A Voice For Vaccine Realism: Are Vaccines Always Preferable to Disease?

5/11/15

Are Vaccines Always Preferable to Disease?

We aren’t often prompted to think about vaccines from the following perspective but an important fact to ponder is that there is nothing in a vaccine that is ‘good for you.’ There is nothing in a vaccine that is nutritive or necessary for biological function. The premise behind a vaccine regimen is not that vaccines directly enhance human health, the premise is that vaccines are less dangerous than natural acquisition of the diseases they’re intended to prevent. But is this really always the case? Is every vaccine really safer than its alternative? The answer to these questions is not readily apparent, but advancements in the study of infectious diseases and the role nutrition plays in a healthy immune system yield increasing evidence that many infectious diseases are not typically life threatening in healthy people living in developed countries with adequate nutrition and access to basic medical care.

A growing number of doctors and scientists believe that the role nutrition plays in proper immune function and disease management has been grossly underestimated. For instance, vitamin A supplementation is now recommended as standard therapy for measles both in developing countries and in the United States.1 As such, it has been demonstrated that measles mortality can be reduced by up to 64 percent with high-dose vitamin A supplementation.1 Considering that measles mortality rates in the U.S. had already declined by more than 95 percent before a measles vaccine was introduced,2 do the perceived ‘benefits’ of the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine justify its risk? (See Figure 4)

Figure 4. National Vital Statistics from 1900-1960 measles mortality graph.

The product insert for the MMR has a long list of side effects including atypical measles infection, hearing loss, immune system suppression, inflammatory bowel disease, subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, aseptic meningitis, Guillain-Barre syndrome (a type of autoimmune paralysis), pancreatitis, thrombocytopenia (low platelet count), optic neuritis, juvenile diabetes, anaphylaxis, arthritis, pneumonia, Stevens-Johnson syndrome (a life-threatening skin condition), erythema multiforme and also death.3

Not only has it been proven that high vaccination rates cannot reliably prevent disease outbreaks, fully-vaccinated individuals often constitute a high proportion of those involved. Respected doctor, vaccine advocate and founder of the Vaccine Research Group, Gregory A. Poland observes in a 2012 study that measles outbreaks consistently occur in highly vaccinated populations due to primary and secondary vaccine failure.4 Among many such examples of this phenomenon, Poland cites a 2011 measles outbreak in Canada for which over 50 percent of those infected had received two doses of measles vaccine (consistent with the current MMR regimen). Poland thus concludes that elimination or eradication of measles under the current vaccine program is unlikely.4