) and he observed that epidemics of the illness only occurred when less than 68% of children had developed a natural immunity to it. This was based upon the principle that children build their own immunity after suffering with or being exposed to the disease. So the herd immunity theory was, in fact, about natural disease processes and nothing to do with vaccination. If 68% of the population were allowed to build their own natural defences, there would be no raging epidemic.
Later on, vaccinologists adopted the phrase and increased the figure from 68% to 95% with no scientific justification as to why, and then stated that there had to be 95% vaccine coverage to achieve immunity. Essentially, they took Hedrich’s study and manipulated it to promote their vaccination programmes.
(MONTHLY ESTIMATES OF THE CHILD POPULATION “SUSCEPTIBLE’ TO MEASLES, 1900-1931, BALTIMORE, MD, AW HEDRICH, American Journal of Epidemiology, May 1933 – Oxford University Press). Full Text (PDF)
Why Vaccine Induced Herd Immunity is Flawed
If vaccination really immunises, then your vaccinated child will be immunised and therefore protected against any disease an unvaccinated child gets. If he isn’t, his shots didn’t work.
We should also examine whether or not the vaccines actually do provide immunity and in which populations epidemics occurred. Was it the unvaccinated children spreading disease as they would have parents believe? Or were those epidemics already in previously vaccinated people?
To do this I have listed several epidemics that have occurred in the last 100 years or so, including Smallpox, which medics claim that vaccination eradicated.
There was a Smallpox epidemic in Pittsburgh, USA, in 1924. This epidemic was started by a mandatory vaccination campaign in which people were imprisoned if they refused the shot. A health club then started a suit against Dr. Voux, who had headed the vaccination drive, for bringing disease upon the people. Legal council for the health club stated: ‘There have been NO deaths from Smallpox in Pittsburgh during the previous nine years from 1915 to 1924, including the years when there was no vaccination or re-vaccination, at all – and hence, no vaccine immunity.’
They pointed out that the vaccine campaign had caused 22 deaths and 112 cases of vaccine-induced Smallpox. (You can read a detailed history of vaccination in Eleanor McBean’s book, Vaccination Condemned, Better Life Research, 1981).
In Germany between 1947-1974, there were ten outbreaks of Smallpox including 94 people who had been previously ‘immunised’, who then became ill with the disease. (The Vaccination Nonsense, 2004 lectures, Dr. Gerhard Buchwald).
Here are some more recent epidemics in vaccinated populations:
In March 2006, 245 cases of mumps were confirmed in Iowa, US, where the law requires vaccination for school entry. Eleven year-old Will Hean of Davenport was diagnosed with mumps, and his 21 year old sister Kate.Both children had gotten the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, or MMR. “He had all the shots and everything. You don’t think you’re going to get the mumps after you’ve been inoculated,” said Will’s father, Wayne Hean. (2006, The Associated Press).
In 2002 an outbreak of Varicella (Chickenpox) occurred in a US daycare centre for fully vaccinated children. Varicella developed in 25 of 88 children (28.4 percent) between December 1, 2000, and January 11, 2001. A case occurred in a healthy child who had been vaccinated three years previously and who infected more than 50 percent of his classmates who had no history of varicella. The effectiveness of the vaccine was 44.0 percent against disease of any severity.Children who had been vaccinated three years or more before the outbreak were at greater risk for vaccine failure than those who had been vaccinated more recently.
Conclusions: In this outbreak, vaccination provided poor protection
against varicella. Longer interval since vaccination was associated with an increased risk of vaccine failure. Breakthrough infections in vaccinated, healthy persons can be as infectious as varicella in unvaccinated persons. (Outbreak of Varicella at a Day-Care Centre despite Vaccination)
2002
Karin Galil, M.D., M.P.H., Brent Lee, M.D., M.P.H., Tara Strine, M.P.H.,
Claire Carraher, R.N., Andrew L. Baughman, Ph.D., M.P.H., Melinda Eaton,
D.V.M., Jose Montero, M.D., and Jane Seward, M.B., B.S., M.P.H.).
And here’s some vaccine failures for measles: Five cases of measles secondary vaccine failure with confirmed seroconversion after live measles vaccination. (Scandinavian Journal of Infectious Disease vol. 29, no. 2, 1997, pp.187-90): Two, five, seven and twelve years after vaccination with further attenuated live measles vaccine, three of five patients experienced modified measles infection, and the remaining two had typical measles. “This may be the first SVF case report that confirms the existence of completely waning immunity in recipients of the further attenuated live measles vaccines.”
And Whooping Cough: Journal of Infectious Diseases, vol. 179, April 1999; 915-923. Temporal trends in the population structure of bordetella pertussis during 1949-1996 in a highly vaccinated population- “Despite the introduction of large-scale pertussis vaccination in 1953 and high vaccination coverage, pertussis is still an endemic disease in The Netherlands, with epidemic outbreaks occurring every 3-5 years.” One factor that might contribute to this is the ability of pertussis strains to adapt to vaccine-induced immunity, causing new strains of pertussis to re-emerge in this well-vaccinated population.
Just recently, Dr. Kari Simonsen, a paediatrician at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, USA, said one in five children who are vaccinated for whooping cough will still get the disease. She said efficacy of the vaccine was ‘comparatively low’, but said
‘It’s the best vaccine we can build to date.’
Despite admitting this, she still believes that parents should get the vaccine for their children.
At St. Robert Bellarmine School in west Omaha, 12 children had confirmed whooping cough, of those, most had been vaccinated.
The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services reported Thursday that the state has had 117 confirmed cases this year, up from 70 all of last year and 99 in 2006. There were 312 cases in Nebraska in 2005.
In Douglas County, 48 cases have been reported this year. Last year, 21 cases were reported.
This is in a country that gives five doses of the vaccine in the first four years of life and then another dose at 11 years of age!
(Omaha World Herald, ‘Vaccine Didn’t Stop Whooping Cough’, 31st October 2008).
Victor Plotkin – an epidemiologist from Lake County in the US has reported that there have been 82 cases of pertussis in the county so far this year.
‘Plotkin said the county did see very high numbers of cases during a nationwide outbreak of pertussis in 2004 and 2005. In 2004, there were 152 cases of pertussis and 135 cases in 2005. However, before that, pertussis cases in the county had averaged about 8 to 10 a year for many years.
Plotkin said the 2004 and 2005 pertussis outbreak appears that it may have been attributed to waning immunity among older children and adults who had not received booster shots. He said the most recent outbreak is a bit more puzzling because many of the children who are becoming ill are younger children who were recently vaccinated.
“Unfortunately, during this outbreak, even people that have been recently vaccinated are becoming sick anyway,” he said. “Their symptoms are milder, but they still can pass the bacteria along to others and make others sick.”
(Whooping Cough Increases in Lake County – the Vernon Hills Review 20th November 2008).
So What Happens if People don’t Vaccinate?
Are the unvaccinated really infectious?
According to Archives of Disease in Childhood, vol. 59, no. 2, February 1984, pp. 162-5): ‘Severity of whooping cough in England before and after the decline in pertussis immunisation’, “Since the decline of pertussis immunisation, hospital admission and death rates from whooping cough have fallen unexpectedly… The severity of attacks and the complication rates in children [who were] admitted to hospital were virtually unchanged’. – i.e. hospital admissions and death rates reduced when people WEREN’T getting vaccinated, meaning that avoiding shots is actually good for your child’s health and may save his life, and in those cases which were admitted to hospital, there were no increased complications in the unvaccinated group. Basically, at best the shots don’t make a difference and at worse, they kill or disable.
Another paper said that in the years 1977 to 1979 there was the largest outbreak of pertussis that they’d reported in 20 years, BUT:
1. The death rate was lower than in previous outbreaks
2. 35% of cases were in FULLY VACCINATED children
3. In the 1977 and 78 epidemics, 95% of UNvaccinated children ‘escaped infection’ or were not notified, which means that only 5% of unvaccinated children had confirmed pertussis.
“Estimates based upon notifications indicate that there was in the 1977-9 triennium in the United Kingdom the largest outbreak of whooping cough for 20 years or more….Deaths in which whooping cough was certified as the immediate of underlying cause were lower than in previous outbreaks….But, overall, about 35% of reported cases were children who had received three injections of triple vaccine. Acceptance of pertussis vaccine fell sharply in 1975 but about 95% of unvaccinated children in age groups 0-5, including the 1977 and the 1977 and 1978 birth cohorts, either escaped infection or were not notified.’
(J Epidemiol Community Health. 1981 June; 35(2): 139–145 – http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1052141/).
But there hasn’t been one double-blind controlled study of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated children since 1979 when one trial was carried out on BCG vaccine. Why? The medical profession say it is unethical to withhold vaccination from children. Therefore they cannot gain an accurate indication of what health is because everyone is getting the shots and suffering colds, ear infections, eczema, asthma and there is nothing to compare it with. If they did do a study, they would undoubtedly find the unvaccinated are healthier and maybe that it why they refuse.
Not one of my four daughters ever suffered from any of the common childhood ailments that so many of their friends did. Whilst all the babies in the nursery were catching colds every other week, my baby was happy and healthy. “She’s got an excellent immune system even though she’s never been vaccinated”, remarked the health visitor at her check.” No” I corrected, “She has an excellent immune system BECAUSE she’s never been vaccinated.”
