Independent Media & Commentary from the Cursed Prophetess of Troy
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Author: cassandrasboxmedia
Independent Writer from the UK, blending alternative media perspectives, gender critical views, conspiracy, left wing politics and economics, support for Julian Assange and alternative spirituality.
At some point, some way along the feeding and spitting out of your maw, there will be too many of us. So many of us that your society heaves with it, sickens with it, dies with it. Your workers and your armies are no longer fit but cared for by broken backs, hands that could carve can only smash.
It was a mistake, you’ll say, and maybe it’s true that those first sputters of the so called little professors were some sort of accident. That the first screams were unforeseen. But plausible deniability starts to run thin when acres of us emerge from the paediatrician’s lair. When even members of your own state that there is some connection worth digging out among the filth. You just pasted on more layers and let it escalate.
Why create us? Filth breeds filth, money breeds money. To many of you, we are just the outcome of the pay cheque, the tax on your conscience to match your national insurance. To some we are much more and much less than that. The moment of creation, to perform the insemination. A secret thrill like public copulation. Except a man can create more with needles than with sperm, make Genghis Khan look an amateur.
Do you ever wish to boast of your creation? That thrill of confession, the denouement? To stare us in the eye and state ‘I did it?’ Foolish, yes, I know. It would be the moment of triumph then downfall, like the braying of a killer condemned to the noose. So instead you’re left with sordid little lies. Lies that wouldn’t hold up your ceiling if people dared to look.
When you created me, you made a mistake. You took too much to use me as your poster girl, too little to completely destroy me.
One of the key aspects to vaccination is the aspect of ritual. The public practice and promotion of this ritual during the Covid-19 ‘pandemic’ shows some similarities with a previous public vaccination mass participation event: the Salk vaccine trials in the 1950s.
An Overhyped Disease
Without getting into the detail of what caused poliomyelitis (paralytic polio), whether it was the poliovirus, pesticides like DDT, both, or something else, the risks were generally overstated. If we go with the virus theory, the vast majority of people infected with the poliovirus had no symptoms even on the official version. For example, the NHS website states:
This was historically known as well. For example, an article published in 1916 states:
In a large aggregation of people, such as the population of a city with over 100,000 inhabitants, a county, or a State, epidemics seldom attack more than one in a thousand of the population, often not more than one in two to four thousand.
Objectively, many other diseases killed more people than polio did, even given that poliomyelitis could be fatal.
Covid-19 was also an overexaggerated threat. The government and media promoted the idea that Covid-19 was so dangerous that it justified lockdowns, forced masks and experimental ‘vaccine’ technologies. However, reality does not match that apocalyptic vision. In reality, excess deaths in the UK only increased after lockdowns were introduced, not before:
Unlike poliomyelitis, which mainly affected children, Covid-19 deaths were mainly among the elderly. It was rare for young and healthy people to die from Covid-19. The number of deaths from Covid-19 were exaggerated by media, by defining Covid-19 death as ‘death within 28 days of a positive test’ regardless of cause:
Science Saves the Day
In both of these cases, heroic vaccine scientists were portrayed as fighting the evil disease through their ingenuity. The key difference would be that in the case of polio, there was more focus on Jonas Salk, the creator of the first polio vaccine to be used on a mass scale, as an individual. Whereas, in the case of Covid-19, the inventors behind the vaccine were not mentioned, with the names invoked being that of pharmaceutical companies. This may indicate a changing of the times, in that science in general has come to rely much less on the individual ‘heroic inventor’ and more on mass bureaucracy.
Rushed Vaccine Approvals
Both vaccinations also had rushed approvals. After the success of the vaccine was announced at a press conference, the FDA approved the vaccine immediately. The Covid vaccines also had extremely short trial periods, but were pushed through under Emergency Use Authorisation under the guise of a ‘pandemic’ in the US and later formally approved.
Mass Participation
One of the key comparisons between these two vaccines was the opportunity for mass participation they provided. This was not just some sort of out there ‘science’ but a real opportunity to participate in the ritual aspects of vaccination practice. There are two key differences: in the Salk vaccine, the mass participation event was the clinical trial, whereas in the Covid case, the mass participation event was the roll out of the vaccine in December 2020. In the Salk case, the participants were children, whereas in the Covid case the participants during the initial furore were adults.
The Salk vaccine had a large number of participants:
Across the United States, 623 972 schoolchildren were injected with vaccine or placebo, and more than a million others participated as “observed” controls.
Children were put forward to participate in the trials by their parents, and were called the ‘Polio Pioneers’. They were given badges and certificates as a reward for being injected with the vaccine:
With Covid-19, the mass participation aspect, and the elements of ritualism, came after the clinical trials rather than before. Images were shown of people receiving vaccines, including seemingly gimmicky stories about a man named William Shakespeare receiving a Covid vaccine (complete with imagery).
Because Covid-19 vaccines allowed for adult participation, social media images were used as a means to demonstrate participation in the ritual of vaccination. Ordinary people were given options on platforms like Facebook to put a ‘I’ve had my Covid-19 Vaccine’ banner on their profile as a form of showing that they had taken part in the vaccine ritual.
Both of these strategies for vaccine promotion were dependent on mass technologies that reach the entire country. Mass newspapers, television, and social media were required to sustain this message. But they also required individuals (or their parents) to opt in to this ritual performance on the basis of this propaganda.
In both cases, we see this initial enthusiasm is not maintained. Many people gave up taking Covid vaccines after the first booster, and enthusiasm for the Salk vaccine also waned quickly. Problems such as the Cutter incident, in which the vaccine caused poliomyelitis, caused scepticism. In the US, it was replaced by the Sabin vaccine after this vaccine was field tested in countries like the USSR.
Conclusion
Vaccine campaigns in the 20th and 21st centuries have used mass media as a strategy to create emotional linkage to the idea of taking a vaccine. Encouragement to participate in such events are a means of manipulating the public into vaccination. The idea of ‘being part of’ such a mass project by opting in provides meaning and purpose, and allows the individual to believe that they are playing a part in the banishment of evil.
Since the 1990s, the idea of ‘neurodiversity’ has become a cottage industry. The basic tenet of neurodiversity is that autism is a perfectly normal variation of human development that should not be seen as a negative trait. It seeks to highlight the alleged ‘positive’ traits of autism and believes that the struggles of people with autism are largely caused by society not being accepting rather than the inherent downsides of the condition. This article will seek to discuss three parts of this phenomenon by comparing two theories of autism: the neurodiversity theory of autism and the iatrogenic theory of autism i.e. vaccine injury. The first part will discuss the evidence for each theory, concluding that vaccine injury has a large amount of evidence to support it. The second part of this article will look at the individuals and institutions that promote each theory and how the media portrays each group. The third part will draw it together by explaining how the neurodiversity theory is constructed as an alternative to deflect from the vaccine injury theory and to gaslight people suffering with autistic vaccine-injury and their parents about their experiences.
Part I: Two Theories
There are two main theories of autism. The first theory states that autism is genetic, and the second theory states that autism is iatrogenic. The first theory is advocated by both people who think that autism is a good thing, and by those who think it is a bad thing. The latter group of people, who believe that autism is a net negative but who also believe it is genetic, will not be discussed in this article. Instead we will be comparing the ‘autism is a positive, genetic gift’ group (the ‘neurodiversity’ group) to the ‘autism is iatrogenic, largely caused by vaccination’ group (the ‘vaccine-injury theory’ group). Part I will outline these two theories and look at the evidence.
The Neurodiversity Theory of Autism
What is the ‘neurodiversity’ theory of autism? It can be summed up by saying that autism is not a disability, it is a difference that should be celebrated. If you search for ‘neurodiversity’ you can find all sorts of articles advocating for this. Here’s one picked at random:
Neurodiversity is a movement that wants to change the way we think about autism. It rejects the idea that autism is a disorder and sees it instead as a neurological difference: one with a unique way of thinking and experiencing the world.
The movement focuses on celebrating neurological diversity and championing the different world-views and skills that autistic, dyslexic, bipolar, and other neurodiverse people have.
The idea of ‘neurodiversity’ has been increasing in popularity as a paradigm to ‘explain’ autism.
Of course, saying that autism is a positive trait does not explain it. So neurodiversity theorists use genetics to explain autism.
I will argue that both sides of the neurodiversity coin are false: having autism is always a negative thing, and that genetics does not explain autism.
Let’s start with the genetics aspect. One significant piece of evidence that the autism-is-genetic advocates use is twin studies:
Since the first autism twin study in 1977, several teams have compared autism rates in twins and shown that autism is highly heritable. When one identical twin has autism, there is about an 80 percent chance that the other twin has it too. The corresponding rate for fraternal twins is around 40 percent.
On the surface, twin studies look like exceedingly convincing evidence. They have been used to argue for a genetic link for a varying range of problems, including schizophrenia. In reality, though, twin studies are not good evidence that autism is genetic.
The problem that we run into is that twins are likely to have had the same environmental exposure, and this is doubly true when it comes to vaccination. No parent is going to vaccinate one of their twins and not vaccinate the other in some sort of science experiment. Thus both twins will be getting very similar exposure to aluminium, thimerosal, etc. via vaccinations. (Though see this caveat: aluminium levels in vaccination can vary significantly when vials are actually examined). The other major issue with twin studies is that they conclude that interaction between the body and these kinds of exposures is ‘genetic’. A genetic propensity to, say, accumulate certain toxins may well exist in autism cases. But in order for autism to develop, exposure to the toxin is required, and exposure to a toxin is not genetic. The same weakness applies when looking at alleged genes that have been associated with autism – it could be that those genes simply predispose a person to toxin accumulation.
The main weakness in the genetic case for autism is below:
It goes without saying that human genes have not radically changed since 1970. So how can the autism rates have changed so drastically? Autism-is-genetic advocates have tried their best to explain this graph, but they have done a bad job of it, because the whole graph screams ‘environmental causes’. But let’s have a look at their explanations for an increase in autism.
The main explanation offered is that the definition of autism has got wider and that is why these numbers have increased so much. Intuitively, this is a really poor explanation, for a number of reasons. For a start, we are looking a massive, massive increase. 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 30 is huge. To explain this simply by stating ‘it’s increased diagnosis’ is intuitively and logically implausible. People who argue this, I think, don’t understand how large a proportion of the population 3% is. That is a very significant chunk of the population. Older people here can employ their common sense. Were 3% or more of your childhood colleagues autistic? If you doubt that you could tell, I assure you that you can with just a little thought. Poor eye contact is a dead giveaway for autism, as is just an obvious awkwardness. The reality is, even ‘high functioning’ autistic people just seem odd, weird and off in particular ways so I would say you could almost always tell. Furthermore, the unemployment rate for people with autism, according to UK government data, is 78%. If we approximate the data, if 1 in 30 people are autistic and 2/3 (being generous) cannot work, this means around 2% of the population cannot work due to autism. The idea that government institutions never noticed 2% of the population being unemployable due to autism is laughably implausible.
This hypothesis also does not fit the shape of the graph very well. It keeps curving upwards, rather than seeing a bump for a change in diagnostic criteria and a levelling. The graph has still not levelled off. At some point, you have to start asking questions.
This issue also becomes more difficult to cover up when you consider severe autism. Autistic people who have a basic level of functioning in the ‘real world’ may just come across to normal people as a bit weird. In these people’s case, it’s more possible that they may not have a diagnosis. This would not be the case with those with severe autistic deficits. Again this is another argument that is just absurd on the face of it:
You can’t have missed 97 percent of the children in the ’80s who had autism. They’re trying to get the public to believe that kids who spin in circles, don’t speak, don’t socialize, can’t go to the bathroom by themselves all existed in our public high schools and elementary schools in the ’80s but only today have gotten a proper diagnosis. It’s incomprehensible.
Aside from being intuitively implausible, one study on this issue concluded:
In summary, the incidence of autism rose 7- to 8-fold in California from the early 1990s through the present. Quantitative analysis of the changes in diagnostic criteria, the inclusion of milder cases, and an earlier age at diagnosis during this period suggests that these factors probably contribute 2.2-, 1.56-, and 1.24-fold increases in autism, respectively, and hence cannot fully explain the magnitude of the rise in autism.
But what about the claim that autism is always a net negative? Surely that’s a little bit fundamentalist? After all, some of the advocates of the neurodiversity theory are autistic themselves, right, and surely they would know? So let’s tackle this thorny question.
The most obvious piece of evidence to start with is life expectancy. The evidence demonstrates that autism significantly decreases life expectancy. This is pretty mainstream evidence that can be found with a quick search.
One study, published in the American Journal of Public Health in April 2017, finds the life expectancy in the United States of those with ASD to be 36 years old as compared to 72 years old for the general population.
In other words, according to this study autism halves life expectancy.
The other study was published by the British Journal of Psychiatry in January 2018. This was a Swedish study showing similar results but elaborating on other causes of death as well. This study showed a life expectancy in those with ASD with a cognitive disability (or a learning disability) at 39.5 years versus 70 years for the general population studied. Those with ASD without a learning disability had an average age of death at about 58 years.
Furthermore, most of these causes of death are inherent to autism. For example, being much more likely to die in an accident. Autistic people have poor motor control and are much more likely to have these kinds of accidents such as drowning that lead to death. Horrific anxiety at normal experiences, such as sensory issues around normal noise/light/smell stimuli, also increases mortality as the body becomes overwhelmed with the constant anxiety triggers, meaning that the body’s ability to fight cancers is impaired, and heart attack and stroke risk is increased. People with autism are also unemployed/unemployable, with only about 20% of autistic people even being employed in the UK. This is linked to having awful social skills, having severe anxiety, and in some cases being completely non verbal and non functional. Being perennially unemployable is bad for your health; higher unemployment rates have been well established to be linked to mortality in sociology.
A study that followed autistic people for 20 years showed even more negative outcomes, although most of the participants also had other intellectual disabilities.
The outcome data was grim, showing pervasive inability to live independently, hold a job, or manage money. Few became independent, with 99% unable to live independently. Of those, 70% lived at home with relatives, 21% lived in disability homes in the community, and 8% in residential facilities. A mere 3.7% attained postsecondary education, about half of those representing certificates from college disability programs. While the majority were considered incapable of holding a job in the competitive workspace, some worked in disability workshops or other sheltered positions. Most participants were incapable of handling money, even with caretaker assistance, with only 9.5% considered capable.
The neurodiversity paradigm likes to attempt to escape from this reality by claiming that this is purely down to ‘society’ refusing to accept us. That argument is nonsense. The argument is most obviously flawed when it comes to those with severe autism, since any range of accommodations will not fix deficits such as being non verbal, not being able to go to the toilet by yourself, seizures (comorbid with autism), extremely poor motor control, severe gastroenterological issues (linked to autism), sensory issues and meltdowns, etc. If a neurodiversity advocate would like to explain how ‘acceptance’ will fix these problems, the comment section is all theirs. But it is even pretty much nonsense when it comes to ‘high functioning’ autism as well. The reality is ‘acceptance’ and accommodations only really make a difference in edge cases when it comes to solving the issues outlined above. Take for example ability to work. The severely impaired autistic person will never be able to work, you can throw all the accommodations in the world at the issue, it’s not going to happen. Whereas, a high functioning or borderline high functioning autistic person may be able to work if given a few accommodations. I’m not arguing against accommodations. What I am arguing against is the idea that accommodations, or society being more accepting of autism will fix our problems. It won’t.
As for the supposed ‘positive’ aspects of autism, what are they? Usually, it is claimed that many people with autism are more intelligent and analytical than normal people. However, this is likely to confuse correlation and causation. The most plausible explanation here is that brain development is more likely to be disrupted by toxins in the case of intelligent people due to more dense neuron growth in highly intelligent people. And again, severe cases of autism are erased by this view. It glorifies a very narrow spectrum of individuals with autistic injury – the ‘autistic savant’ – while writing off the harms done to the rest.
So what about the people with autism diagnoses who make the claim that autism is a positive thing and that neurodiversity is valid? Well, if someone with an autism diagnosis saying something settles the question, then autism is a devastating vaccine-injury that destroys and obscures the true personality of the individual, rather than reflecting it. Because of course this author has an autism diagnosis. So this kind of argument gets us nowhere.
The Vaccine-Injury Theory of Autism
There is an alternative, ‘underground’ theory of autism which advocates for the view that autism is (at least primarily) caused by vaccination. This article will discuss one cause of autism that the author believes has been comprehensively documented, that is aluminium adjuvants in vaccination entering the brain, disrupting the housekeeping cells of the brain (glia and microglia)and triggering inflammatory reactions such as the il-6 pathway. This is not to say that there are no other problems with vaccination as it relates to autism or no other possible causes (e.g. thimerosal). This article will stick to one cause for reasons of length and clarity.
I will go into a little bit more detail on the basic theory, before discussing the evidence. Aluminium is used in ~80% of vaccines as an adjuvant (substance used to promote an immune response). It is in the vast majority of childhood vaccines, excluding the MMR. However, aluminium is also a neurotoxin that the body cannot filter out effectively when injected, and because of this it can enter the brain. In short, the mechanism of how the injury occurs is like this. The aluminium in a vaccine is injected into the body. Immune cells are stimulated to respond to the site of injection. These immune cells (macrophages) respond and ‘swallow’ the aluminium. But when any inflammatory event in the brain occurs, these cells will be called upon to help, but instead will bring a massive payload of toxic aluminium with them into the brain.
A set of nine criteria used to determine the strength of an association between a disease and its supposed causative agent. They form the basis of modern medical and dental epidemiological research.
The more of the Bradford-Hill criteria you can demonstrate, the more likely it is that A causes B. Let’s look at these criteria with relevance to the fact that vaccines cause autism.
The first factor we can discuss is coherence. In other words, “does the association fit with other facts?” In the case of the above theory, it fits very well with facts about aluminium.
Aluminium is toxic to the human body. Aluminium has no biological function in human life and so its presence in the human body is always a net negative. The idea than aluminium, at least, can be toxic is widely accepted. Furthermore, it is accepted that aluminium can enter into brain tissue. Even more than this, it is accepted that it can cause harm once it gets into the brain tissue. One form of aluminium toxicity where this occurs has been observed in dialysis patients:
[A]luminium toxicity occurs due to contamination of dialysis solutions, and treatment of the patients with aluminium-containing phosphate binding gels. Aluminium has been shown to be the major contributor to the dialysis encephalopathy [“damage or disease that affects the brain”] syndrome and an osteomalacic component of dialysis osteodystrophy.
In stating this so far, I haven’t deviated from accepted science. Slightly more controversial than this is the idea that Alzheimer’s is caused by aluminium in the brain. This idea has been around since 1965 according to the Alzheimer’s Society. Although some people doubt the correlation-causation relationship (I would argue more for financial reasons than scientific), there is evidence from a wide range of sources.
The Scotsman reported on a study performed by researchers looking at aluminium levels in drinking water that found people in areas with higher levels of aluminium were more likely to die of dementia. The study’s author said:
We still see this well accepted finding that higher levels of aluminium in particular are associated with an increased risk of dementia. It’s confirmatory rather than anything else. [my emphasis]
Dr. Chris Exley has done multiple studies showing high levels of aluminium in the brains of those who died with a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.
Animal studies also provide further evidence for the fact that aluminium in injurious to the brain. Dr. Christopher Exley observed, when he was studying fish, that when the fish were exposed to aluminium, they would start hanging out in the corner of the tank. Another study, performed by a sheep farmer (and shown in the Bert Ehgartner documentary, Under the Skin), showed that sheep injected with aluminium adjuvant (even without an antigen) showed much higher levels of aggressive behaviour and did things like grind their teeth on metal railings. Mice are also negatively affected by aluminium:
Male mice in the “high Al” group showed significant changes in light–dark box tests and in various measures of behaviour in an open field. Female mice showed significant changes in the light–dark box at both doses, but no significant changes in open field behaviours.
Thus, aluminium was clearly affecting the neurochemistry of the animals, and these behaviours are decent proxies for autistic symptoms in humans (aggression being analogous to autistic meltdowns and the fish acting strangely being analogous to social avoidance).
All of this evidence is a strong case that the aluminium factor in autism is coherent. We know aluminium is toxic and can harm the brain. Therefore that it can cause the kind of behavioural issues that we observe in autism cannot be prima facie ruled out. This is Criteria 1 on our Bradford Hill list solidly met.
The next criteria we can discuss is dose-response relationship. In short, if we give more aluminium adjuvants to children, do we see an increase in autism? Recall our graph from above – the 1-in-10000 to the 1-in-36 increase in autism prevalence. Now let’s compare this to the increase in aluminium adjuvants and thus exposure.
Shaw and Tomljenovic wrote a paper addressing this topic:
By applying Hill’s criteria for establishing causality between exposure and outcome we investigated whether exposure to Al from vaccines could be contributing to the rise in ASD prevalence in the Western world. Our results show that: (i) children from countries with the highest ASD prevalence appear to have the highest exposure to Al from vaccines; (ii) the increase in exposure to Al adjuvants significantly correlates with the increase in ASD prevalence in the United States observed over the last two decades (Pearson r=0.92, p<0.0001); and (iii) a significant correlation exists between the amounts of Al administered to preschool children and the current prevalence of ASD in seven Western countries, particularly at 3-4 months of age (Pearson r=0.89-0.94, p=0.0018-0.0248).
The correlation here is strong – more doses, more autism. The dose-response relationship is in this data. Point 2 on the Bradford Hill Criteria list is met.
The third factor that we can discuss is strength of association. Or in other words, how much is the difference in observed rates of autism between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated? This question is not all that easy to answer, mostly because information on this kind of question has been suppressed.
Dr. Paul Thomas has revealing evidence on this question.
Dr. Paul Thomas is the most successful doctor in the world at preventing autism. Data from his practice show:
If zero vaccines, autism rate = 1 in 715;
If alternative vaccine schedule, autism rate = 1 in 440;
If CDC vaccine schedule, autism rate = 1 in 36.
[…]His alternative vaccine schedule reduces autism risk by more than 1200%. However even an alternative vaccine schedule increases autism risk by 160% versus no vaccines at all.
The difference between 1 in 715 and 1 in 36 is huge. This is evidence of a significant strength of association between two factors. Of course the historical evidence showing fewer cases of autism among older people and more among the young with a strong correlation also matches up with this evidence, since older people are comparatively ‘unvaccinated’. So that’s our third criteria met.
The fourth factor we can discuss is temporal relationship. In other words, the effect must follow, not precede exposure. This factor is difficult to elucidate with vaccines, because exposure is so early on in life, including in the first day of life in the US. This is used by the vaccine cult to argue for the genetic position, but also ensures that it is more difficult to prove that exposure causes the symptoms because the exposure is so early and rampant. However, the simple observation of vaccines preceding autism is almost always true (unless the child is unvaccinated) because if you expose the child at day 1 (US) or 2 months (UK) that is before autistic behaviour is observed. So in a way, their rampant pushing of vaccinations has met this criteria all by itself.
We also haveanecdotal evidencefor this factor, that is, parents observing their child regressing into autism after vaccination. Of course, anecdotal evidence is automatically dismissed by any Pharma apologist. It is true that when using anecdotal evidence, there are significant pitfalls to consider. People can misremember things, or actively lie. These points are worthy of consideration.
However, both of these risks are minimised in the case of assessing autistic regression after vaccination. In terms of lying, there is simply no motive for a parent to lie about observation of regression into autism after a vaccine. Suggesting to a paediatrician, for example, that a child’s autism was caused by a vaccine will lead to being attacked and dismissed by the doctor. Parents are also attacked in the media if they suggest this idea, such as in the case of Jenny McCarthy, who has been subject to hit pieces because she stated that the MMR vaccine caused her son’s autism. Although vaccine advocates state that parents are likely to fall for the idea that someone is to blame for their child’s autism (such as doctors or Pharma) this is also unlikely. The parents had to consent for the vaccine to be given, and so you would expect to observe the opposite: parents denying that vaccines cause autism, since then they would have to blame themselves for consenting to the vaccine(s) and human beings do not like to acknowledge guilt.
Being mistaken about observation is also less likely in the case of autistic regression. This is because we are talking about parental observation of children and decent parents are highly alert to any signs of illness in a child, particularly a child of the age likely to receive vaccines. I will concede however that it is not impossible for someone to either be mistaken or lie. However it is quite implausible that given the factors weighing against these that all cases are examples of lying or misremembering given the multitude of testimonies that we have.
Thus there is at least some evidence for criteria four on the Bradford-Hill list.
The fifth factor that we can discuss is consistency. In other words, if we introduce aluminium adjuvants to all sorts of different groups, rich, poor, black, white, Asian, male, female, etc, do we see increased levels of autism?
There is a male-female disparity in autism diagnosis, with males being significantly more likely to be diagnosed than females. There is likely some biological reason why boys are more susceptible to this form of aluminium poisoning that is currently unknown (or at least, unknown to me). Nevertheless we see an increase in autism diagnosis in both groups.
The sixth factor we can discuss is experimental evidence. In other words, do we have any hard evidence for aluminium in the brain in autism? The answer to this is yes.
Dr. Exley and his research team examined this question directly. They obtained samples of brain tissue from individuals that had died with a diagnosis of autism. This was the first study of this kind. They examined this brain tissue and found very high levels of aluminium in all samples.
The aluminium content of brain tissue in autism was consistently high. The mean (standard deviation) aluminium content across all 5 individuals for each lobe were 3.82(5.42), 2.30(2.00), 2.79(4.05) and 3.82(5.17) μg/g dry wt. for the occipital, frontal, temporal and parietal lobes respectively. These are some of the highest values for aluminium in human brain tissue yet recorded and one has to question why, for example, the aluminium content of the occipital lobe of a 15 year old boy would be 8.74 (11.59) μg/g dry wt.?
We can add another one of Exley’s papers to make this evidence even better. This paper by Exley and Clarkson contains control samples who died with no signs of neurodegenerative disease:
The aluminium content of each lobe (mean and SD) were 1.03 (1.64), 1.02 (1.27), 0.95 (0.88), 0.77 (0.92) and 0.51 (0.51) μg/g dry wt.
These samples have much lower levels of aluminium in them than the autism samples, and this is despite the fact that the controls were mostly older than the autism samples – meaning lifelong exposure to aluminium through non-vaccine routes would have been higher and it would have had more time to accumulate in the control tissues.
The main limitation of this evidence as pointed out by its critics is that the study had a small sample size of N=5 when it came to measuring aluminium concentration in the autism samples (and for some aspects of the study N=10). This was for practical reasons (i.e. there isn’t a large amount of samples of autistic brain tissue available).
It is fair to acknowledge this, and obviously it would be better if the sample size was larger. However, it is completely dishonest to dismiss this study because of the small sample size. This study, for example, is completely different from a survey where 5 participants answering would be worthless. We are looking at pathological brains with clear evidence of a high level of a neurotoxin in them. The level of neurotoxin in these brains cannot be explained away by saying that there is only a few of them. To have that level of brain aluminium content and for it to not be pathological and negatively affecting the cells around it is absurd, unless you want to straight up deny that aluminium is neurotoxic.
Furthermore, no-one has tried to either confirm or reject the Aluminium Research Group’s findings (to this author’s knowledge at least). The establishment haven’t done a study where they demonstrate that the levels of aluminium found by the group are overly high. This is another case where the establishment claim the evidence isn’t good enough to support an anti-establishment view and then just ignore the question. So, despite establishment criticisms, this is criteria six on our Bradford-Hill list met.
We can use Exley’s evidence to discuss the seventh criteria, biological plausibility.
The 2018 paper shows that the high levels of aluminium were found associated with glia and microglia:
Discrete deposits of aluminium approximately 1 μm in diameter were clearly visible in both round and amoeboid glial cell bodies (e.g. Fig. 3b). Intracellular aluminium was identified in likely neurones and glia-like cells and often in the vicinity of or co-localised with lipofuscin (Fig. 5). Aluminium-selective fluorescence microscopy was successful in identifying aluminium in extracellular and intracellular locations in neurones and non-neuronal cells and across all brain tissues studied (Fig. 1, Fig. 2, Fig. 3, Fig. 4, Fig. 5).
This is important because those cells are disrupted in autism. For example, they are responsible for synaptic pruning, which does not occur correctly in autism.
Aluminium-loaded mononuclear white blood cells, probably lymphocytes, were identified in the meninges and possibly in the process of entering brain tissue from the lymphatic system (Fig. 1).
The eighth criteria we can discuss is specificity. The idea of specificity ideally means that one disease has one cause, but this is difficult to apply to reality as Bradford Hill acknowledged. Aluminium adjuvants, in reality, are highly likely to cause more than one disease. However, the argument is not just that aluminium adjuvants cause autism, but that a specific action of aluminium adjuvants causes autism. Our theory offers a specific toxicant (aluminium), a specific route of exposure (injection), a specific method by which that toxin gets into the brain (macrophages), specific cells that are disrupted (glia and microglia), and specific negative cascades that are triggered (excessive IL-6 production due to an inflammatory response). Our argument also does not claim that glial disruption by aluminium adjuvants causes a whole host of problems, but autism specifically (and nothing else). So the theory meets criteria eight on the list.
The last factor we can discuss is analogy. If we can observe similar things happening that makes our own theory more likely to be true. This is easy to demonstrate in the case of aluminium poisoning, as poisoning by different metals, such as mercury, can cause significant impairments in child functioning. One interesting case worthy of discussion here is that of acrodynia. Acrodynia, or ‘Pink disease’ was an early 20th century disease that symptomatically had some overlap with autism although with some differences. It was later proven that pink disease was a form of mercury poisoning caused by mercury teething powders. We know from this case that metal poisoning can cause symptoms with some similarities to autism. There are also examples of aluminium itself causing other forms of poisoning, which were discussed in point 1. So analogy also supports our case and gives us point 9.
Conclusion
As we can see from the above discussion, the idea that vaccines cause autism is strongly evidenced. However, the theory is also opposed by the entire establishment despite this evidence. It is to how these two differing theories of autism are treated that we now turn.
Smallpox vaccination was said to prevent infection with smallpox. However, there is a significant practical difficulty with this argument, aside from statistical evidence and anecdotes of vaccine failure. This is the nature of ‘vaccine lymph’ itself. Although ‘vaccine lymph’ is often considered to be cowpox, the history is a lot more complicated than this, with multiple different lymph sources in circulation. This poses a theoretical problem for those who argue that vaccination prevented smallpox, since they then have to argue that all these sources are equivalent, but this is unlikely.
Horse Grease Cowpox or Spontaneous Cowpox?
Edward Jenner argued that there was more than one form of cowpox in his essay the Inquiry. His Inquiry starts with a description of a disease of the horse, the grease, which he claims is spread to the cow:
In this Dairy Country a great number of Cows are kept, and the office of milking is performed indiscriminately by Men and Maid Servants. One of the former having been appointed to apply dressings to the heels of a Horse affected with the Grease, and not paying due attention to cleanliness, incautiously bears his part in milking the Cows, with some particles of the infectious matter adhering to his fingers. When this is the case, it commonly happens that a disease is communicated to the Cows, and from the Cows to the Dairy-maids, which spreads through the farm until most of the cattle and domestics feel its unpleasant consequences.
Jenner is clear in this text that the protection comes via the horse, through the cow, to man.
Jenner distinguishes this from spontaneous cowpox, which he considers not protective from smallpox:
It is necessary to observe, that pustulous sores frequently appear spontaneously on the nipples of Cows, and instances have occurred, though very rarely, of the hands of the servants employed in milking being affected with sores in consequence, and even of their feeling an indisposition from absorption. These pustules are of a much milder nature than those which arise from that contagion which constitutes the true Cow Pox. […] But this disease is not be considered as similar in any respect to that of which I am treating, as it is incapable of producing any specific effects on the human Constitution. However, it is of the greatest consequence to point it out here, lest the want of discrimination should occasion an idea of security from the infection of the Small Pox, which might prove delusive.
So here we have two forms of cowpox. One protects from smallpox, and one does not. Presumably, the lymph used by Jenner in his vaccinations outlined in the Inquiry was horse grease cowpox.
So where did his next set of lymph come from? Enter William Woodville.
William Woodville was the lead doctor of the Smallpox Hospital in London and interested in Jenner’s method. He was able to obtain lymph for vaccination from a cow in Grey’s Inn Lane, London. Woodville had been previously unable to directly inoculate horse grease on the cow’s teat.
Be it observed, however, that this London cowpox was not Jenner’s cowpox. It was not horsegrease cowpox, but the variety stigmatised by Jenner as spurious.
However, because Jenner had no source of lymph, the Woodville lymph became the source that was spread across the world, regardless of the fact that it wasn’t horse grease cowpox. So if we take the Jennerian distinction as legitimate, there is a significant argument that the lymph used was not protective. Even if we reject the idea that there is such thing as a horse grease cowpox, there is still the problem of which forms of lesions on a cow’s teat are protective from smallpox, since it is agreed that there is more than one form of disease on the cow’s teat.
Cowpox or Smallpox – Was Woodville’s Lymph Contaminated?
As Woodville worked at the Smallpox Hospital in London, he performed his vaccinations there. This of course meant there was a risk of a patient who may become a vaccinifer contracting smallpox, leading to smallpox being spread along with the vaccine lymph. There were also other issues with how Woodville carried out his tests. Although he ran many more tests than Jenner and was more fastidious in recording his results, in some of his cases he performed the variolous test very early on, while the cowpox pustule was still present:
Ann Pink, a tall girl, of a brown sallow complexion, aged fifteen years. This girl was inoculated with variolous matter, on the fifth day, in the same manner as Collingridge, and both tumours proceeded to maturation, though more slowly than in that case.
He then went on to use some of these cases as vaccinifers (e.g. James Crouch was vaccinated, then inoculated on the 5th day after vaccination, then used as the vaccinifer for case 21). This meant the cowpox matter may well be contaminated with smallpox matter.
As Woodville made differing observations from Jenner, regarding the eruptions on the skin, there were some cases where it seemed evident that Woodville’s patients had smallpox.
Horsepox or Cowpox: Equine Lymph Direct From the Horse
Jenner’s relationship to the horse grease theory of cowpox is not straightforward. Essentially, he advocated it initially, but then failed to mention it in his further essays, likely due to its unpopularity. For example, a notable early vaccine promoter, George Pearson, considered the horse grease part of Jenner’s ideas to be nonsense and openly said so. William White argues that Jenner did this for cynical reasons, i.e. financial gain. Later in his life, however, Jenner essentially returned to the horse and in fact used vaccination (equination?) direct rather than via the cow.
For example, he referred to using equine lymph in his correspondence:
[Mr. Melon] sent me some of his equine virus, which I have been using from arm to arm for these two months past without observing the smallest deviation in the progress and appearance of the pustules from those produced by the vaccine.
It was not just Jenner that use horsepox direct. An Italian vaccinator, Sacco, used horsepox to vaccinate.
Sacco obtained some matter from the ulcerous sores on a horse’s hocks (he gives a startling picture of huge, excavated horse sores in his Trattato of 1809), and therewith inoculated several children at the Foundling Hospital of Milan. He found that the effects were very like those of cowpox virus (as we know, in fact, that they always are) ; and, on trying the children with the variolous test, he found that they were protected just as if they had been cowpoxed.
De Carro in Vienna also used horse grease in his vaccinations.
This horse material likely ended up in wide circulation due to its usage by these prolific vaccinators.
Humanised Lymph: Did Serial Passage Affect the Disease?
As for most of the 19th century, vaccination was arm to arm, there is a possibility that passing through multiple human constitutions may have affected the disease. Essentially, this passing through multiple humans was a crude form of serial passage. In fact, people considered this in the nineteenth century as well, which is why some in the 1840s wanted to “return to the cow” and create a fresh stock of lymph (see below). They believed that the passage through multiple human constitutions had made the disease too mild to be effective against smallpox. As virologists subscribe to the idea of serial passage affecting the function of viruses, then they have to concede this is probable in the case of artificial cowpox infection. Thus the vaccine given over time is not a consistent virus but had different mutations, meaning that there is a distinct possibility of mutation away from being an effective preventative of smallpox even if Jenner’s original concoction worked (which of course, it did not).
Cowpox or Smallpox II: Smallpox Via the Cow
In the 1840s, the idea became prevalent that the lymph was no longer potent and that a stock should be raised from cows. The idea that smallpox and cowpox were the same disease became explicit (Jenner had said that horse grease was ‘the source’ of smallpox instead, although he did call cowpox variolae vaccinae i.e. cow smallpox). The reason that cowpox protected from smallpox on this view was that it was smallpox, except passed via the constitution of the cow which somehow made it milder. This idea wasn’t really explained, just asserted.
Cowpox was not a widespread disease, making it difficult to find new lymph sources. As such, there were those who attempted to deliberately infect cows with smallpox to generate these new lymph sources.
One of these men was Robert Ceely, who performed extensive experiments involving cows. He gave detailed descriptions of cowpox and also infected cows with smallpox and described the results.
Badcock was another 1840s writer, who wanted to obtain fresh lymph for vaccination:
The only satisfactory mode of obtaining, with certainty, the true vaccine that presented itself to my mind was, therefore, to inoculate a healthy cow with Small Pox matter, as the result of that operation, if any, must be cow Small Pox
Badcock used this matter for vaccination and indeed states that he vaccinated ‘several thousand’ with this lymph.
Later in the 19th century, when arm to arm vaccination was abandoned, the method of ‘pure glycerinated calf lymph’ came into vogue and emerged as the main method of vaccination. Again, this involved the deliberate infection of cows with smallpox.
The living calf or heifer is first bound down on a movable tilting table, and its belly is shaved and on the clean, tender skin of a most tender part one or two hundred cuts or scratches are then made, and into these cuts or scratches is rubbed some “seed virus,” obtained directly or indirectly from human smallpox.
Vaccinators also tried different examples of less popular material for vaccination.
One example is sheep pox:
Accordingly, when Sacco, in 1804, obtained variolous lymph from infected sheep at Capua, he gave it to Dr. Legni in the remote Sicilian province of Cattolica to try as a substitute for vaccine in the prevention of smallpox.
There were also other examples of various lymph being used – goat pox was experimented with in Madrid in 1804. Crookshank also argued that cattle plague was used for vaccine lymph in India.
The Jennerian Vesicle: The Vaccination Standard
What connects all of this? The notion of the Jennerian vesicle. Basically, the standard for ‘successful vaccination’ was whether it produced a correct ‘Jennerian vesicle’ on the arm where the matter was inserted. In other words, so long as the vesicle looked ‘correct’ the vaccination was considered to be successful. It goes without saying that this is not a scientific criteria for judging immunity to a disease. But because all these sources could raise the Jennerian vesicle, they were defended as vaccine lymph and some were widely employed.
Conclusion
The fact that so many different diseases, from so many different sources, were considered and used as vaccine lymph, poses a theoretical issue for vaccinationists. All these sources were adjudged at some point, and by some individuals to be appropriate matter for vaccination and many sources existed in circulation. Yet it is difficult theoretically to argue that all these sources were equivalent and thus, for the vaccinationist, equally effective against smallpox.
Smallpox vaccination, as practiced for most of the 19th century, was an exercise in filth spreading. It was done via arm to arm vaccination, that is by raising a pustule on one person’s arm and then using that pustule to vaccinate other people in a long chain of vaccinations which went back to an original vaccination with cow pus. This led to a significant spread of disease and vaccine death – that could be covered up by ignoring the source of the disease.
Syphilis
One disease that was spread during the practice of vaccination was syphilis.
It was of course known in the 19th century that syphilis could be spread by sexual activity and could be passed from mother to child (congenital syphilis). Over time, it became more and more obvious that vaccination could also spread syphilis, although this was denied by the authorities for many years.
Statistical evidence pointed to the increase in death from syphilis among young children under compulsory vaccination in the United Kingdom. In 1847, before compulsory vaccination, the number of deaths was 255 in England for children under 1 year. By 1884, the number of deaths had increased to 1733. The number shows a steady increase over this time period.
[Table from Creighton’s Cowpox and Vaccinal Syphilis]
There were also several anecdotes that demonstrated the possibility of syphilis after vaccination. P. A. Taylor cites cases where multiple people were given syphilis by vaccination from the same vaccinifer, for example a case where 29 out of 38 children vaccinated contracted syphilis.
Infant syphilis deaths were covered up by blaming the mother’s alleged immorality.
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, or consumption, was a common cause of death in the 19th century.
In the UK and Europe, consumption caused widespread public concern during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was seen as an endemic disease of the urban poor. By 1815 it was the cause of one in four deaths in England. Up from 20% in 17th century London. In Europe, rates of tuberculosis began to rise; in the early 1600s and peaked in the 1800s when it also accounted for nearly 25% of all deaths. Between 1851 and 1910 in England and Wales four million died from consumption. More than one-third of those fatalities were aged 15 to 34; half of those aged 20 to 24, giving Consumption the name the robber of youth.
Anti-vaccinationists suspected that one of the reasons that it was so prominent was vaccination.
In all European armies, vaccination is the order of the day. On their arrival with their corps, the young soldiers are forthwith carefully revaccinated. Now, the military statistics of all countries show an enormous proportion of various forms of tuberculosis among soldiers, especially during the first and second year after their enlistment. […] To sum up, the young soldiers find with their corps material conditions of life, which, for a very large number, are superior to those of their native surroundings. […] Whence then can come these attacks of tuberculosis, so sudden, so numerous, upon subjects that, but a few months before, the council of revision rightly declared to be fit for service.
Some also believed that because cattle can be subject to tuberculosis, the ‘glycerinated calf lymph’ method of extracting vaccine matter (infecting a cow with smallpox and then extracting the matter) might pose a risk.
Leprosy
The spread of leprosy via vaccination was significant mainly in imperial possessions. As colonialism was widespread in the 19th century, one of the items imposed and cajoled onto the native populations was vaccination.
William Tebb describes the situation in Hawaii regarding leprosy. He states that it was completely unknown prior to the introduction of vaccination, but since vaccination was introduced it had spread:
In a leading article on “The Nature of Leprosy” The Lancet, July 30th, 1881, p. 186, says :—” The great Importance of the subject of the nature and mode of extension of leprosy is evident from the steady increase in certain countries into which it has been introduced. In the Sandwich Islands [i.e. Hawaii], for instance, the disease was unknown forty years ago, and now a tenth part of the inhabitants are lepers. In Honolulu, at one time quite free, there are not less than two hundred and fifty cases.”
He goes into detail about how leprosy is spread, showing that while it is not spread by casual contact, it can be spread via inoculation or anything involving piercing the skin. He gives numerous examples of leprosy caused by vaccination and travelled to multiple countries in order to investigate the issue. He found cases not just in Hawaii but also India, South Africa, and other countries. Some cases had the first symptoms at the site of vaccination.
Conclusion
Vaccination was a proven method to spread diseases in the nineteenth century, and in fact, could spread much worse diseases than smallpox (since smallpox either resulted in recovery or death in most cases, whereas these other diseases often led to a slow increase in symptoms). As such the idea that vaccination was a life saver was fatally flawed.
Vaccine deaths have always existed, and have always been denied. This is a story of some of these forgotten vaccine deaths.
Inoculation Deaths
Inoculation, or variolation, was the practice of deliberately infecting someone with smallpox. This was the practice that was used prior to the introduction of the Jennerian method of deliberately infecting people with cowpox as a method to protect from smallpox.
This practice was very dangerous. The more sensible (if that’s the right word) inoculators admitted this risk, they just argued that the odds were better with inoculation than natural infection since they had observed that people generally only got smallpox once.
A man called Jurin (a pro-inoculator) collected statistical data on the question of inoculation. He stated that inoculation had a death rate of 1 in 48 (13 in 624). But that the natural disease killed 1 in 6, so that the odds were better with inoculation (of course, what this logic ignores is that you aren’t guaranteed to get smallpox, and even if you were, you might get it many years later, meaning many life years lost to inoculation).
The Case of John Baker
When Edward Jenner entered into this discussion, he performed experiments on children to attempt to prove that cowpox protected from smallpox. This bit is well known, what is less emphasised, however, is Jenner’s arguments relating to horse grease and cowpox. Jenner believed that there was more than one form of disease of the cow’s teat – horse grease cowpox and spontaneous cowpox. In his initial text, the Inquiry, he argued that the protective form of cowpox was the horse grease form. Jenner believed that the disease was essentially artificial in the cow. The chain of events was as follows, in Jenner’s mind: the horse developed a disease known as grease which affected the heels of the horse. The farrier would have to dress the heels of the horse, causing the disease to be on his hands. However, he also did double duty milking the cow, and as such, then spread the disease to the cow’s teat. Pustules and inflammation developed on the teat as a result and this was horse grease cowpox (which could protect from smallpox).
This is relevant because Jenner wanted to compare direct horse grease with horse grease cowpox. As such, he vaccinated two children, one with horse grease direct and one with cowpox. The child vaccinated with the horse grease was John Baker, a 5-year-old. Jenner had intended to test his immunity by inoculating him for smallpox, but he was ‘rendered unfit for inoculation’, Jenner said, by a fever he caught in the workhouse. The boy died and the most plausible assumption is that he died as a result of the vaccination experiment.
‘Preserving Vaccination From Reproach’
Vaccination death has always been covered up by the medical establishment. As critics of vaccination have pointed out, one way this is done is to put the symptom on the death certificate, but not the cause of the symptom. In this way it can be stated that the child died of erysipelas or some other condition, without blaming vaccination.
What is of interest is we have one case from the 19th century where a doctor openly stated they concealed vaccination as the cause of death on a death certificate. Henry May, a physician from Birmingham (United Kingdom) stated the following in 1874:
A death from Vaccination occurred not long ago in my practice, and although I had not vaccinated the child, yet in my desire to preserve Vaccination from reproach, I omitted all mention of it from my certificate of death.
For much of the twentieth century, deaths from vaccination were higher than deaths from smallpox. Smallpox declined due to increased sanitation:
A Mr. John Cryer, an ardent anti-vaccinationist, taught school in Bradford, Eng. One day he noticed a lad of about twelve years—a new pupil in school. He questioned him: “Where did you come from?” “Sheffield, sir.” “How long have you resided there?” “Six years, sir.” “How many are there in the family ?” “Six of us, sir.” “Then you were in Sheffield during the small-pox epidemic ?” “Yes, sir.” “Did any of you have the small-pox?” “Oh, no, sir, we lived in a front street.” That last sentence tells the whole story. It is worth more than a dozen reports of Local Guardians; worth more than whole columns of statistics. It hits the nail square on the head, and locates the disease. Why didn’t the lad say: “Oh, no, sir, we were all vaccinated?”
Vaccination also declined significantly after the mandates were eased and objection clauses inserted.
Nevertheless we have multiple deaths reported from vaccination. Between 1933-1946 there were 89 child deaths from vaccination according to the official statistics. During the same time 28 died from smallpox. This will likely be a large undercount due to the concealment of vaccination deaths.
This is a very small sample of death that has occurred as a result of smallpox inoculation and vaccination.
The media and governments put a large amount of effort into attempting to manipulate people into taking vaccines, or vaccinating their children. However, these manipulation strategies also exist at the level of the paediatrician. Doctors are armed with strategies that seek to manipulate you into vaccination. Now I would suggest avoiding a doctor’s office as much as possible, but nevertheless we should take a look at the strategies they use to trick people into taking vaccines. Partly to expose the strategy, but also partly to expose how unethical they are.
The CASE approach to ‘vaccine hesitancy’ (as they insist on calling rejection of vaccination) stands for “Corroborate, About me, Science, and Explain/advise.” The analysis of CASE below draws on this linked article to demonstrate the manipulation involved in ‘combating vaccine hesitancy’.
The first thing that we observe is that they need a specific strategy for explaining their case in the first place. I would suggest that this relates quite strongly to the psychology of the physician themselves. As Vaccination is a key Pillar of Faith in allopathic medicine, any challenge to vaccination, no matter how limited, is a threat to the paradigm. I would suggest that one function of having such a strategy is to get the physician to refocus their own thoughts and not get angry at the challenger to the Vaccine Faith (as anger is unlikely to convince anyone to vaccinate).
So let’s explore the strategy. The first aspect of the strategy, Corroborate, is meant to psychologically soothe the patient/parent, by signaling that the concern is acknowledged. This is done by signaling a limited form of acknowledgement of the statement, by stating that they understand where the criticism is coming from. Of course, the doctor won’t do anything such as actually take the concern seriously, no, that would be bad now wouldn’t it. We just have to pretend to humour the anti-vax nutcase so we can get them to jab, jab, jab.
The next step is About Me, that is, explaining how they are so much more knowledgeable on this issue than you. Now, I’m sure as they are always whining about how overworked they are, they have time to read multiple papers about vaccines and much historical discussion of vaccination a week. They completely ignore the fact that many anti vaccine parents have read more literature on vaccines than they have! I would hazard a bet that I have read more literature on vaccines than your average GP and I’m still improving and absorbing information constantly.
Next comes the Science, and by Science here folks we mean repeating information on the NHS/CDC, etc website. Then the explain/advise, which is why the doctor wants you to just take the vaccine already so that they can get more money for their practice. Furthermore, their explain/advise strategy is to try and push you into getting injected immediately, one of the examples given pushes the idea of getting vaccinated ‘today’. I don’t know if anyone’s ever done fraud awareness or the like. One thing you will get told on any fraud awareness webpage is that if anyone tries to rush you into doing something such as handing over details by invoking a sense of urgency that this a red flag for fraud. Now that really sums it all up, doesn’t it?
Image Credit: Photo by Mikhail Nilov on Pexels.com
Edward Jenner is the ‘founding father’ in vaccine ideology. The official narrative holds that Jenner was some sort of genius, who discovered cowpox inoculation and thus saved millions of lives from smallpox. So let’s discuss Edward Jenner and his theories, from a critical perspective.
Did Jenner Discover Vaccination?
The short answer to this question is no. Jenner was not the first person to practice a cowpox inoculation to protect from smallpox. A farmer called Benjamin Jesty is known to have used a needle to scratch the cowpox virus into the arms of his wife and sons several years before Jenner. The idea of cowpox protection was not invented by either, but existed as rural rumour in certain parts of the country (see below on milkmaids). The beginnings of the ideology behind vaccination already existed in the practice of smallpox inoculation, that is, deliberately infecting people with smallpox to attempt to induce a mild disease rather than risk natural infection. Inoculation goes back a long time in certain parts of the world, such as China, and was introduced into the UK in 1721 by Lady Mary Montagu. Although there is a valid distinction drawn in histories of smallpox, ideologically inoculation is vaccination as we would use the term today, that is attempting to induce a mild form of the disease via artificial means (i.e. the lancet) to avoid natural infection.1
The Milkmaid Myth
Jenner’s encounter with a milkmaid is often outlined as the first exposure of the young Jenner to the cowpox-smallpox theory of protection.
It is a story often told. The author vaguely remembers hearing it in secondary school when she studied the history of medicine. When Jenner was 13, he was said to have overheard a milkmaid discussing her alleged immunity to smallpox based upon having had a cowpox infection.
As the story goes, an English milkmaid told physician Edward Jenner that she would never get smallpox — a deadly disease and a leading cause of blindness — because she had had cowpox, a mild, uncommon illness in cattle that can spread to humans through sores on a cow’s udder. The milkmaid’s reasoning — that infection with cowpox protected her from smallpox — was a common belief among dairy workers
This is said to have interested the young Jenner in the issue of cowpox as a smallpox preventative. The story has been used for decades to promote the myth of vaccination.
Alas this story is most likely untrue.
It is one of those tales, that when one thinks about it for a moment, has a mythical quality. But we can go further than this.
The above account was first related by a man called John Baron, who was Jenner’s official biographer after his death. Baron was well known for his sycophancy, to the extent that even modern pro-vaccinationists have considered this excessive. According to Crookshank, an anti-vaccinationist who studied the issue carefully in the late nineteenth century, Fosbrooke, the first biographer of Jenner, did not mention this incident (p.127). While Crookshank does not question the whole incident, Baron’s well known sycophancy and desire to give Jenner priority for the vaccine ‘discovery’ gives him a strong motive to fabricate the tale. (And let’s be honest, the idea is rather romantic and makes a good story).
If Jenner did not originate the idea and did not perform the first vaccinations, what was his contribution? One could suggest Jenner’s writings on the topic formalising the idea. This is where Jenner does have some claim, since it seems he was the first to formally put forward in print the idea of cowpox vaccination. However, we can ask ourselves what this research actually amounted to. Men such as Baron would have us believe that Jenner’s works on the topic were filled with extensive research and strong scientific methodology. What is the truth?
Jenner’s initial paper on cowpox, An Inquiry Into the Causes and Effects of the Variolæ Vaccinæ, was published in 1798. However, there was an earlier version of the paper. Jenner was a member of the Royal Society due to a paper he had published about cuckoos. He sent this earlier version of the paper to the Royal Society in 1796 – however they rejected the paper. They thought that it might negatively affect Jenner’s reputation.
For our purposes, we will only focus on the evidence Jenner brings forward for the claim that cowpox protects against smallpox and not about Jenner’s other speculations (about the origins of cowpox, etc). If we look at the original 1796 paper, that Jenner considered worthy of Royal Society publication, we can examine the evidence Jenner had for his theory. Crookshank discusses the 1796 rejected paper in detail.
For his evidence, Jenner first lists 10 ‘cowpoxed milkers’, that is, 10 milkers who had natural cowpox infections (some a long time ago). These milkers proved insusceptible to smallpox inoculation. Then Jenner outlines the case of his first vaccination, that of the 8-year-old James Phipps. He vaccinated Phipps with cowpox, and then several weeks later inoculated him for smallpox. The inoculation did not ‘take’, thus proving in Jenner’s mind the theory of protection. This is the sum total of the evidence for cowpox inoculation in the 1796 version of the paper (Chapter 7). The 1798 paper adds some more evidence, a couple more cases of milkers and a chain of cowpox inoculations (although, it seems he only performed the inoculation test on 3 of those, plus Phipps). Jenner drew the conclusion from this evidence that cowpox provided life long protection against smallpox infection.
As we can see from this discussion, Jenner had limited evidence for his claims and draws excessive conclusions from this limited evidence.
1 for accuracy, the Chinese used a method of putting smallpox sores in the nose, but the method used in Europe involved the lancet.
Currently, the varicella vaccine is not on the UK childhood vaccine schedule, but as of yesterday, the JVCI is seeking to change this.
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has recommended a vaccine against varicella, commonly known as chickenpox, should be added to the UK’s routine childhood immunisation programme.
The vaccine would be offered to all children in 2 doses, at 12 and 18 months of age.
The committee has submitted its recommendations to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), which will take a final decision on whether to implement a programme.
It will probably be rubberstamped, so that they can start giving the vaccine as soon as possible. Of course, we should just ignore the evidence that the JCVI is corrupt and ignored real problems with the Urabe MMR vaccine. Pharma profit is clearly much more important.
The vast majority of people remember getting chickenpox as a child. What happened? You were off school for a week and itched a lot. That was about it. Nothing happened. Your parents weren’t worried. The school wasn’t worried. No one cared. You were possibly told that if you get the chickenpox young, you’re better off. And we need a vaccine for this?
The JVCI has come up with a model to address this problem. Because many people are probably thinking exactly the same as what I’m thinking, even if they support some vaccines. Kind of like when even many Covid fanatics drew the line at injecting mRNA into their five year old because there was no benefit.
The purported justification for this vaccine is some really rare, fringe cases where someone got significantly sick. As such we should inject all healthy children with chickenpox vaccines. Of course this is nuts. The model seeks to play up the risks of chickenpox, and claims that the risks have been underestimated, well of course, what else are they going to say? Now of course we should probably be a bit scpetical given the UK government’s track records with modelling (Neil Ferguson is quite strongly coming to mind at this stage).
The rate of vaccination injury is not even considered in the JVCI model. Even if we assume the vaccine is effective, a very low rate of vaccine injury will massively outweigh any benefits of saving people from chickenpox since well, chickenpox just isn’t very deadly (I can’t believe I have to point this out). Yet the JVCI page online does not mention that adverse reactions as a consideration in their model. Parents having to take a week off work is considered though. Because that is far more important than vaccine injury.
Even more horrible, they want to stick this in MMR, yes, they want to make the MMR vaccine even worse. The only mention of vaccine injury comes in this section with a reference to increased febrile seizures with a combined MMRV vaccine as opposed to MMR + V vaccines. Honestly this rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic while children are poisoned to death. Nevertheless rare, not of concern, etc, standard pro vaccine spiel.
They also seek to justify why they want to promote the vaccine at this time, since, they previously rejected the idea of chickenpox vaccines:
Due to the larger pool of varicella-susceptible children following the pandemic restrictions and, as vaccination is predicted to significantly decrease circulation of varicella, susceptible people may continue to be vulnerable to catching varicella as they head into adulthood.
In other words, let’s use the lockdown that we did to push more of what we want: or, problem-reaction-solution.
They also state that the vaccine recommendation will put us in line with other countries like the United States. Yeah, because we really want to be in line with the United States’ vaccine insanity.
In conclusion, this rather odd sentence from the recommendation stuck out to me:
The community arm of the study estimated the quality adjusted life year (QALY) loss in cases which would not be captured in any medical datasets. This study aimed to assess the impact of mild varicella on quality of life, healthcare use and the financial and health impact on the family unit.
As we can see from the above information, a study was literally done on ‘mild varicella’ i.e. being off school and itching for a week and its effects on ‘quality of life’ and ‘the family unit’. This may seem a bit nuts but trivial, i.e. why would anyone study the effect of being mildly sick for a week? In fact it shows the deeper hubris involved in the vaccination program. All minor inconveniences caused by Nature must be abolished even if it’s being itchy for a week. Consequences? What are those? The idea of a vaccine for everything, no matter how rare or trivial, proves that vaccination is not about our health, but pharma profits and medical hubris.
I have mentioned in previous articles the cult of sterility and cleansing that exists as part of the practice of vaccination. Images such as the white coat, sterile room, mask, etc. promote the idea of the sterile and cleanliness.
The receipt of the injection is a cult ritual. It is a sacred act. One is prepared for the receipt of the injection by the doctor, the modern day priest. The clean sterile environment, free of danger, germs, serves like the stained glass of old – to induce reverence, and as a reminder of what bounty one (or one’s child) will receive for undergoing the pain of the needle – a sterile, germ free body.
However, the actual historical practice of vaccination is at odds with that sterile image. One of the paradoxes of vaccination has always been that it has sought to purify via defilement, to prevent disease by invoking it. Nowadays, the process has been so sanitised that the disease is barely invoked, being a few dead particles of virus that while bringing forward horrific injuries does not create the disease it attempts to protect from.
This was not always the case. The defilement aspect was much more obvious in historical vaccination and inoculation. Historically, inoculation/vaccination was performed by taking matter from a pustule. Sometimes, the matter was preserved on another surface before being rubbed into a wound made with a lancet; on other occasions, it was rubbed directly into the wound. For example, when performing his first vaccination, Edward Jenner took matter from a pustule on the hand of a milkmaid; her hand had become infected with cowpox from milking the cow.
THE more accurately to observe the progress of the [cowpox] infection, I selected a healthy boy, about eight years old, for the purpose of inoculation for the Cow Pox. The matter was taken from a sore on the hand of a dairymaid, who was infected by her master’s cows, and it was inserted, on the 14th of May, 1796, into the arm of the boy by means of two superficial incisions, barely penetrating the cutis, each about half an inch long.
In reality, although vaccination purported to be cowpox inoculation, there were multiple sources of ‘vaccine lymph’, with people experimenting with sheep pox, goat pox, and horse pox (Jenner believed that the cowpox came originally from the diseased heel of horses). Equine lymph in particular was significant in its usage.
For most of the nineteenth century, the kind of vaccination practiced was largely arm-to-arm vaccination. An initial set of vaccinations would have been performed direct from the cow or from a cowpoxed milkmaid who caught the infection via handling the teat. After the vaccinations had roused pustules on the arms of those undergoing the procedure, a vaccinifer could be selected to take a fresh batch of lymph from and carry on the chain of vaccinations. The vaccinifer would usually be selected by how well the vaccination ‘took’, that is the size and shape of the pustule produced, and whether it was adjudged to be a ‘good’ pustule.
This method came under criticism and was eventually banned. The replacement method ended up going back to the cow:
By referring to the cut on this page it will be seen that the living calf or heifer is first bound down on a movable tilting table, and its belly is shaved and on the clean, tender skin of a most tender part one or two hundred cuts or scratches are then made, as shown, and into these cuts or scratches is rubbed some “seed virus,” obtained directly or indirectly from human smallpox, and other known or unknown human or animal infections. Now after the calf has been inoculated as described, it is removed from the table and allowed to stand on its feet in its stall securely tied, and carefully fed and tended and allowed to remain thus for about a week, with its one or two hundred festering wounds gradually filling up with ulcerative or suppurative disease matter. At this stage the calf is now again strapped on the table for the collection of this accumulated disease matter.
What is the point of elaborating upon this information? Simply because when looked at objectively, the idea that this practice reduced disease is rather absurd. A priori, taking lymph from a pustule on another human being or an animal had the potential to spread many other diseases that were present in the vaccine lymph. There were multiple cases of syphilis from vaccination, and observed increases in infant syphilis deaths. There were contrasting views on the reasons for this rise, with Creighton seeing cowpox as essentially a form of syphilis where others believed the syphilis was spread along with the vaccine matter. Some other anti-vaccinationists, such as Alfred Russell Wallace, pointed to an increase in pyaemia (a form of sepsis) and skin diseases.
This contrast between historical and modern practices of vaccination reveals an interesting tension in the vaccine narrative. On the one hand, anyone would have to agree that the above procedures are unsanitary and dangerous, especially pro-vaccinationists, since they lived in morbid fear of the Covid virus, a disease much milder than smallpox or syphilis. On the other hand, any pro-vaccinationist would also argue that Jenner’s smallpox vaccine, and thus the procedures described above, reduced disease and death.
Cassandra's Box 
