[This letter was published in the Globe and Mail newspaper in a condensed 150 word format. It must have caused some concern, because the letters editor first asked me to condense it, then sent back their 150 word version which I approved, and it did not appear in the newspaper until 1 week after the original article. Normally letters appear the next day.]
I certainly support everyone making their own health decisions, so an article [in the Globe and Mail] on Alice Fleerackers who, after 27 healthy unvaccinated years, decided to defy her parents and get vaccinated, is certainly interesting, and a valid perspective.
But if the newspaper is not to be pharmaceutical propaganda, the other side should be covered, people who changed their minds and turned against vaccines. When I graduated at the top of the science faculty, with a degree in biology, I fervently believed in vaccines. It was only years later, when investigating a completely different area of medicine, that I was challenged on my beliefs and had to admit I had no scientific knowledge about vaccines. What I gradually found, as I started to read the science, shocked me, and turned me completely against vaccines. I discovered that true placebos are rarely used to test vaccines, but that most of the problematic additives are included in the comparison injection. That reduction of disease is almost never an endpoint in vaccine trials, but antibodies or other surrogate markers that aren’t guaranteed to correlate with protection from disease. I discovered the multi-billion dollar vaccine compensation court in the United States, and the VAERS database of adverse reactions, some very severe, including deaths. I became concerned about the ingredients in vaccines, particularly mercury (still used, although less than in the past) and aluminum (increasingly being used, in novel, poorly tested chemical formulations). I discovered that historical statistics generally showed massive declines in deaths from infectious diseases before a vaccine was available, and a relatively puny decline afterwards.
Regarding measles, which so scared Alice, I discovered that Canada stopped counting cases in the 1950s and early 60s because it was considered so minor, and only re-started when a vaccine became available. Maybe because measles statistics are useful to scare people into compliance. I also discovered, in the United States, that the risk of death from measles declined 50-fold from 1912 through 1962, before any vaccine was available, and 1000-fold by the time the first vaccine now believed to have been effective was launched, in 1968.
150 word published version
I certainly support everyone making their own health decisions, so an article [in the Globe and Mail] by someone who decided to get vaccinated for the first time, at 27, is certainly interesting.
But I also believe that the other side should be covered - people who changed their minds and turned against vaccines, such as myself.
When I graduated at the top of my class in biology, I fervently believed in vaccines until, years later, I was challenged on my beliefs and admitted I had no scientific knowledge on the subject. As I started to read the science, I gradually turned against vaccines. I discovered that true placebos are rarely used and that trials are designed to show the development of antibodies, not prevention of disease.
Billions of dollars have been spent on compensating for vaccine damage in the United States. Potentially toxic ingredients are used in some vaccines, particularly the metals mercury and aluminum. And my research into historical statistics showed that the greatest decline in deaths from infectious diseases occurred before a vaccine was available.
When I graduated at the top of my class in biology, I fervently believed in vaccines until, years later, I was challenged on my beliefs and admitted I had no scientific knowledge on the subject. As I started to read the science, I gradually turned against vaccines. I discovered that true placebos are rarely used and that trials are designed to show the development of antibodies, not prevention of disease.
Billions of dollars have been spent on compensating for vaccine damage in the United States. Potentially toxic ingredients are used in some vaccines, particularly the metals mercury and aluminum. And my research into historical statistics showed that the greatest decline in deaths from infectious diseases occurred before a vaccine was available.
Summary
While I am not entirely happy with the reduced version, I am slightly amazed that an anti-vaccine letter could be published in a major newspaper at all. This is the first time that a letters editor has worked with me on the text, normally letters are taken, edited as the newspaper sees fit, and then published, or not. And, I have never seen a letter of mine appear more than 2 days after the original article. So I suspect there were some internal discussions. I do not want to read too much into this, but perhaps the complete silencing of vaccine critics will eventually end.
