Anti-vaccinationism

Anti-vaccinationism is a term used to describe those who, for various reasons, oppose vaccination. Since the process of vaccination has become a standard part of public health and medicine, there have been groups and individuals who opposed vaccinationions.

Brief history

Efforts by individuals and communities to avoid death of infectious diseases have been recorded since at least Hippocrates, as have disagreements on their detail. Modern states assert an interest in and a right to control aspects of these efforts.

Widespread vaccination began in the UK, in the early 1800s, after Edward Jenner. It succeeded variolation.

At first the government encouraged vaccination.

Compulsion

In the UK, traditionally neither particularly paternalistic and authoritarian, nor particularly laissez-faire, successive Vaccination Acts from 1840 made vaccination compulsory and banned variolation as being less effective and more hazardous than vaccination.

This represented a significant change in the relationship between state and subject.

Backlash

A prompt backlash occurred, initially focused on compulsion, which after a time settled on arguments that the vaccine was dangerous or ineffective. After that argument was won, compulsion ceasing and large-scale vaccination having been conducted, arguments on the latter grounds continued to be presented. Some of them derive from a view of the world which rejects the germ theory of Pasteur, and advances as true theories which have been discarded by most scientists active in the relevant fields.

In the United States, smallpox outbreaks had become contained by the latter half of the 19th century. Vaccination had been widespread in the early part the century, and before that smallpox had been widespread. Vaccination then fell into disuse. In the 1870s the disease became epidemic, the population therefore being demonstrated to be susceptible.

Anti-vaccination activity also increased in the United States in the latter part of the 19th century. In 1879, after a visit to New York by William Tebb, a British citizen opposed to vaccination, the Anti-Vaccination Society of America was founded. Subsequently, the New England Anti-Compulsory Vaccination League was formed in 1882 and the Anti-Vaccination League of New York City in 1885.

Initial arguments

Arguments against compulsion gained considerable support. In the UK and abroad, when vaccination was introduced there are reports of individual clergymen supporting objections to it. Since the same applied to the potato, it is not clear that there was a special religious angle.

Prior to Pasteur's work there had been several clear assertions that contagion spread from person to person. Prior to the availability of microscopes the nature of that contagion - microbes - could not be elucidated. After that time, and as demonstrated by Semmelweiss, Lister and others, the knowledge that there were specific modes of cross-infection and that there were means to avoid them diffused through the population, though other safety concerns surrounding specific vaccines do exist, particularly the live-agent vaccines and "preserved" vaccines which contain potentially toxic compounds.

The People

Organisations wholly or largely existing to oppose immunisation

Historical

The initial aims and results of the early movements:- In the UK vaccination was provided free and Variolation outlawed from 1840 under the Vaccination Act. Widespread or organised resistance or protest is not reported at that time.

1873 Act: In 1873 a further Vaccination Act made vaccination compulsory. Records of the reasoning for this are not widely available. However it is apparent that soon after this there was considerable resistance to the compulsion, and this grew. In 1885 a Royal Commission sat, following riots in Leicester and reported 7 years later, recommending the abolition of cumulative penalties. A new Vaccination Act in 1898 removed cumulative penalties and introduced a conscience clause, allowing parents who did not believe vaccination was efficacious or safe to obtain a certificate of exemption. This act extended the important concept of the "conscientious objector" in English law.

The aims of the protesters and organisations had thus been achieved in 1898.

Current

Since the reversion from compulsory immunisation in the UK, opposition has continued, albeit at a low level and with the termination of the national organisations set up to oppose compulsion.

This opposition could no longer focus upon the abridgement of vicarious individual liberty - the right to determine what is done to one's children - and adopted the arguments that immunisation did not have an effect; that it had an effect but the effect was overwhelmingly bad; or that although immunisation had a beneficial effect that beneficial effect was less than lifelong and produced perverse consequences.

This was a change of ground and toward hypotheses that in theory require evidence and are susceptible to disproof rather than the philosophical questions of the relationship of individuals to state or deity. Accordingly, scientific investigation has been undertaken, and also accordingly subsidiary arguments essentially consisting of the serial assertion that each scientific investigation which did not prove one of those hypotheses had been incorrectly designed, conducted, interpreted or punctuated and spelled.

The State

"Vaccination is unique among de facto mandatory requirements in the modern era, requiring individuals to accept the injection of a medicine or medicinal agent into their bodies, and it has provoked a spirited opposition. This opposition began with the first vaccinations, has not ceased, and probably never will. From this realisation arises a difficult issue: how should the mainstream medical authorities approach the anti-vaccination movement? A passive reaction could be construed as endangering the health of society, whereas a heavy handed approach can threaten the values of individual liberty and freedom of expression that we cherish." BMJ

Some of the United States in America make no requirement for immunisation, but a legislative requirement for immunisation before admission to school, and another for schooling. An overlap between followers of contemporary anti-vaccinationists and home-schoolers must arise from this.

Anti-Vaccinists quotes

• "The greatest threat of childhood diseases lies in the dangerous and ineffectual efforts made to prevent them through mass immunization.....There is no convincing scientific evidence that mass inoculations can be credited with eliminating any childhood disease."--Dr Robert Mendelsohn, M.D (Ref: How To Raise Your Child In Spite Of Your Doctor)

• "I found that the whole vaccine business was indeed a gigantic hoax. Most doctors are convinced that they are useful, but if you look at the proper statistics and study the instances of these diseases you will realize that this is not so."--Dr Archie Kalokerinos MD (Interview---- International Vaccine Newsletter June 1995 [1])
• "The 'victory over epidemics' was not won by medical science or by doctors--and certainly not by vaccines.....the decline...has been the result of technical, social and hygienic improvements and especially of improved nutrition.....the claim that vaccinations are the cause for the decline of infectious diseases is utter nonsense."--Dr. med. Gerhard Buchwald (Ref: The Vaccination Nonsense. ISBN 3-8334-2508-3 page 108.)

Publications

• 1884 Compulsory Vaccination in England by William Tebb [2]
• 1898 Vaccination A Delusion by Alfred Russel Wallace [3]
• 1936 The Case Against Vaccination By M. Beddow Bayly M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P. [4]
• 1951 The Truth About Vaccination and Immunization by Lily Loat [5]
• 1957 The Poisoned Needle by Eleanor McBean [6]
• 1990 Universal Immunization Medical Miracle or Masterful Mirage By Dr. Raymond Obomsawin [7]

Anti-Vaccinationist Assertions

It is difficult to resolve the many assertions made by various websites and individuals identifiably opposed to vaccines, as objections are many and vary from individual to individual and from group to group. Multiplication and divergence are characteristic of the method of argument employed, rather than classification and consolidation.

In on-line engagements

Responses to papers or reports of scientific or political enquiry attract responses from a small population of frequent responders. Proponents of vaccination dismiss criticism as ignorant and frivolous.

Objections on a broad front

Many objections are raised, not apparently on vaccination itself, but on some individual component of a vaccine or of the social arrangements around it. They appear from the association of the people involved to be anti-vaccination activity, rather than as may be asserted, an effort to improve the safety of vaccines. Where overlaps with other groups who oppose the use of some technique can be found, the objections are voiced more strongly.

Science

Assertions that immunisation cannot work because the theory on which it works is incorrect have been made.

Cell-lines

A reluctance to use (viral) vaccines derived from human cell-lines is one objection. Secular ethical, humanist and mainstream religious views generally do not reject them. The element of presentation of the argument, in terms of absolutes and the evil of those preparing the vaccines, distinguishes arguments from an anti-vaccinationist stance from the disucssion of proportionate benefit and harm in a continuum of ethics.

Anti-vaccine websites

• Vaccination.org.uk, a reproduction of the vaccination material of http://whale.to
• VRAN (Canada)
• AVN (Australia)
• Vaccination Liberation (USA)
• Justice Awareness and Basic Support (UK)
• National Vaccine Information Center (USA)

References

• Wolfe RM, Sharp LK. Anti-vaccinationists past and present. BMJ 2002;325:430-2. Fulltext. PMID 12193361.
• The Anti-Immunization Activists: A Pattern of Deception - Ed Friedlander, MD