Every time I read one of Paul Offit’s books, or listen to one of his interviews, I am struck by the illness and death statistics he throws out with not so much as a single source reference. It is impossible to determine the veracity of Offit’s statistics when no source is cited. Interestingly, Offit’s interviewers do not question where these statistics refer, nor to his sources. His numbers are taken at face value and appear to go unchallenged. Why?
Further, I note that Offit doesn’t even tell us whether these numbers, which he pulls from the air, are morbidity and mortality for the United States alone, or for the entire world. This is a vital distinction of course. Third world nations have had, in many cases, far worse morbidity and mortality statistics as a result of poor sanitation, inadequate nutrition, contaminated water and lack of access to health care. Disease statistics for such countries should not be viewed as a ‘call to vaccinate’ when squalor, filth, and deficient nutrition are prevalent.
U.S. government statistics and charts visible in the monograph co-edited by this author and Catherine Frompovich, entitled: Vaccines and Vaccinations: The Need For Congressional Investigation (accessible as a free download here at http://vactruth.com/vaccines-vaccinations-the-need-for-congressional-investigation) demonstrate that the death rates in America from the so-called vaccine preventable diseases had all but disappeared prior to development of the disease’s vaccine. The disappearance of certain diseases in the United States independent of vaccines, like Yellow Fever, makes it clear that vaccines are not the only route (and not the best route, in my opinion) to eliminating diseases and plagues.
The data on health damage from vaccines are overwhelming regardless of their presumed, but challenged, benefit in preventing infectious diseases. We must change the dialog denying this. We must change the dialog of those who blame vaccines but are shifting blame from one ingredient to another. We must focus our examination on the contribution of the total vaccine program to overall health.
We must commit to serious study and comparison of vaccinated and unvaccinated populations over time. When the association of vaccines to chronic health problems is clearly established to the satisfaction of all, we can begin sorting out and identifying those factors in vaccines that may be contributing to the epidemic failed health being observed in our time.
We already have damning data from a variety of sources and populations, that unvaccinated people are healthier. Why have we not made use of the information from the unvaccinated masses of Amish, and from the medical practices around the U.S. like Mayer Eisenstein’s extensive 35,000 mostly unvaccinated ‘HomeFirst Medical Practice’ in regional Chicago?
How many more damaged children will we endure before we pursue these leads for further national study? Failure to pursue such study will spell the destruction of the vaccine program anyway, as more and more parents will refuse to risk life-long chronic disability and disease in exchange for the possible protection from what would now be mostly treatable, self-limiting disorders.