Mortality Decreased Before Vaccines
A commonly held belief regarding vaccinations, is that if we stopped wide-spread vaccinations, or even just selectively vaccinated, that all these infectious diseases would come back and cause massive outbreaks and incalculable deaths. The thing is, mortality of the infectious diseases decreased long before any of the vaccines were even developed, let alone widely used. Many infectious diseases–for which we never even had vaccines for–declined during the first half of the 20th century, too.
It would certainly make a very profitable ‘marketing campaign’ to tell everyone they’re going to die if they don’t take your product–but that’s really all it is. It’s a gigantic, convoluted marketing campaign and you are the product–your body the endless reservoir for countless medications and vaccines that may or may not prevent infection, transmission, or death. It doesn’t matter if it works, you believe it does.
With so many people with their hands in the cookie jar–from politicians to health departments– it’s time to start listening to moms (who never even get a cookie, it turns out).
People may show you graphs of measles “cases” declining after the introduction of the vaccine to prove its value. In the 1950s and 1960s, measles had already evolved into a much milder infection largely due to major improvements in living conditions, sanitation, hygiene, nutrition, etc. The majority of cases were, in fact, mild.
Here’s another graph that includes both “cases” and “deaths”–the red dotted line are deaths per 100,000 US population. In the 1950s and 1960s, the mortality rate for measles was 0.2 per 100,000 persons.
Prior to the introduction of the very first measles vaccine in 1963, nearly all children had measles by the time they reached 15 years old. However, the mortality rate had drastically declined prior to the introduction of the first vaccine in 1963. For a more in-depth investigation of measles, visit the measles page.
According to the CDC:
“In the decade before 1963 when a vaccine became available, nearly all children got measles by the time they were 15 years of age. It is estimated 3 to 4 million people in the United States were infected each year…among reported cases, an estimated 400 to 500 people died.”
I am showing just one of the infections, but a similar pattern happens with each and every one of them. Polio is an interesting discussion and to understand the phenomenon that occurred with polio, namely that the virus was never associated with epidemics until well into the 20th century, and its highest reported incidence occurred mid-century, right around the time that injections of all kinds from penicillin to DPT vaccine, became more routine–read more about polio here.
People may argue that we need vaccines for low-income nations
First and foremost, if we aided in improving living conditions, clean running water, flushing toilets, and improved childhood nutrition we would do a lot more than what vaccines can do. For example, despite 346.4 millions of doses of measles vaccines delivered to 84 countries in 2019 alone, and more than 84% of children having at least one dose of vaccine, 71% having two doses–deaths reportedly from measles have been increasing and reached a two-decade high in 2019. According to the WHO and CDC, measles killed an estimated 207,500 people in 2019, and global ‘cases’ reached 869,770–suggesting either deaths are being overcounted, or cases are being undercounted, or both, because even in low-income countries the case fatality rate does not average 25% as is suggested by those numbers. Rather, case fatality rates for measles in low-income nations are estimated around 2% in some analyses. Current estimates of CFRs used by the World Health Organization (WHO) in low-income countries range between 0.05% and 6%, according to this paper.
The executive summary from 2019 which details that 207,500 people died, fails to provide immunization history, vitamin A supplementation information (Vitamin A is a WHO endorsed supplement to be given at first signs of measles and is associated with an 81% reduction in mortality), and any other co-conditions (were these children also infected with HIV-1, a virus that increases the risk for mortality from measles)? Sorry to split hairs, but this information is important.
Here’s a paper on an outbreak in 2019 in Madagascar: 112,000 measles cases. Total deaths: 748. Average age of ‘cases’ 7-9 years. Case fatality rate 1.2%. 67% of cases were unvaccinated; 33% were vaccinated. Does not delineate between one and two doses so I am not sure if a person with one dose of a measles containing vaccine is considered vaccinated or unvaccinated.
Separating Vaccine Truth from Vaccine Fiction
The truth is: the mortality rates for the most common infectious diseases dropped substantially before the vaccines were even invented or licensed. The drop in mortality has nothing to do with vaccines, which came later. If you believe that vaccines saved us from death, you believe in a myth that is not supported observations.
Many of the ‘deadly diseases’ never even had vaccines and still don’t (that we use): for example Scarlet Fever, Cholera, Typhoid (general population), Dysentery, Tuberculosis, Syphilis and Yellow Fever. The only person I know who ever had tuberculosis got it from the hospital, and was immune compromised.
Speaking of Scarlet Fever (caused by strep A):
“There are 11,000 to 15,000 cases of invasive strep among kids each year in the United States, which result in up to 1,500 deaths,” Siegel said.
Have you even heard that scarlet fever causes deaths today? Yet because there is no vaccine for it, it does not capture the media attention, doctors don’t talk about it, the White House doesn’t hold press conferences about it. I don’t see tik tok videos about scarlet fever, and not so much as a tweet from California State Senator Richard Pan. Twitter meds don’t tweet about it. It’s communicable. It’s “deadly.” What gives? There is no vaccine. That’s what gives.
It’s easy to take it for granted, but not that long ago, we didn’t have private toilets, sewage systems, clean running water, or refrigerators. Our streets were littered with absolute filth and this shaped the perception that disease spread through ‘miasma’ or stench. We hadn’t heard of germ theory yet, the idea that tiny microbes spread disease, or terrain theory, that host conditions predict the outcomes of disease and that germs are often called to diseased tissue to help detoxify the body.
Read Dissolving Illusions by Dr. Suzanne Humphries for a thorough examination of the complete transformation that lead to decreased mortality from infectious diseases.
Prior to the 1960s, we didn’t even have disposable syringes. Our doctors and nurses didn’t wear gloves and they might use the same syringe on a hundred patients, maybe more.
Victorian medicine at the turn of last century were syrups or tablets containing chloroform, strychnine, calomel a.k.a. mercuric chloride, or animal-derived (blood) serums given with reusable syringes. Honestly, I’m not surprised by the high mortality rates for infectious diseases—our cures were poison.
We thought nothing about using animals for human medicine (and therefore transferred animal viruses quite easily). Still working on that article! OMG it’s insane.
Read the Study for Yourself:
“Trends in Infectious Disease Mortality in the United States During the 20th Century“
Results:
“Infectious disease mortality declined during the first 8 decades of the 20th century from 797 deaths per 100,000 in 1900 to 36 deaths per 100,000 in 1980. From 1981 to 1995, the mortality rate increased to a peak of 63 deaths per 100,000 in 1995 and declined to 59 deaths per 100,000 in 1996.”
Comment:
“These declines coincided with the first clinical use of sulfonamides (1935), antibiotics (penicillin in 1941 and streptomycin in 1943), and antimycobacterials (streptomycin, first used against tuberculosis in 1944, para-aminosalicylic acid in 1944, and isoniazid in 1952). However, the reasons for the steep decline from 1938 to 1952 are probably many and cannot be determined by examination of the mortality data alone.”
Interestingly, according to the study: deaths due to infectious diseases began to increase in 1980 from 36 deaths per 100,000 to 65 deaths per 100,000 in 1995. In 2014, it dropped to 46 deaths per 100,000 people.
So we currently have 1. the most vaccines on the recommended schedule, 2. higher vaccine coverage, and 3. a higher mortality rate for infectious diseases than we did in 1980, when we had fewer vaccines and a lower vaccine coverage. Hmmmmmmm.
