You Can't Fix Stupid- a History of Vaccination

 

You Can't Fix Stupid- a History of Vaccination

    We have been treated to incredible public displays of ignorance, superstition and downright stupidity over the past several “plague years.”  There are probably several “reasons” for this, other than simply obstinate refusal to believe or do what anyone else tells one to do. By that last, I lump those folks with Flat Earthers, Sasquatch hunters and alien anal probe recipients.

        In the modern, reason number one, and the hardest to grasp, is the initial minimalization of the implications and severity of Covid by the former President of the United States. By minimalizing the possible impact of the plague, even though he had been told differently by competent medical personnel, he took advantage of a horde of true believers who were stupid enough to believe him. He was abetted in this (and still is) by a horde of complicit, and more fanatic if that’s possible, media talking heads, (Rogan, Hannity, Carlson, et al) who continue to stoke the flames of resistance for their own ratings.

        Add to this, a significant number of far-right Evangelical pastors who assured their congregants (some of whom are dead as a result of believing them) that Covid was either a hoax, or a common cold, and/or could be “prayed away”.

        Reason number two (my list, my order) is that some of us have relatively short memories. Today’s absence of the litany of communicable plagues of the past has lulled significant number of Americans into a sort of blissful “It can’t happen here” alternate universe. They are either unmindful of or, more likely, not historically cognizant of what was once a menu of killer communicable diseases, some viral, some bacterial, all deadly and stalking Europe and America less than 250 years ago. I say unmindful or ignorant because it was immunization by vaccination which has made these diseases almost unheard of today. The story of medically induced immunity by vaccination is really the story of Smallpox, first and foremost. A partial account would include:

        Smallpox was sporadically epidemic in much of the world from very early times, especially so where humans were living in close proximity to one another. About the only preventive, if it worked, was self-isolation. This same sort of vague understanding that one could “catch” a disease from another ill individual led to self-imposed isolation, if or when possible, during the several bubonic plague pandemics which swept western Europe. The most deadly, in 1437, killed an estimated 35% of all humans in Europe!   The idea that fleas from an infected rat could bite and kill by transmitting the deadly bacterium, Yersinia pestis, was several centuries away.             

        In 1636, A smallpox epidemic hit Massachusetts, affecting settlers and Native Americans, Among the casualties were 20 settlers from the Mayflower, including their only physician. A year later it happened again, but this time, John Winthrop, governor of the colony of Massachusetts, wrote that “the natives, they are neere all dead of the small Poxe, so as the Lord hathe cleared our title to what we possess.”  (In other words,” God killed the Indians so we could take their land”) The sole effective measure against Smallpox in Europe or North America was social distancing, as no one knew what caused it or how to treat it. Note that God got the credit in the description above for killing the Indians.

        However, not every advance in medicine comes from white Northern Europeans.  Several written accounts from the 1500s describe smallpox inoculation as practiced in China and India.  In The Life and Death of Smallpox, (Glynn and Glynn) it is noted that, in the late 1600s, Emperor K'ang Hsi, who had survived smallpox as a child, had his children inoculated. That method involved grinding up smallpox scabs and blowing the matter into the nostrils(!!). Inoculation may also have been practiced by scratching matter from a smallpox sore into the skin. It is difficult to pinpoint when the practice began, as some sources claim dates as early as 200 BCE. 

        The use of the word inoculation in the modern implies injection with a needle. What was practiced for years prior as “inoculation” was properly called “variolation” and involved opening the skin in some manner and introducing something from an infected scab (pus, scrapings, etc.) into the wound. Until “vaccination” the two were used almost interchangeably although technically inoculation could be the introduction of any substance while variolation refers only to smallpox material

        In 1661, Chinese Emperor Fu-lin died of smallpox and his third son became Emperor K’ang. Having already survived a case of smallpox before he became Emperor, he eventually supported inoculation and wrote about it in a letter to his descendants:

        “The method of inoculation having been brought to light during my reign, I had it used upon you, my sons and daughters, and my descendants, and you all passed through the smallpox in the happiest possible manner…. In the beginning, when I had it tested on one or two people, some old women taxed me with extravagance, and spoke very strongly against inoculation.  The courage which I summoned up to insist on its practice has saved the lives and health of millions of men. This is an extremely important thing, of which I am very proud.”  Sound familiar? National mandate, Resistance, scientific proof, acceptance.  

        Meanwhile on England in the 17^th century, things weren’t so simple or rational. I only include the following because it shows how superstition and ignorance can lead to ludicrous treatments.  (Drinking one’s urine, Ivermectin, inhaling bleach, prayer anyone?)   

        Thomas Sydenham (1624-1689), a noted English doctor, had observed that the rich seemed to have a higher mortality rate from smallpox than the poor. This led him to conclude that contemporary medical treatments, largely inaccessible to the poor, might be more harmful than helpful in mild smallpox cases. Thomas Dover, a future doctor and a patient of Sydenham, however, documented his treatment at Sydenham’s hands for a more serious case of smallpox. This is Dover’s description: “Whilst I lived in Dr Sydenham’s house, I had myself the Small Pox, and fell ill on the Twelfth Day. In the beginning I “lost” twenty-two Ounces of Blood [from bloodletting!]. He gave me a Vomit (a purgative), but I find by experience purging much better. I went abroad, by his Direction, till I was blind, and then took to my Bed. I had no fire allowed in my Room, my windows were constantly open, my bed-clothes were ordered to be laid no higher than my Waste. He made me take twelve Bottles of Small Beer (low alcohol and infiltered), acidulated with Spirit of Vitriol (diluted sulfuric acid), every twenty-four hours. I had of this Anomalous Kind [of smallpox] to a very great Degree, yet never lost my Senses one Moment.”

        Note that all these treatments would tend to weaken an already compromised patient! It is also noteworthy that neither bacteria or viruses had been discovered, so treatment had to address symptoms, not the cause. That said, observation had shown that the disease was transmissible by contact with another infected patient. This would be repeated with the other great plagues, Bubonic, Cholera, Typhoid, Diphtheria, Rubella. While there were, all too frequently, serious Yellow Fever outbreaks in America, that disease needed “help” to spread. A mosquito becomes infected when it bites a person who has yellow fever in his or her blood. Direct spread of yellow fever from one person to another does not occur, but a mosquito who dines on the blood of an infected individual can carry that infection to its next meal. Ignorance of this means of transmission made Yellow Fever just as much a plague, especially along the Gulf Coast.

        What follows next uses the term “inoculation” but was in effect variolation. This was amplified in danger to recipients and resistance by some, because it used actual smallpox from live cases initially.

        In 1721, Lady Mary Montagu brought the practice of variolation to England, where she had Dr. Charles Maitland variolate her two-year-old daughter. In the 18th century, Europeans began an experiment known as inoculation or variolation to prevent, not cure the smallpox. Lady Montagu defied convention by introducing smallpox inoculation to Western medicine after witnessing it during her travels and stay in the Ottoman Empire (Turkey, today), where her husband had been posted as ambassador.   Her brother had died of smallpox in 1713, and although she, herself, recovered from the disease in 1715, it left her with a disfigured face. While in the Ottoman Empire, she visited the women in their segregated zenanas, a house for Muslims and Hindus, making friends and learning about Turkish customs. There in March of 1717, she witnessed the practice of inoculation against smallpox – variolation – which she called “engrafting” and wrote home about it in a number of letters. Variolation used live smallpox virus in the pus taken from a mild smallpox blister and introduced it into scratched skin of the arm or leg (the most usual spots) of a previously uninfected person to promote immunity to the disease. Consequently, the inoculate would develop a (usually) milder case of smallpox than the one he/she might have contracted.  Note: this was making the patient a little sick to avoid being a lot dead!

        Because of her own experience, Lady Mary was eager to spare her children, so she had her nearly five-year-old son, Edward, inoculated there (Turkey) with the help of Embassy surgeon Charles Maitland. Afterwards, she updated the status of Edward to her husband: "The Boy was engrafted last Tuesday, and is at this time singing and playing, and very impatient for his supper. I pray God my next may give as good an account of him." On her return to London, she publicly promoted the procedure, but encountered a great deal of resistance from the medical establishment, because it was a “folk treatment.”  Again, reasoning need not be applied.

        In April 1721, when a smallpox epidemic struck England, she had her daughter inoculated by Maitland, the same physician who had inoculated her son at the Embassy in Turkey and publicized the event. This was the first such operation done in Britain. She also persuaded the Princess of Wales to test the treatment. In August 1721, seven prisoners at Newgate Prison awaiting execution were offered the chance to undergo variolation instead of execution. They all survived and were released.  Despite this, controversy over smallpox inoculation intensified. However, Caroline, Princess of Wales, was also convinced of its value. The Princess's two daughters Amelia and Caroline were successfully inoculated in April 1722 by French-born surgeon Claudius Amyand. In response to the general fear of inoculation, Lady Mary, under a pseudonym, wrote and published an article describing and advocating in favor of inoculation in September 1722. Later, other royal families soon followed Montagu's act. For instance, in 1768, Catherine the Great of Russia had herself and her son, the future Tsar Paul, inoculated.  Lady Montagu would come under considerable criticism for advocating variolation, a practice that slowly began to spread, as its ability to protect against smallpox became apparent. The results, however, were sometimes fatal (live smallpox viruses remember!) two to three percent of those variolated died of smallpox (in contrast to 20-30% who died after contracting smallpox naturally). What’s more, variolated individuals could pass the disease on to others. But change was near.  

        Benjamin Franklin’s four-year-old son, Francis, died of smallpox on November 21, 1736. Rumors began to circulate claiming that the boy had been inoculated. Franklin published a denial and then advocated inoculation. “In 1736 I lost one of my Sons, a fine Boy of 4 Years old, taken by the Small Pox in the common way. I long regretted that I had not given it to him by Inoculation, which I mention for the Sake of Parents, who omit that Operation on the Supposition that they should never forgive themselves if a Child died under it; my Example showing that the Regret may be the same either way, and that therefore the safer should be chosen.” (more random capitalization).

        A later smallpox epidemic struck Charleston, South Carolina. Of the 441 people who were variolated, almost 4% died, while eighteen percent of people who were naturally infected died. The results encouraged advocates of variolation. Meanwhile, the same epidemic reportedly killed half of the Cherokee Indian population in the vicinity. This still showed that variolation with smallpox serum could be deadly but was a life saver on a percentage basis.

        English physician William Heberden was the first to give a detailed description that distinguished chickenpox from smallpox. He wrote: “These pocks break out on many without any illness or previous sign: in others they are preceded by a little degree of chillness, lassitude, cough, broken sleep, wandering pains, loss of appetite and feverishness for three days… Most of them are of the common size of the smallpox but some harmless. I never saw them confluent nor very numerous. The greatest number which I ever observed was about twelve in the face, and two hundred over the rest of the body. Heberden also noted that those who had previously had chickenpox “were not capable of having it again.” He was redescribing acquired immunity. He was also unknowingly describing a disease cause by a similar but separate and far less lethal virus, that term unknown at the time. 

         Edward Jenner (1749-1823), an English doctor, became interested in the idea that previous illness with a disease called cowpox could protect a person from later becoming ill with smallpox. Cowpox is an uncommon illness in cattle, usually mild, that can be spread from a cow to humans via sores on the cow. During an infection, dairy workers (generally milkmaids) would have pustules on their hands. Sufferers could spread the infection to other parts of the body. We know now that the cowpox virus belongs to the Orthopox family of viruses. Orthopox viruses also include horsepox virus, monkeypox virus and variola viruses, which cause smallpox. Jenner’s breakthrough, which he could not have scientifically articulated, was to guess (correctly) that a virus of a similar kind (family) can produce resistance to other of the same type even though potentially far more deadly.

        Independently, in 1774, Benjamin Jesty, an English farmer and cattle breeder, inoculated his wife and two sons with matter from a cowpox lesion on one of his cows. Having already contracted cowpox, Jesty (correctly, as it happens!) believed himself protected from smallpox infection. When a serious smallpox epidemic hit his Dorset village, he took it upon himself to do what he considered essential to protect his family. His wife and children survived, and the boys, when challenged with smallpox inoculation in 1789, showed no symptoms. As a farmer, not a medical man, Jesty had no interest in systematically testing his methods or publishing his results, and so his finding was largely forgotten. Upon his death, Jesty’s wife had his tombstone inscribed, “the first person (known) who introduced the cow-pox inoculation.” Had he told someone, he might occupy the seat given to Jenner. Conversely, he also might have been ignored as “not a doctor, so irrelevant”

        In 1776, George Washington, commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, based at his headquarters in Morristown, New Jersey, ordered mandatory inoculation for troops if they had not survived a smallpox infection earlier in life—possibly in reaction to the inability of Benedict Arnold’s troops to capture Quebec from Britain the year before, when more than half of the colonial troops had smallpox. Yes, Virginia, mandatory vaccination almost 250 years ago!      

Jenner's Breakthrough

                In 1796, twenty years after the idea first occurred to him, Edward Jenner tested his hypothesis that infection with cowpox could protect a person from smallpox infection. On May 14, 1796, Jenner inoculated eight-year-old James Phipps with matter from a cowpox sore on the hand of milkmaid Sarah Nelmes. Phipps suffered a local skin reaction and felt poorly for several days but made a full recovery. In July 1796, Jenner inoculated Phipps with matter taken from a fresh human smallpox sore, as if he were variolating the boy, in an attempt to challenge the protection from cowpox. Phipps remained healthy. Jenner next demonstrated that cowpox matter transferred in a human chain, from one person to the next, provided protection from smallpox. At the first meeting of the Royal Jennerian Society, Edward Jenner insisted that the origin of the term vaccination, from the Latin for cow (“vacca”), be credited to his friend and fellow physician, Richard Dunning. This was also to distinguish “vaccination” with cowpox virus) from “variolation” (smallpox virus) in the minds of a still skeptical public.

        The United Kingdom Vaccination Act of 1853 made smallpox vaccination mandatory in the first three months of an infant's life. A parent's penalty for not complying was a fine or imprisonment. Two years later, Massachusetts passed the first U.S. law mandating vaccination for schoolchildren.

        As success against smallpox continued, other equally communicable diseases continued ravaging persons in urban or equally close conditions. Measles sickened troops on both sides of the American Civil War. In fact, the Civil War was the last large-scale military conflict fought before the germ theory of disease was developed.  Two-thirds of soldiers who died in that war, 660,000 in all, were killed by uncontrolled infectious diseases. Of these, in the Union Army over 67,000 had measles and more than 4,000 died.”

        In the late 19^th century a compulsory smallpox vaccination and revaccination law went into in effect in Germany. Over the next decades, smallpox deaths there dropped rapidly. After the law of 1874 went into effect the annual mortality in Prussia fell so that between 1875 and 1886 the average yearly mortality per 100,000 of population was only 1.91. On the other hand, in Austria, where the lax vaccination and revaccination requirements remained unchanged, the mortality of smallpox during about the same period (1872-1884) increased, varying between 39.28 and 94.79 per 100,000 of population. Smallpox vaccination had proven itself safe and effective well before the turn of the century, and yet….   

        The Anti-Vaccination League of America held its first meeting in New York. Among the assertions made by the speakers at the meeting was the idea that smallpox was spread not by contagion, but by filth. This became a popular, though incorrect, argument of anti-vaccinationists. Though smallpox disease rates dropped throughout the 19th century due to vaccination, suspicion about vaccination remained among some populations. This led to devastating epidemics when the disease reappeared.

        French Canadians were among those whose mistrust of vaccination would end up costing them dearly. In 1885, poor policies regarding hospital patients resulted in an epidemic in Montreal.  For several years there had been no smallpox in the city, and a large, complacent unprotected population grew up among the French-Canadians, many of whom were opposed to vaccination.  The disease spread rapidly and, in nine months, 3,164 persons died in the city of smallpox.

        By the late1800s, and to great extent, due to Louis Pasteur’s brilliance in both theoretical and physical research which led to the germ theory of disease, research was at work on several other previous diseases which had sometimes assumed plague proportions. In Pasteur’s case, this also led to development of the first post-infection vaccination. In March of 1886, he (Pasteur) presented a paper describing results of using his new rabies vaccine in 350 people. He recorded just one fatality and reasoned that this was the result of vaccination begun too late to prevent the disease.     

        About the same time, and into the 1890s, several different researchers were working on the idea of protection against typhoid fever. In Germany, in 1896, Richard Pfeiffer and Wilhelm Kolle demonstrated that inoculation with killed typhoid bacteria resulted in human immunity against typhoid fever, the “killed bacteria” concept proved a major breakthrough as it reduced the danger from vaccination to essentially zero and forwarded understanding of disease vector microbiology by leaps and bounds.

        After a series of polio epidemics in Sweden, Ivar Wickman (1872-1914) published two important findings about polio. First, he suggested that polio was a contagious disease that could be spread from person to person. Second, he recognized that polio could be present in people who did not appear to have a severe form of the disease. These cases are known as abortive cases. Both assumptions would prove correct.

        In 1905 the U.S.  Supreme Court addressed vaccination. In the case of Jacobson v. Massachusetts, The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of mandatory smallpox vaccination programs to preserve the public health. (Which should, in my estimation, been recalled in 2021, end of story!)

The beat goes on:

        Measles killed nearly 12,000 people in the United States in 1916, 75% of them younger than five years old. Estimates of the percentage of measles patients who suffer complications from the disease have ranged from 15% to as high as 30%. Serious complications included pneumonia, encephalitis, and corneal ulceration. Also in 1916, health officials announced a polio epidemic centered in Brooklyn, New York. As was typical with polio outbreaks, infections surfaced in the summer months. More than 2000 people died in New York City alone. Across the United States in 1916, polio took the lives of about 6,000 people, leaving thousands more paralyzed. Summer epidemics would come to be common in this era and would lead to widespread closures of pools, amusement parks, and other places where children gathered. This pattern continued into the late 1950s. I recall my mother’s concerns about polio whenever a case was reported locally. Public swimming pools were closed and we stayed home,  

But:

        By this time, many United States schools required smallpox vaccination before children could attend. Some students and their families, however, sought the help of the courts to avoid the requirement. One such case was considered by the U.S. Supreme Court, when Rosalyn Zucht, a student from San Antonio, Texas, was excluded from a public school for failure to present proof of vaccination.  The court dismissed the writ of error that brought the case to them, stating that the constitutional question presented was not substantial in character, and citing previous cases which had determined that a city ordinance was a law of the state—and that it was “within the police power of a state to provide for compulsory vaccination.”

        Despite vaccination’s successes against smallpox, and the short memories of those saved from it, opposition to vaccination continued through the 1920s, particularly against compulsory vaccination. In 1926, a group of health officers visited Georgetown, Delaware, to vaccinate the townspeople. A retired Army lieutenant and a city councilman led an armed mob to force them out, successfully preventing the vaccination attempt. Stupidity remained alive and well.

        In March of 1947, Smallpox appeared for the final time in New York City. Eugene Le Bar, a merchant traveling from Mexico City to Maine with his wife, arrived in the city by bus, bringing the disease with him. Feeling ill, Le Bar went to Bellevue Hospital. He died there, two days later. Le Bar’s death was not immediately attributed to smallpox, but when the disease appeared in two other patients who had been at the contagious disease facility at the same time, the hospital staff notified the health department. Eugene Le Bar’s case of smallpox launched a massive vaccination program in the city. Health commissioner Israel Weinstein personally visited New York City Mayor William O’Dwyer to request $500,000 for the purchase of additional vaccine and to hire additional staff. O’Dwyer held a press conference in which he asked all residents who had not been recently vaccinated to be vaccinated against the disease. In the next month, 80% of the city’s residents were vaccinated—some 6.35 million people. In the end, the effort was judged a success: the total number of smallpox cases reached only 12, and the final death count was limited to two. In the modern era no individual who has been vaccinated in the previous five years for smallpox has died from the disease.

        57,628 polio cases were reported in the United States in 1952, more than 21,000 of them paralytic cases. This epidemic heightened parents’ fears of the disease and focused public awareness on the need for a vaccine. In May of 1953 Doctor and researcher, Jonas Salk, gave his newly developed and experimental vaccine to his family. Salk injected himself, his wife, and their three sons with his experimental poliovirus vaccine. In 1954, a massive polio vaccine trial began in U.S. In all, over 1.3 million children participated in the trial. The trial was a randomized, double-blinded test, meaning that children were randomly assigned to either the control group or the vaccine group. In a press conference at the University of Michigan, Thomas Francis Jr., MD (a scientist with extensive experience with influenza vaccines), and colleagues announced the results of the Salk poliovirus vaccine trial. The vaccine, 90% effective against paralytic polio.

        In 1963, After demonstrating its safety and efficacy, first in monkeys and then humans, John Enders and colleagues declared their measles vaccine capable of preventing infection. Their Edmonston-B strain of measles virus was transformed into a vaccine licensed in the United States in 1963, and nearly 19 million doses would be administered over the next 12 years.

        In 1964, the US saw the tragic result of popular media wading in waters whose depths they couldn’t comprehend. That should resonate as familiar! In that year, a Rubella (aka “German Measles”) outbreak infected millions. This outbreak in the United States initially failed to draw serious attention. A Time magazine article encouraged “rubella parties”, even recommending strategies so that “especially all the little girls get the infection.” Unfortunately, and despite public warnings about keeping infected children away from pregnant women, nearly 50,000 women in vulnerable stages of their pregnancies were infected with rubella during the outbreak, leading to thousands of miscarriages and even more children being born with severe damage. At least 8,000 were born deaf, 3,500 deaf and blind; the total number of congenital rubella syndrome cases reached 20,000. Over the course of the outbreak. the country tallied approximately 12.5 million cases of rubella and more than 2,000 deaths. Resulting medical costs reached the billions.

A slow learning curve:

        Over the period 1989-1991, measles outbreaks sickened a reported 55,622 Americans, killing 123. Of all of the cities that suffered from the outbreaks, Philadelphia was hit hardest: 1,500 children fell ill and 9, most of whom had not been vaccinated, died. Many outbreaks were centered in areas where immunization levels were low. In fact, the CDC reported, "Surveys in areas experiencing outbreaks among preschool-aged children indicated that as few as 50% of children had been vaccinated against measles by their second birthday, and that black and Hispanic children were less likely to be age-appropriately vaccinated than were white children" Of all fatalities, 90% occurred in individuals who had never been vaccinated.

But: On August 20, 1994, the Pan American Health Organization had reported that three years had passed since the last case of wild polio in the Americas, following smallpox as declared dead in the western hemisphere. By this time the validity of widespread immunization was so scientifically and incontrovertibly validated that it seems impossible that any rational individual should dispute it. But wait: What follows is one of the gravest public health disservices in history.

        1n 1998, British researcher Andrew Wakefield, along with 12 co-authors, published a paper in the Lancet claiming evidence of measles virus in the digestive systems of autistic children. In press conferences after the paper was published, Wakefield suggested a relationship between the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine and autism. Wakefield then recommended that the combination MMR vaccine be suspended in favor of single-disease vaccinations given separately over time. However, vaccination rates in England dropped in response, from more than 90% to 80% or lower—well below the level required for “herd immunity” to measles. Measles cases, meanwhile, began to rise. While only 56 cases were confirmed in Wales and England in 1998, 1,348 were confirmed by 2008. All these cases are on Wakefield’s head.

        In 2004, it was reported that some of the subjects of Wakefield’s paper had been recruited by a lawyer involved in a lawsuit against vaccine manufacturers; in response to this and numerous other problems with the paper, 10 of the 12 co-authors eventually retracted their concurrence of the interpretation regarding a link between the vaccine and autism. Numerous epidemiological studies performed since have also provided additional evidence that no such link exists. In 2010, Britain’s General Medical Council ruled that Wakefield had engaged in misconduct during the course of conducting and publishing the study. Subsequently, the Lancet formally retracted the paper; in May 2010, Wakefield was banned from practicing medicine in Britain.

        Despite this and the lack of any evidence to support a link between vaccines and autism, some groups remain convinced, without evidence in corroboration, of the allegations first raised by Wakefield in 1998. What follows here is my opinion.

        Autism is a sliding scale of symptoms some of which were simply regarded as “unusual” in prior decades. As “the spectrum” became more defined and unlike other, earlier identified, behavioral differences from what might be called “normal,” (if that term is even meaningful) there were no concrete physical markers which could be definitively linked to it as causative agents. Parents of children with hereditary and identifiable genetic differences which affect behavior are left to deal with that as they can. In the absence of any other markers, it is possible (likely) that many parents of autistic kids want nothing quite so much as an explanation. In the absence of such categorical proof, here comes Mr. (no longer “Doctor”) Wakefield with, “voila,” an explanation. “It’s not your genetics, it’s those damned MMR shots.”

         I doubt you could ever get a Jenny McCarthy to admit this, but sadly, you also couldn’t get her to shut the f**k up about this debunked tripe for a long while. In a recent court decision, parents were awarded compensation for their autistic child even though her disorder is judged as related to a mitochondrial abnormality for which her mom is a carrier. In any case Autism is a terrible burden for the sufferers and their families, but pointing the finger at a preservative (no longer used in any “under 6” vaccines in the US, all of which are lifesavers when compared to the diseases they protect against) in an attempt to find anything to blame, has fed the idle and porous brains of those simply too stubborn, unable to think critically, stupid, or negligent to protect other children from their own (or vice versa). These are probably unmasked and unvaccinated parents.

For 2008, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention received reports of 134 cases of measles in the United States, the most cases in a year since 1996. Of these cases, more than 90% had not been vaccinated.

And so it goes!