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Homeopathy has an ambivalent attitude toward vaccination.
Homeopathic organizations seem reluctant to discuss the issue publicly and it
does not seem to be taught as part of any regular curriculum. There is no
question that the strong support of the medical establishment and governments
for vaccination, despite growing concerns even from within the medical
research community, makes opposition to this policy risky. Nevertheless, our
position must not be based on expedience; it should be founded upon what we
know medically.
The purpose of this article is not to consider the evidence for or against
vaccination, but rather to examine what the theory and practice of homeopathy
over the past 200 years have taught us about vaccination. This article
explores these issues based on the writings of several respected homeopaths,
their extensive clinical observations, and inductive reasoning. What emerges
is a consensus that vaccination is not consistent with the principles
of homeopathy, even if it is a crude application of the law of similars.
Clinical evidence further suggests that vaccination holds serious short and
long-term consequences both because of its effect upon the miasms, and
because some constitutional types are particularly susceptible to vaccination
shock. However, a complete understanding of vaccination continues to elude
us. The functioning of the immune system remains shrouded in mystery. What we
do not know about disease and prevention far outweighs what we do know. The
evidence, both from allopathic and homeopathic sources, strongly suggests
that the long-term effects of modern, mass, and multiple vaccinations in
early childhood are significant.
The these of this article, therefore, is that homeopaths should be opposed
to vaccination as a medical practice because (1) vaccination is not
consistent with homeopathic principles of health and cure, and
(2) because vaccination may potentially arouse latent inherited and
constitutional weaknesses.
We homeopaths should discuss our knowledge of vaccination openly, and
publicly. It is not a simple matter of being pro- or anti-vaccination. It is
a matter of speaking from our knowledge about the process of health
and disease, as well as from clinical evidence. That knowledge strongly
suggests that the cost of vaccination far outweighs any benefit. The
pertinent theory and evidence should be more consistently taught during a
homeopath's training. Homeopathic journals and organizations should also be
more active in the discussion of vaccination from a medical and homeopathic
perspective, seeking to present the evidence in objective and homeopathic
terms.
Correctness of Vaccination Policy Far From Proven in Medical Literature
The intent of this paper is not to debate the issue of vaccination from an
allopathic point of view using medical studies. However, the issue of vaccine
effectiveness and safety, both short and long-term, is by no means proven or
settled within the scientific community. What evidence there is, is open to
interpretation. One previously pro-vaccination medical researcher who
conducted a study of the literature came to the conclusion that vaccines were
both ineffective in eradicating (the initial claim) or protecting (the later
claim) against the claimed diseases and had serious consequences for chronic
illness, in particular cancer and auto immune disorders: "After studying
the extensive literature demonstrating ineffectiveness of vaccines and their
dangers, I concluded that the call for suspension of all vaccination programs
is now inevitable." (Viera Scheibner, Ph.D., Vaccination: 100 Years
of Orthodox Research shows that Vaccines Represent a Medical Assault on the
Immune System, 1993, p. xx)
Much of allopathic practice has never been submitted to the very tests
allopaths deem critical to proving efficacy and safety. Such practices
continue because the medical profession finds they provide useful collective
clinical experience.
That the pro-vaccination stance remains the official one does not indicate
its correctness; it only thrusts the burden onto those who would challenge a
status quo of over two centuries. In history, the burden is always on those
who challenge the paradigm of the day. Given the considerable amount of time
that can pass between vaccination and sequelae, cause and effect is difficult
to prove – we have to wait for the epidemiological evidence to mount as
time passes, in much the same way that we waited for statistical evidence
correlating smoking and lung cancer.
Homeopathic Evidence
Homeopathy has a unique means of testing its theory that vaccination may
induce a state of ill health or a departure from optimum health. Homeopaths
who suspect that a state of ill health resulted from a vaccination can treat
for that shock to the system. They can then make the reasonable claim that if
the health of the patient improves after the treatment for vaccination shock,
this is valid clinical evidence implicating vaccination in the previous state
of ill-health.
Every homeopath will see cases where a person's health has "never
been well since" vaccination. I can think of several recent cases. One
involved two brothers who suffered from cough and persistent upper
respiratory infections for over three years – since they received the
meningitis vaccination during an epidemic. The "epidemic" consisted
of several well-publicized cases in the local paper. The Medical Officer of
Health stated that the overall incidence was not abnormal and no mass
vaccination was justified, but parental panic forced the declaration of the
"epidemic" and the ordering of the mass vaccination of adolescents.
Medical authorities admitted that it was being done for political, not
medical, reasons. It is interesting to note that the cases of paralytic polio
used to justify the polio vaccine during the famous polio epidemic of 1949-50
in England were determined by one doctor in 1950 to have been triggered by
earlier pertussis and/or pertussis diphtheria toxoid. This provocation
poliomyelitis was also recorded in other countries following the mass
introduction of vaccination against tetanus and whooping cough in the 1940s
(Scheibner, ibid, p. xviii). The case of the two brothers is
typical of others that I have dealt with over the past three years where the
vaccination is the trigger for a host of disorders, including personality
changes. Treatment with the Meningitis vaccine nosode resulted in a striking
improvement in health and the removal of the cough which had resisted all
other treatments, both allopathic and natural.
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