The compulsory vaccine debate has been an ongoing affair for decades. Today, considering the looming threat of mandatory vaccinations it is important to take a stance on the issue in a concise and practical manner.

The stakes and circumstances at hand are dual sided, evolutionary nature versus progressive innovation, and artificial intervention versus biological design. I will try my best to look into the importance of vaccines and whether or not they should be deemed beneficial and more importantly whether or not they must be a condition for human beings in order for them to simply live their lives.

The arguments follow many intricated and sensitive themes due to the nature of vaccination. To be clear by vaccine I do mean the traditional definition of a prophylactic pharmaceutical used to prevent a disease from occurring by eliciting an immunity to a disease. Forced vaccination is the side of debate that many others and I am particularly concerned about.  This is a subject that after all places the outcome regardless of its success solely in the hands of the recipient. Additionally, there are laws which protect vaccine manufactures from accepting any liability for injuries. This is all for a medical intervention that cannot be un-done. There is no literature on how to remedy or regulate the effects of a vaccine once it has been administered

Historically, vaccines were created to prevent highly contagious and fatal diseases those that, during that particular time in history, would likely have been a death sentence. The mortality rate or disability rate was usually very high, and as the world population grew the need for global health needed to be addressed. Originally, vaccines were injections of weakened or dead pathogens in an adjuvant solution given to grant a person immunity from catching the disease in question. With a world that had been ravaged by pandemics like the black plague and others it all seems understandable.

Now, if one were to time travel to the days of the plague, rampant small-pox, or polio we’d see a very stark discernment between not only medicine but of health in general. Doctors, Scientists, and journalists LOVE to mention small-pox and polio whenever they feel pressured to explain to the public why vaccines are a good thing. However, one thing that they certainly seem to forget to mention is the other vital life-saving factors that contributed to good health at the time.

For example, one seldomly mentions one of the greatest assistants in reducing the world’s illnesses, the Refrigerator. Refrigerators weren’t appliances in American households until the 1920’s and they were terribly expensive, even compared to today’s high prices. During the first 20 years of its use was primarily reserved for military and business ventures. It wasn’t until the invention of Freon in the 1930’s that the beginning of its common use gained popularity.

          Even still, this wasn’t what we, today, think of as a refrigerator because it wasn’t until the 1940’s they could only keep food cold, there was not a frozen freezer til then. The ability to keep food from rotting by storing food in the cold is one of the most reliable and oldest preservation methods since the beginning of time but not until commercialization of the of fridge/freezer combo did they become standard in American homes; this was sometime in the early 1940’s and 1950’s. That was around when we began implementing modern food handling and safety.  Without refrigeration people would starve or greatly put themselves in line for food borne illnesses. The food we buy at the store, for the most part travels hundreds of miles. This international food chain is only made possible by refrigerated vehicles and freezers. If you think a refrigerator has nothing to do with your health, try unplugging your fridge for a year and still feed yourself and your family with food you buy at the store. Good luck not catching salmonella, listeria, cholera, E. coli, or food poisoning.  Instances of dire history would have been averted had refrigeration and proper food handling had been implemented. A large number of “witches” in the Salem Witch Trial were actually cases victims who had ingested moldy bread and yeast. Who knows how many innocent women could have survived if they had refrigerators, preservatives, and disinfectants? The Donner party would have been able to have meals that weren’t made of human body parts. The Oregon Trail would have seen far less fatalities as well. The list is endless. The Irish Potato Famine. All those food-borne illnesses and shortages can lead to a serious detriment to health. With proper food handling these things could largely be avoided all without ever needing a medical countermeasure.

Also, the introduction of the electric oven was another invention that greatly reduced illnesses and increased life expectancy; it wasn’t possible until its invention in 1892.  The first microwave oven wasn’t invented til 1955 by Raytheon that used microwave technology for weapons research. Prior to the oven in its modern sense, you had to eat raw foods or cook over an open fire. Everyone now knows that almost everything is sterilized at a certain temperature. Cooking food thoroughly is one of the restaurant industries biggest concerns; one undercooked pork roast and they’d have sick customers on their hands; potentially ruining the business altogether. Obviously, the food that keeps us alive is of extreme importance and thus, so is ensuring that it is not contaminated, undercooked, or go to spoil.

Another overlooked invention that gets shadowed by vaccines is the indoor toilet. In the 1880’s they were exclusively held in the homes of the elite and some businesses. Today, most countries have modern “western” toilets in their homes and businesses with the exception of the economically disenfranchised. The poorest people in the poorest of countries still engage in open defecation. These countries are the ones that also have the lowest standard of living, lower life expectancy and higher infant deaths. Overall, plumbing directly corresponds to human health and without modern toilets and plumbing we would not have the vitality that we have today. Also, the practice of sterilizing medical instruments wasn’t practiced until 1881. Meaning infectious diseases at the time likely were spreading between people but also through materials at the doctor’s office or on their instruments. It was not until 1886 that doctors would sterilize the operating room and all that touched an open wound. Then not til 1889 did doctors wear surgical gloves.  Up until the 1930’s the air in hospitals and operating rooms had no system of filtration. Leaving pathogens airborne around compromised people. Sterilization by the use of UV light began in the 1940’s.

The reduction of illnesses was chiefly defined by the discovery of antibiotics in the 1920’s. From then on, its use gained popularity and was implemented in more places as manufacturing and distribution became possible on larger scale.

       However there is still much more to credit to health and it’s not yet vaccines. The important ability to have a sink with running water close to a toilet that flushed away the waste was likely one of the biggest advancements in health in human history. Before that people had to find water elsewhere to wash after using the bathroom, or resort to wiping their hands on a towel. Any doctor will tell you one of the most common reasons illnesses occur in most hospital settings and in cases of sepsis that a major antagonist is a bacterium called Clostridium Difficile.

It is commonly referred to as C.Diff. C.Diff is a gram positive spore forming bacterium. “According to the CDC, in 2017 there were 223,900 hospitalizations with over 12,800 deaths in the United States. Although C. difficile is commonly known as a hospital/ care facility and antibiotic associated pathogen, at most one third of infections can be traced to transmission from an infected person in hospital settings. According to wikipedia: C.Diff….

“…produces two types of toxins: enterotoxin A and cytotoxin B, which disrupts cytoskeleton signal transductions in the host. Under stress conditions, the bacteria produce spores that are able to tolerate extreme conditions that the active bacteria cannot tolerate.” In “2017 there were 223,900 cases in hospitalized patients and 12,800 deaths in the United States. A 2015 CDC study estimated that C. diff afflicted almost half a million Americans and caused 29,000 deaths in 2011. The study estimated that 40% of cases began in nursing homes or community health-care settings, while 24% occurred in hospitals.”

Wikipedia: Human Health

The issues concerning it now are largely in the hands of hospitals, nursing homes and the individuals themselves. To remember to keep bathrooms clean, and most importantly to wash your hands after defecation.

Additionally, history has shown that epidemics and pandemics stem from a natural source that is introduced somehow into a new population. The new population having been separate and not previously exposed get sick as they have no immunity to it. It wasn’t until the mid to late 1920’s that commercial flights began to take off and took decades to become a “common” activity. Prior to planes you had to get around with a car, horse and carriage, horseback, on foot, or sail on a ship to travel great distances. All which were and still are considerably dangerous.

The ability to migrate easily meant that someone with Tuberculosis could move to somewhere with warmer and dryer temperatures which would reduce the symptoms. Also, for those near the equator they could move to cooler regions and remove themselves from heavy interaction with fruit bats, tsetse flies and mosquitos. All of which still are very deadly. With modern technology, the movement of all types of people meant the movement of all types of diseases as well. This exposed more and more people to foreign diseases allowing them to gain immunity and tolerance although of course the severe cases likely resulted in death only initially and likely few.  Antibiotics, on a pharmaceutical front, has been humanities saving grace. Unfortunately, as us humans usually do, we have relied too heavily on antibiotics and now we face the biggest threat to humanity, antibiotic resistant diseases- a list that grows bigger every day.

When you start to look at health from a bigger perspective you find that vaccines have done some good but certainly not as much as big pharma would like you to believe.  Let us not forget the introduction of food preservatives, anti-viral, antibacterial, the invention of plastics in the 1960’s helped with food storage, and clean running water has done away with most of the world’s biggest health threats and greatly increased the globe’s life expectancy and all of these inventions weren’t mainstream until the baby boomer generation. The disappearance of polio, smallpox, mumps, cholera, listeria etc can be partially attributed to vaccines but if you had to choose between only having vaccines to determine your health and all those modern amenities, I’m quite certain you’d chose the modern amenities because they overall produce a much healthier quality of life than vaccines.

All of this being said, am I calling for the world to halt inoculations? No. Certainly not. I do believe that traditional viral/bacterial live attenuated vaccines do work to a great extent at preventing disease, but I feel as though unless the disease cannot be managed by common modern luxuries like, clean water, over the counter medicines, etc and the disease isn’t highly fatal or contagious then vaccines, especially ones that have had sub-standard testing, trials, and ingredients in them shouldn’t be the standard of treatment. Nor should they be forced on the masses. Injecting everyone for a disease that has a low infection and low fatality rate affecting less than 5% of the population surely can be managed in other ways.

Law makers should concern themselves more with what continues to promote disease around the world instead of promoting mandatory chemical injections that may or may not work or be safe. Ensuring that people have clean drinking water, mosquito nets, safe and available medicines, and personal health and hygiene education would do far more to save the world than any vaccine ever could. I say that because just last year 860,000 + people died from malaria. Over 940,000 died from suicide, and 1.5 million died last year from HIV/AIDS. Over 9 million starved to death and 7.2+ million people died from cancer just last year alone. Of the major causes of death that total in OVER 50 million yearly, vaccines can only address less than ¼ leaving over 37.5 Million to die regardless. The reality its an economic and financial issue which big pharma knows, and they exploit it instead of addressing it. If society continues to try and outsmart mother nature, play God, act invincible and self-concerned the health issues will continue no matter what medicines are created. 

The word Immunity stems from the Latin: Immundus which means filthy and foul.  Vaccines come the Late French Vacca which means Cow (this is because the small-pox vaccine was created by injecting people with cow pox, a similar virus found in cattle.) The word for scientist stems from the Latin inscientis which means “unknowing.” The word for pharmacist stems from Latin “pharmacoliga” meaning “quack.” The word journalist comes from the Latin word “Durnali” meaning someone who is a slave, forced to record and repeat whatever their master’s desire. A slave to words they do not mean and aren’t theirs.

All things aside, the notion that forced inoculations could be implemented and in some places are, is to me a frightening sign of deteriorating human intellect, faith, rights and common sense. To make it worse you could be made to get injected with toxins that lack long term safety data, where no one is liable for the possible damages, there is no antidote, no guarantee, and for our current situation only kills between .5%-2% of the world’s population.

The human genome is around 8% endogenous retrovirus. Without viruses we wouldn’t be alive. Women would not be able to have a uterus and thus never be able to birth babies. We should be extremely careful and cautious about our endeavors to rid the world of viruses…because if we overstep, we might achieve that and wipe all of us out in the progress. So, that means that vaccines are good, right?

The truth?

Yes, sometimes and when done appropriately. However, the answer is also No, they can be extremely dangerous and some plain don’t work. What does work 9 times out of ten is safe plumbing, sewage and food storage as well as good nutrition, safe sex, healthy living, and good personal health education.

Humans are traditionally sensible creatures, some intelligent and talented even. Naturally, we are adapters, and resilient to much of the tragedies in the world. Even before modern medicine, electricity, and politicians we survived, we thrived. If we lose all our intelligence to fear, and all our rights to tyranny we will be nothing more than docile helpless farm animals at the mercy of the shepherds. Never being free and never knowing life beyond a cage and no mindset beyond that which has nothing to live for.

Community over immunity. Transparency over Tyranny. Empathize over Euthanize. Purity over pollution.

If we cannot utilize the technology and amenities, we have already to the fullest of their potential then what makes anyone think that the next technology will be any different. And when will we fix the issues that we’ve created before we create solutions for problems that don’t exist yet or could be diminished by innovations of the past?