If you grew up and live in the US, then you have been indoctrinated to believe vaccination to be effective in the prevention of infectious disease, and to have minimal adverse side effects. Be prepared to have those illusions shattered by this unique book which is a monument of scholarly work on this topic, and deserves multiple re-readings. The care and detail of the documentation is intentional and overwhelming. My congratulations to the authors for a job well done. You might also find interesting, Confessions of a Medical Heretic by Robert S. Mendelsohn MD. He was an early pioneer in the anti-vaccination movement and also my medical school adviser. Paralytic Polio Was Underdiagnosed. Studies document the underdiagnosis of paralytic polio. Shaw and Levin reported that “mild degrees of muscle weakness may be easily overlooked” if manual muscle testing were employed without a functional assessment of strength.

Syphilis can be effectively treated with antibiotics ( Wikipedia. Syphilis; see also: CDC. Syphilis). About one child out of every 1,000 who get measles will develop encephalitis (swelling of the brain) that can lead to convulsions and can leave the child deaf or with intellectual disability ( CDC. Measles). The response to poliovirus infection is highly variable and has been categorized on the basis of the severity of clinical presentation. The decline in mortality from infectious diseases associated with childhood admit no simple explanation. The case of diphtheria is something of an exception, largely because effective interventions became available in the 1890s.With the advent of penicillin in 1943, syphilis became curable. “A rarity in the interplay of antibiotics and bacteria, penicillin has remained effective in the treatment of T. pallidum since its introduction, and it continues to be an efficacious first line therapy ( Willeford, 2016).” The incubation period for nonparalytic poliomyelitis is 3-6 days. For the onset of paralysis in paralytic poliomyelitis, the incubation period usually is 7 to 21 days. As early as 1873, William Budd “clearly described the contagious nature of the disease and incriminated transmission via fecally contaminated water sources (Levine, 2018, p. 114; see also Budd, 1873). Besides a vaccine that conferred some protection and newer versions still given to those traveling to areas where typhoid fever is still endemic, typhoid fever was nearly eliminated by public health approaches, mainly treatment of water; but also safer handling of foods (e.g., Curschmann, 1901; Vaughhan, 1894; Whipple, 1908). As Levine writes:

Aiming to confuse readers by quoting 30-year-old studies on the failures of the 1963 inactivated measles vaccine (and serum gamma globulin as a form of treatment) numerous times throughout the chapter, even though both are no longer in use. By 1894 an antitoxin with therapeutic qualities had been developed, and two decades later an effective means of immunizing children became available with the introduction of the toxin-antitoxin. Yet the precise role played by both in reducing mortality from diphtheria is ambiguous…There is some evidence that the emergence of a dominant strain of mitis [ Editor’s note: a variant of the bacterium that caused a relatively mild form of the disease] reduced the virulence of the disease. Antitoxin serum may therefore have merely assisted a natural decline of the disease already under way. During the 1920s …immunization campaigns probably led to the eventual disappearance of the disease by World War II (Grob, 2002, pp. 205-6). Table 3: Frequency of symptoms (percentages of cases) in the pre-eruptive stage in variola major and variola minor (from Table 1.3 in Fenner, 1988, p. 6). As shown in the table below, those infected with variola minor often experienced quite a bit of suffering lasting several weeks: Scientists were surprised when they learned that individuals with a deficit in antibody production recovered from measles just as well as normal antibody producers. […] Therefore the antibody part of immunity is not at all necessary for the natural recovery from measles (p 364). Measles is a highly contagious infectious disease caused by the measles virus. Symptoms usually develop 10–12 days after exposure to an infected person and last 7–10 days. Initial symptoms typically include fever, often greater than 40 °C (104.0 °F), cough, runny nose, and inflamed eyes. Small white spots known as Koplik’s spots may form inside the mouth two or three days after the start of symptoms. A red, flat rash which usually starts on the face and then spreads to the rest of the body typically begins three to five days after the start of symptoms. Complications occur in about 30% of cases and may include diarrhea, blindness, inflammation of the brain, and pneumonia, among others.

To summarize

Next, Dr Humphries launches into a discussion on the questionable role that antibodies play in the body’s immune response, implying that vaccines (which stimulate antibody production) are in fact useless:

Immunization against measles provides effective protection against the disease. A more modest reduction in the risk of a measles diagnosis is associated with breast-feeding. For a little perspective, according to the National Cancer Institute, “Among children ages 0 to 14 years, it is estimated that 10,270 will be diagnosed with cancer and 1,190 will die of the disease in 2017 ( National Cancer Institute, 2017). For Cerebral Palsy, according to the Texas Adoption Resource Exchange: “About 8,000 babies and infants are diagnosed with the condition each year. In addition, some 1,200-1,500 preschool age children are recognized each year to have cerebral palsy ( Texas Adoption Resource Exchange, 2018). And as discussed below, approximately 4,531 new cases of Muscular Dystrophy are reported in the U.S. per year. According to the National League of Cities: “The most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau (2007) counted 39,044 general purpose local governments, which includes 19,492 municipal governments, 16,519 township governments and 3.033 county governments ( National League of Cities, 2018). Obviously, depending on one’s definition of neighborhoods, the number would be larger than the number of local governments. So, the likelihood of one, let alone more of any of the above in a neighborhood is small. Yet, many Americans were and are aware of them and support efforts, both research and care. The American Sexual Health Association was founded in 1913 to fight prostitution and the venereal disease epidemic through public education on sexually transmitted disease and working to break down the social stigma attached to venereal diseases. During both World Wars they were instrumental in breaking up prostitution rings targeting military personnel ( Wikipedia. American Sexual Health Association). In 1960 it changed its name to American Social Health Association and continues to this day. Various groups developed programs, including textbooks, “to shape and tame ‘the native capacities’ of impoverished children into socially acceptable, monogamous heterosexuals” (Egan, 2009). Today, we are told that medical interventions increased our lifespan and single-handedly prevented masses of deaths. But is this really true? The format of this book is somewhat unconventional, as it is filled with manydirect quotes from a wide variety of historical and medical sources. We decided on this format to give you unfiltered information that will help you gain better insight into the true history of disease and vaccination. Oftentimes each quote tells a unique, self-contained story that can draw the reality of the past into view much better than a distilled summary would. The book contains more than 50 graphs that are based on meticulously researched data. Each graph lists the references upon which the data is based. The graphs provide—in most cases—a never-before-seen view of the history of disease from the 1800s into the 1900s. They provide foundational evidence for the points presented in the text. The book also includes many photographs extracted from numerous historic sources. Most of the photographs are presented with the exact captions that appeared in the original work. Throughout the book, bold text indicates something that we think warrants special attention. For more information related to the book, please visit

Measles

It is an airborne disease which spreads easily through the coughs and sneezes of an infected person. People are infectious to others from the start of symptoms until about three weeks into the coughing fits. Those treated with antibiotics are no longer infectious after five days. In the case of measles, the death rate had declined by almost 100 percent. You would never know it today, but the dreaded measles was no longer a major issue in the Western world by the time vaccines were deployed (p.174) Breast-feeding for more than three months was negatively associated with a diagnosis of clinical measles infection after adjustment for crowding, social class, measles vaccination, parity and sex with an odds ratio (95% confidence interval) of 0.69 (0.60–0.81) compared with those who never breast-fed. Measles vaccination was highly associated with low risk for measles with: 0.14 (0.13–0.16). Breast-feeding did not notably alter measles immunization efficacy.