written and compiled by Tony Isaacs
 

Despite a mounting and impressive body of evidence of the dangers and harm associated with vaccinations coming from both within and outside the mainstream medical community, much of mainstream medicine and the agencies that serve it continue to maintain that vaccinations are not only safe, but that we face grave dangers if we don't vaccinate ourselves, our children and our elderly - and do so often.

The continued denials and the push for more vaccinations, including going as far as requiring mandatory vaccinations of young school girls based on disputable evidence, is nothing new.  Sadly, it is just another in a series of less than praiseworthy chapters that have marked how mainstream medicine has allowed advertising and hype to mislead and failed to serve those entrusted to its care. Whether it be a physically or psychologically addictive drug, a drug we have been psychologically coerced into taking, or one we have even been legally compelled to take, mainstream medicine has followed the money at the expense of our health

Around the year 1810, a derivative of opium, named Morphine was developed as a pain killer in approximately 1810. It was considered a wonder drug because it eliminated severe pain associated with medical operations or traumatic injuries. It also left the user in a completely numb euphoric dream-state. Because of the intense euphoric side effects, the drug in 1811 was named after the Greek god of dreams, Morpheus, by Dr. F.W.A. Serturner, a German pharmacist. By the mid 1850’s morphine was available in the United States and became more and more popular with the medical profession. The benefits of using the drug to treat severe pain were considered nothing short of remarkable to doctors of the time. Unfortunately, the addictive properties of the drug, went virtually unnoticed until after the Civil War.

During the Civil War, about the same time what would come to be mainstream medicine was beginning to organize, the number of people exposed to morphine in the course of being treated for their war related injuries skyrocketed. As a result, tens of thousands of Northern and Confederate soldiers became morphine addicts. In just over 10 years from the date of its arrival into this country the United States was plagued with a major morphine epidemic.

Even though no actual statistics were kept on addiction during this period, the problem grew large enough to raise serious concerns from the medical profession. Doctors became perplexed and were completely in the dark as to how to treat this new epidemic.

By 1874, about the same time that mainstream medicine was beginning it's assault on natural and homeopathic alternatives in earnest, the answer to this increasing problem was thought to be found in the invention of a new drug in Germany. This new wonder drug was called Heroin, after its German trademarked name. Heroin was imported into the United States shortly after it was invented. The sales pitch that created an instant market to American doctors and their morphine addicted patients was that Heroin was a “safe, non addictive” substitute for morphine. Hence, the heroin addict was born and has been present in American culture ever since. (In a chillingly similar manner, the opiate Oxycontin was approved in recent years as another "safe, non-addictive" pain killer to replace traditional opiates, with similarly tragic results).

From the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s the reputable drug companies of the day began manufacturing over the counter drug kits. These kits contained a glass barreled hypodermic needle and vials of opiates (morphine or heroin) and/or cocaine packaged neatly in attractive engraved tin cases. Laudanum (opium in an alcohol base) was also a very popular elixir that was used to treat a variety of ills. Laudanum was administered to kids and adults alike - as freely as aspirin is used today.

There were of course marketing and advertising campaigns launched by the drug companies producing such products that touted the narcotics as the cure for all types of physical and mental aliments ranging from alcohol withdrawal to cancer, depression, sluggishness, coughs, colds, tuberculosis and even old age. Most of the elixirs pitched by the old “snake oil salesmen” in their medicine shows contained one or more of these very much mainstream narcotics in their mix.

The above bottle of Stickney and Poor's paregoric was distributed much like the spices for which the company is better known. McCormick also manufactured and sold paregoric, which is a mixture of opium and alcohol. Doses for infants, children, and adults are given on the bottle. At 46% alcohol, this product is 92 proof which is pretty potent in itself.

Another line of drugs which was widely prescribed and sold over the counter by mainstream medicine was amphetamines.  Amphetamine was synthesized too late to have the widespread applications enjoyed decades earlier by cocaine and the opiates. It was, however, marketed in products commonly used to relieve head congestion and asthma. Amphetamine continued to be employed as a popular prescription diet-aid into the 1970s.

In the 1950's thalidomide was launched as a wonder drug alternative to barbituates for pregnant women, despite the drug companies having clear evidence it was dangerous, and it took twelve years after it's dangers for children were discovered and after thousands of deformed babies which came to be known as "Thalidomide Babies" were born before it was taken off the market.  It might be worth noting that America was a safer, more innocent and more trusting place in those days - a time when we knew our neighbors and left our doors unlocked while we strolled the streets in safety.

More recently, at least a dozen major drugs have been pulled from the market only after pressure and exposure became too great to handle in spite of all the flawed studies, spin control, massive advertising and protective efforts on behalf of industry by agencies who were supposed to protect the public at large.  The most famous of these drugs was of course Vioxx, which has had more deaths attributed to it in the United States than the Vietnam War.

Currently, Avandia and Fosamax, as well as the FDA approved sweetener Aspartame are pulling out all the stops in the face of mounting evidence of their harm and using the usual list of suspects to try to hang on and milk as much profit as possible at the expense of human lives and suffering until they are ultimately removed from the market.  Based on the increasing incidences of death and side effects, many observers feel certain that someday Gardasil, which is still in a huge growth stage and being forced on schoolgirls around the world due to a massive campaign by Merck, will ultimately join that litany of evil drugs, as will many of the vaccines being touted so highly today for childhood diseases, prevention of cervical cancer for school girls and flu protection for the elderly.

One feature that all of the aforementioned drugs, and many others like them which have been pulled from the market due to safety issues, have had in common is a wealth of industry claims of their effectiveness and safety - claims which continued well after their harmful effects became known, as well as claims to the same effect by the agencies whose industry ties and support have been chronicled in these pages and elsewhere.  Which leads us to another shared characteristic: huge amounts of profits at stake. Sadly, those discredited and harmful drugs also shared the endorsements and recommendations of the doctors we entrust our health to for far too long as well.

If there is any lesson we should have learned from the tangled history of drugs, doctors and Madison Avenue that makes up today's mainstream medicine, it is that it serves profits foremost and our health a very distant second.  Nowhere has this been more vividly demonstrated than the misinformation we were told about cigarettes on behalf of Big Tobacco.

Some examples of Big Tobacco's fifty years of using advertising and mainstream support to perpetuate the big lie that cigarettes were not only harmless, but also had beneficial health benefits:

 1910s
"Some plain truths about buying cigarettes." Fatima. Saturday Evening Post, July 3, 1915.

 1920s
"Is Tobacco a Food?" Sweet Caporal. American Magazine, June, 1926, p. 119.
"Perhaps the cigarette you smoke is too strong!" Johnnie Walker. Vanity Fair, April 3, 1928.
"Prominent writer favors de-nicotinized cigarettes." O-Nic-O. New York Times, Jan. 19, 1928.

 1930s
"A fact! Science advances new data that may completely change your ideas of cigarettes." Camel. Collier's, July 7, 1934.
"'Camels don't get your wind,' famous baseball players say." Camel. Time, Oct. 14, 1935.
"It takes healthy nerves to be America's greatest stunt girl." Camel. American Magazine, Dec. 1, 1933.
"The old doctor handed over to his doctor son a family tradition..." Fatima. New Yorker, Jan. 5, 1930.
"This book answers your questions about cigarette smoking!" Cigarette Research Institute. Literary Digest, Aug. 4, 1934, p. 29.
"You can thank a few cranks for Listerine cigarettes." Listerine Cigarettes. New Yorker, April 23, 1932.
"Kools never miss!" Kool, Time, Nov. 16, 1936, p. 119.
"Now she'll never worry about smoking too much." Kentucky Winners. New York Times, Sept. 26, 1934.
"Nerves were out of tune." Camel. New York Times, April 4, 1934.
"Tell him to switch to Kools." Kool. Saturday Evening Post, Oct. 23, 1937
"Are you a ring twiddler?" Camel. Life, June 9, 1934.
"Of course women prefer them - they're fresh." Camel. Saturday Evening Post, Oct. 17, 1931.
"You like them fresh - so do I." Camel. Saturday Evening Post, Feb. 6, 1932.

 1940s
"The importance of the filter zone." Fleetwood. Collier's, Jan. 8, 1944, p. 45.
"5 times when to switch to Spuds." Spud. Look, Oct. 5, 1943.
"Be on guard against smoker's hack." Kool. Collier's, Aug. 30, 1941, p. 49.
"Been babying a case of smoker's hack?" Kool. Collier's, Feb. 14, 1942, p. 47.
"Got a cold?" Kool. New York Times, Feb. 11, 1940.
"There is a cigarette that's safer for you." Sano Cigarettes. New York Times, Oct. 15, 1946.
"Nose or throat congested?" Spud. Saturday Evening Post, Jan. 17, 1942, p. 65.
"Why be irritated?" Old Gold. Life, June 11, 1945, p. 73.
"The last time you had a cold..." Kool. Look, Aug. 24, 1943, p. 6.

 1950s
"The American Medical Association voluntarily conducted in their own laboratory..." Kent. New York Times, Mar. 23, 1954.
"Rosalind Russell says, 'L&M filters are just what the doctor ordered." L & M. New York Times, Nov. 2, 1953.
"Let's smoke out this nicotine problem." Sano. New York Times, Dec. 28, 1953.
"Filtered cigarette smoke is better for your health." Viceroy. Time, Aug. 20, 1951, p. 59.
"Filtered cigarette smoke is better for your health." Viceroy. New York Times, Aug. 8, 1950.
"Now... scientific evidence on effects of smoking!" Chesterfield. Family Circle, April 1953, p. 13.
"Nose, throat, and accessory organs not adversely affected by smoking Chesterfields." Chesterfield. Life, Dec. 2, 1952.
"The best cigarette news in over 40 years... The filter tip." DuMaurier. New York Times, Sept. 11, 1951.
"Less nicotine without going sissy." Lords. New York Times, July 15, 1951.
"A report to doctors - published in leading medical journals." Viceroy. Time, Dec. 7, 1953.
"New king-sized Viceroy gives you double-barrelled health protection." Viceroy. Time, Nov. 9, 1951.
"Scientific tests prove Lucky Strike milder than any other principal brand." Lucky Strike, Saturday Evening Post, June 24, 1950.

Source: Medicine and Madison Avenue http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/mma/cigarettes.html

During this same period of time, a mounting body of evidence clearly showed the dangers of smoking cigarettes, but such evidence was covered up and ridiculed by both industry and mainstream medicine, who trotted out study after study and doctor after doctor to tell us just the opposite - much as they did the same thing for fully four decades to tell us of the ineffectiveness, and even dangers, of taking vitamin supplements.

Today, we are seeing a huge and growing body of evidence of the dangers of vaccinations, as well as their relative ineffectiveness - particularly when it comes to our children and our elderly.  Right on cue, we also see a continuing blitz of advertising and counter studies, as well as the mainstream apologists chiming in on health forums, attesting to the safety of putting foul substances into our bodies as mercury, aluminum, formaldehyde, spermicide, unborn fetal matter, anthrax, monkey kidney cells, calf serums, formalin, phenol, coal tar, aspartame, MSG, various strains of deadly viruses and microbial contaminants.

Many of the quoted studies propaganda new and old attempt to dispute the dangers of mercury, such as autism.  Despite all kinds of "lies, damned lies and statistics", as Einstein called them, what the studies and hype have never properly addressed is why autism is virtually non-existent in countries which do not vaccinate nor why it is also virtually non-existent in home schooled children who are not vaccinated.

Besides common sense, history itself tells us that those who stand to profit by alleging vaccine safety are once again lying and covering up the truth, just as they did about heroin, thalidomide and Vioxx - and as they continue to do about Avandia, Fosamax, Gardasil and aspartame.  The reason they lie: because they represent a trillion dollar industry whose only marketplace is our bodies and which depends on such lies to maintain and increase profits.  Such is their greed that they care more about profits than they do about profiting humankind

Whether it be doctors, scientists, public agencies or mainstream apologists on an internet forum, those who lie to us are not our friends - by hook or by crook, they serve not mankind but the evils of greed and avarice. Harking back to the days when we strolled our neighborhoods in safety, I would ask consideration of this simple question when it comes to the question of accepting what they would have us believe today regarding vaccine safety and effectiveness:  We know that they were lying to us back then and that they had been for a long time.  Have we somehow become a kinder and gentler world in the meanwhile - one where greed plays less of a role and where those we trust with our safety are more honest and caring? Or is it just the opposite in today's world where overt advertising with healthy actors inundates us at every turn to "Ask your doctor" about an ever increasing number of new diseases and conditions while the minimized dangers scroll by in tiny print - and while at the same time we see regular revelations about the dangers of our children's cold medicines, our pain relievers, our mood stabilizers, and our medications for just about everything else which we have been told for years were safe and effective?

I recently noted an apologist post in a natural health forum that maintained that the questionable components in vaccines represented no threats simply because they are present in tiny amounts and that many of those same worrisome substances are also present in trace amounts in many other things we are exposed to.  In the same post, the point was also made that mercury was no excuse to not take vaccines since there are mercury free vaccines available (which, looking at the rest of the list of unsavory ingredients in vaccines appears to me akin to saying that a bowl of poison is not dangerous because it had the arsenic removed and left in only strychnine, lead and curare).  I suppose the poster must not be familiar with homeopathic principles when it comes to small or trace amounts - or more likely, rejects such principles because that is what mainstream medicine tells us to do.

Thanks largely to man, there is indeed no shortage of trace amounts of any number of harmful substances in any number of places and things we encounter and consume.  However, harmful is harmful and there is no such thing as a "safe" level of a harmful substance - that is merely a false label created to prevent and dispel alarm and gain trust where none is warranted. Just because we may be exposed to tiny amounts of something unsavory is no reason to consume or subject our bodies to more of it.

I am relatively certain that, due to the country environment I frequently find myself in, there is no shortage of cow and bull manure I encounter- and it is even likely that I might inadvertently inhale or consume trace amounts when I breathe or when I pluck a pear or persimmon off a tree.  However, I have no desire whatsoever to purposely dine on it.

I daresay neither does hardly anyone else who is aware of the natural alternatives to mainstream drugs and treatments and we would rather that the mainstream servers stop trying to feed us a big dish of the stuff.
 

Sources included:

http://www.heroinaddiction.com/heroin_hist.html

http://wings.buffalo.edu/aru/preprohibition.htm