Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines, and The Forgotten History

Dr. Suzanne Humphries deserves an award for bringing the load of vaccine record and history to a finely orchestrated; and lengthy, book. The parent of 4 children, I had never questioned vaccines before 2 of our children had a severe reaction to their shots at a joint appointment in which my daughter received her Kindergarten shots and our son (then not yet 3) received the shots required between 18m-3years, which was the DTaP & Hep A. Our son had immediate symptoms he wasn’t well but I was pregnant with our 4th child and thought he was just being a normal attention seeking kid. He kept complaining, “my legs.” And wouldn’t Assist when I carried him out and looked zoned out. When I put him down to walk himself he flopped and said he couldn’t and I assumed he was just babying it. He slept for three days straight which I called Abbie worried and they said it was Normal and then began a zoned out period in which he also lost control of his bowels, wouldn’t talk, seemed confused when asked anything and began to wAil and whine at every response. At the same time our daughter began to have manic behavioral symptoms, everything touching her she was frantic, couldn’t explain her thoughts before loosing her point and becoming irrational and angry, lost control of her Bowels and began complaining of back and leg pain so much she’d wake in the night screaming it hurt. Her reactions merited a few visits to the ER; one 4 days after the vaccine, in which each time they reasoned her symptoms away as a flu like symptom and didn’t think she had meningitis because she lacked some of the symptoms. I mentioned she had the MMR vaccine 4 days prior, so how could she have meningitis and they didn’t really answer me. It made me curious so upon a follow up the next morning my doctor didn’t really answer my question either, so I asked for some papers to take home to read on it and the shots, since Our son was still in lethargic/sick mode after his and she was very animated about his symptoms being normal. So much so it was overkill and I wasn’t incinerating his was abnormal, (he hadn’t lost his bowels or began any other behavior aside from Sleeping and being generally quiet and zoned out yet at that point). We began reading packet inserts online and I was appalled to see how many adverse reactions there could be. We decided to ask our doc again for information so we could make a rational choice seeing how our 4th son was to be born very soon ( he was born 14 days after their reaction), and one nurse said they had a nurse who dealt strictly with vaccine and medicine questions she’d send in to talk to me, but no one came. The next nurse I asked to remind them to get her looked confused like she had no clue who I was talking about. When my doc came in I asked her and she didn’t confirm there was any nurse and said she had papers I could have. When she came back she said the papers were from a book she forgot she loaned to another patient and hadn’t gotten back, but wasn’t able to tell me the name of it. It was way to many weird situations for us not to thing there was something there. As each kid got worse visits became shorter and no one Brothered to suggest we test anything, they just said it was normal and it happens at the age our son was at. He has since been diagnosed with Autism. Luckily for our newest son he has never been vaccinated and truly is healthy. He hasn’t had ear infections, respiratory issues like our other 3 children had. We read all the way through his first year, saying to ourselves, “ we’ll keep reading a little more then we can always get his vaccines next month after we know everything and can feel comfortable” The more we read the more we had to read more and more, and time just flew by, the literature we read along the way deterring us from vaccinating each time. He is now a year and a half old and runs, jumps off things, says over 40 words and has no allergies. We are happy with our decision and continue to learn as we are recovering our son from Autism with great success using diet, Dr Andy Cutlers Chelation Therapy Protocol and boosting his immune system so far and still weighing opinions for our daughter, who is still being looked at for issues that arose. So far she’s diagnosed with Emotional Disturbance Disorder, has a lot of set backs in her abilities in reading, so much so she’s in the lowest group now in school despite our nightly practice and teachers support. She has had several MRI’s, one of which we were refered to a neurosurgeon to correct nerve damage in her spine from the vaccine; although no one will admit it’s from the vaccine, not on paper anyways. It’s infuriating. Parents should all be informed of their doctors education on vaccine ingredients, reactions, law and vaccine approval processes. If they choose to vaccinate that is their choice, just like it is ours to no longer. Free from bullying, free from judgement, free from ignorance. Attached are images of some of the many books I’ve read that you may also find enjoyable. Emords book is extremely detailed, depressing in explaining specific laws and cases by which they were governed and very eloquent.

This book blew my mind. Granted, I have always had an open mind towards ideas, especially ideas that fly in the face of convention. But this book? these are not "ideas" but cold, hard, ugly FACTS. and that's why this is a MUST READ. for Everyone. this is the biggest issue of our time!! People have been against mandated (used to be called "compulsory") vaccinations for the past 200 years! The mainstream media wouldn't have you think that, tho! Imagine, doctors going door to door with police officers, holding people down and vaccinating them against their will. Ludacris, right? absolutely! But it really happened! These authors demonstrate amazingly how better hygiene, better sanitation, and better nutrition, NOT VACCINES, helped to eradicate these common diseases (and the authors give deep chapters going in depth into EACH "disease" that vaccines are often touted as having "eradicated"--the charts provided ALONE show, clearly, that ALL the diseases that mainstream media and the establishment claim vaccines eriadicated were actually basically eradicated DECADES BEFORE ANY VACCINE WAS INTRODUCED but that's just one nugget of gold from this book). AND!! they provide great, lost information about actual remedies and nutrition habits that are preventative against many diseases. Yall, it's all about having better sanitation and better nutrition; once these things improved around the turn of the 20th century, the diseases--and the mortality rates--basically all but disappeared! This book was amazing, I read it cover to cover in two days (its about 500 pages) and it is reaffirming to anyone who has ever doubted the efficiency of vaccines. People have been AGAINST this kind of thing FOR CENTURIES. so, you are NOT crazy! You are NOT "anti-science"! You have COMMON SENSE just as our ancestors did before! I highly encourage everyone to buy and read this book, because this is one of the biggest problems probably of our time. Humans will look back on this age--of 70 vaccinations before the age of 5--as pure unadulterated insanity. Not to mention, vaccine manufacturers have blanket legal protection from any harm/damages their products may cause (thanks to 1986 Vaccine Injury Act) and remember its a trillion dollar industry (well, Big Pharma plays its part in it too). Its all too clear why they are censoring this topic right now--if we put it up to a REAL debate, they would LOSE. Peace and love.

I am a mom who has had fears and doubts about vaccines ever since before my first child was born. I read Dr. Robert Sears' "Vaccine Book" and decided that there were pro's and con's with vaccines and that they had done good work in getting rid of nasty diseases in the past but that there were rare but disturbing side effects associated as well. So we opted to do a more spread-out schedule and delay or forgo some vaccines altogether. We started in with the same schedule for my second child. Neither of them have had any bad reactions but I would still worry and wonder. My interest in the subject was renewed after a debate with someone recently, and I found this book. I immediately ordered it because of the history and the other reviews saying how everything was backed up with tons of references and citations. I figured, how can we learn anything but from history? It is very detailed, and gets quite technical at times, so I couldn't fully understand all of it. But there is a stunning amount of data and information available for anyone to understand and I couldn't put the book down. I read it in about 5 days, skipping around a little. It is shocking just how much important information is left out of main-stream propaganda on vaccines. For example, "The Vaccine Book" I once held in high esteem, makes statements like "Before vaccines, the measles used to be very serious and many people died from it. Now, hardly anyone gets measles anymore". So the assumption is made that vaccines saved us from measles, from only two data points- 1) some ambiguous time before vaccines and 2) after vaccines.What is not explained is that deaths from measles had already dropped 90-99% BEFORE the vaccine was ever introduced. And that measles deaths did not suddenly do a nose-dive after the vaccine. This book helps to point out and explain those important gaps. It also points out that other once-serious illnesses that caused many deaths are also virtually unheard of now, even though we never had a vaccine for them (such as scurvy, scarlet fever, and others). Another important point that the book makes is that simultaneous with new vaccines often came a new, much narrower definition of the illness. So any perceived decrease in illness credited to the vaccine was just due to a narrower definition of that illness. It starts with the stories of the Industrial Revolution, how people became suddenly crowded into cities, living in horrible conditions often in window-less rooms, garbage and excrement and dead bodies in the streets, drank water polluted with these things, ate spoiled meat and fish and vegetables (although precious little was eaten at all), drank dirty milk, etc. They often worked 12-16 hour days and from very young ages, sometimes as young as 5 years old. Women worked as well as men, often leaving very young girls to care for their infants. Mothers didn't breastfeed. A large number of families often shared a single toilet. They rarely bathed. Rats were everywhere. Hospitals were sometimes the worst of all- a place where sick people went to die. Women who had their babies in a hospital had a good chance of dying from the physicians' unwashed hands introducing germs into her body. The bodies of people who died at home were sometimes left in their tiny apartments to rot for days before the family scraped enough pennies together to bury them. With these kind of living conditions, it is no wonder so many diseases ran rampant and killed so many. (It's amazing to me that any lived at all!) This is the world that vaccine-enthusiasts are talking about when they say things like measles is a dangerous, deadly disease. This book, alongside a couple others I have read, gives me the confidence to know that vaccines did NOT eradicate horrible illnesses (better hygiene, nutrition, and living and working conditions did that). It also gives hints about Vitamin A and Vitamin C being excellent treatments when one does get very sick. This book contains vital information for every concerned parent or health-care worker. It is also important for those working to improve developing countries, pointing out that they need clean water, a clean living environment, sufficient rest, and sufficient and good quality food to cut down on their diseases not vaccines.

Dissolving Illusions by Suzanne Humphries. Polio vaccination workers in Pakistan are a favorite target of militants who have been killing them off for years now. Perhaps these AK-47 wielding gunmen have read Dr. Humphries' excellent book on vaccine illusions, which pulls back the curtain to reveal the ugly truth about infectious disease and vaccines. Firstly establishing the historical record of abysmal sanitation and living conditions at the turn of the century, and secondly reviewing the mortality data from infectious disease in the public record, Dr Suzanne Humphries makes a compelling argument that infectious disease was conquered by improved sanitation and nutrition, and not by vaccination programs which were either ineffective, or actually increased the mortality. One by one, smallpox, diphtheria, whooping cough, measles, and polio are all reviewed, and the historical record carefully examined. In the polio chapter you will find the connection between polio and DDT and arsenic exposure. A graph of DDT industrial production superimposed over polio mortality bears a striking exact correlation. Also, you will read about the role of the courageous Sister Kenny who devised a successful treatment for the children with paralyzed limbs which was bitterly opposed by mainstream orthopedic surgeons. You will learn that polio was never really conquered. You may recall the terrifying images of heart lung machines of the 1950's graphically displayed by the March of Dimes polio advertisements in magazines. These are gone. They have been replaced by modern respirators, and polio has been renamed infantile flaccid paralysis. Dr Suzanne Humphries is a board certified nephrologist and a very smart woman. When her kidney patients were thrown into renal failure after routine flu vaccinations administered upon entry to the hospital, her pleas to spare her patients were rebuffed. She had requested that her patients not be vaccinated until hospital discharge. This was the turning point, after which, her colleagues, doctors on staff at the hospital, and administrators regarded her with suspicion, as anti-vaccination. Apparently, that's all it takes to be regarded as a pariah, scorned and outcast-ed. Perhaps this book is a form of revenge, an acute lesson for the mediocre pro-vaccine colleagues who opposed her. If you grew up and live in the US, then you have been indoctrinated to believe vaccination to be effective in the prevention of infectious disease, and to have minimal adverse side effects. Be prepared to have those illusions shattered by this unique book which is a monument of scholarly work on this topic, and deserves multiple re-readings. The care and detail of the documentation is intentional and overwhelming. My congratulations to the authors for a job well done. You might also find interesting, Confessions of a Medical Heretic by Robert S. Mendelsohn MD. He was an early pioneer in the anti-vaccination movement and also my medical school adviser. Jeffrey Dach MD

Superb, the best book by far on vaccination. The book quotes extensively from original sources and reviews the history of health, illness and vaccination. It makes a compelling case that major illness was cured by nutrition, clean water, garbage collection, and improved standards of living. For example, scurvy, a nutritional disease easily cured by even small amounts of vitamin C, used to kill a fair number of people. Curiously enough, death rates from scurvy closely followed deaths from illness over the last 200 years. But there was no vaccine for scurvy, it was cured by better nutrition -- in the same way that these factors dramatically reduced the death rate from illness, well before any vaccines were introduced. The book talks about herd immunity, and the major fallacy in thinking that vaccination provides herd immunity. The problem is that vaccines do not provide lasting protection for most people (which is why kids need frequent boosters). Because a significant fraction of the population will have lapsed protection, and a significant fraction will not get any protection from a vaccine that doesn't "take", you just don't get herd immunity with vaccines. The book lays out the ways in which vaccines are a major factor in autism, ADD/ADHD, learning disabilities, epilepsy, asthma, anaphylactic shock to peanuts and more rarely to eggs, food allergies, chronic low-grade infections, increased risk to infants from measles (because a Mom who doesn't get measles can't pass on her resistance), increased risk as adults for shingles, etc. Not to mention the kids who are permanently disabled or die every year, and the likely connection between vaccination and SIDS. When we were in the hospital after my son was born, we saw a baby go into seizures shortly after getting its Hep B shot, and my sister, an RN, had one of her babies stop breathing after being vaccinated. (She was able to resuscitate him, but that was the last shot any of her kids ever got.) Finally, the risk of death or disability from catching one of the illnesses that are vaccinated for is extremely low, and totally preventable with proper support protocols. Vaccines are a major $30 billion dollar business based on fraud. There are no large-scale studies comparing non-vaccinated kids versus vaccinated ones, or even any studies showing that the current vaccine schedule is safe and beneficial to overall health. The few small-scale studies show that non-vaccinated kids are far healthier. Vaccines put money in your pediatrician's pocket and in the major pharmaceutical company's pockets, all for minimal benefit and significant risk to your children.

On April 13, 2015, reviewer Isabella B made of number of serious errors in her one-star review of the book. I responded to that review, but felt that those April 13 comments were so off-the-mark and misleading-- while giving the appearance of a rigorous scientific review-- that the response to those comments deserved a review in itself. Hence the current review. I will take Isabella's negative comments point-by-point. The reviewer's original points-- statements she attributes to Humphries-- are in uppercase text. My opinion of the Humphries book is that it's well-researched and accurate and backed up by published research, and that the reviewer severely distorted the facts presented in the book. CLAIM 1: THE MEASLES VACCINE CAUSES ILLNESS The reviewer asserts that Dr. Humphries says that the measles vaccine causes illness, and states that Humphries used an outdated paper from 1967 to confuse and mislead readers. However, it is very clear from the outset of that section (beginning on page 347) that Humphries is talking about an early version of the measles virus, and is referring to “the history you may not know about.” The reviewer is misleading when she states that Humphries asserts that “the measles vaccine causes illness”: that is not what she says. Humphries does say that there have been documented cases of aseptic meningitis and serious neurological diseases after measles vaccination and two of her references are from years 2002 and 2008. CLAIM 2: MEASLE VACCINATION DOES NOT PROTECT AGAINST ALL STRAINS. Technically, the reviewer might be right that this isn’t true (I don’t know,) but what we do know is that there have been many documented cases of measles outbreaks in fully-vaccinated populations. For example, the NEJM in 1987 had a paper on a “Measles Outbreak in a Fully-Immunized Secondary School Population.” In 1998, there was a measles outbreak in a highly vaccinated population in Anchorage, Alaska; in 1996, an outbreak occurred among a highly vaccinated population in Toronto; and so on. Humphries’ main point that measles vaccines may not protect against measles is in fact true. CLAIM 3: ANTIBODIES ARE USELESS. I can’t find the reference quote anywhere on page 389, or in nearby passages. In context, however, what Humphries is saying is that antibodies have been shown to be sometimes unnecessary in fighting diseases, and she cites the example of children with congenital agammaglobulinaemia, who could make no antibody but nevertheless recovered from measles and also, remarkably, seemed immune to further attacks (p 364.) Humphries cites references for this. So the claim is not that antibodies are useless; the claim is that maybe we don’t know as much about antibodies as we thought. The reviewer is distorting Humphries’ position. CLAIM 4: ANTIBODIES ARE HARMFUL. I refer readers to pages 366-369 of Humphries’ book, where you can read for yourselves how the reviewer’s take on Humphries’ position is a distortion of what Humphries actually says. Humphries isn’t saying antibodies are harmful; she is pointing out documentation that shows how antibodies can sometimes confuse cellular mechanisms, and the main point is that we really don’t fully understand how immunity works with regards to the measles vaccine, and in fact we see many instances of the failure of that vaccine, as I pointed out above in “claim 2” comments. CLAIM 5: THE MEASLES VACCINE WAS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DECLINE IN THE DISEASE. As the reviewer knows from reading the book, polio is an instance where a change in criteria for diagnosis must have had a significant, but unacknowledged, effect on incidence. The criteria changed from paralysis for 24 hours to paralysis for 60 days, and we don’t know how many cases were “wiped out” by this change in diagnosis in 1955. With measles, as with most vaccines, once a vaccine comes out the diagnostic criteria are often tightened, and in addition doctors will be reluctant to call cases “measles” if they know there is a vaccine against the measles—this is just human nature and isn’t unreasonable or fraudulent. The vaccine probably did decrease measles, but to what extent is unclear. We do know that mortality from measles fell precipitously long before the vaccine came online. CLAIM 6: RASHLESS MEASLES LEADS TO DEGENERATIVE DISEASE The reviewer implies that Humphries is wrong because she cites a paper that deals with immunoglobulin and not vaccines. However, the point Humphries is making concerns the mechanism that is common to both rashless measles that may be acquired through vaccination or through treatment with immunoglobulin, and that involves the interference with cellular immunity mechanisms (an incomplete immune response.) From the same Lancet paper the reviewer references, Humphries excerpts a quote: “immunization performed while antibody is present may induce long-term suppressive effect.” So the paper, contrary to what the reviewer asserted, does address vaccination. CLAIM 7: BREAST MILK OFFERS SUPERIOR PROTECTION AGAINST MEASLES COMPARED TO THE VACCINE The reviewer states that Humphries got the paper cited (Silfverdale 2009) backwards. But the study does, in fact, assert that breast-feeding can offer protection up to age ten. Table 1 in the paper says that 31.2% of those vaccinated later got the measles, whereas only 8.4% of those breastfeed longer than three months got measles. This data supports Humphries’ interpretation. The conclusion of the paper is not, in my opinion, stated clearly, and may lead to some confusion. CLAIM 8: THE MEASLES VACCINE LEADS TO HIGHER INFANT MORTALITY The correct page number for the reference is page 393. In this section Humphries is making the point that vitamin A is depleted by measles, and as an example she cites a study in which there was a higher mortality associated with a higher titer measles vaccine. This higher mortality was likely due to vitamin A depletion of the higher, as compared to the lower, titer vaccine—according to the study. Humphries was not saying that the measles vaccine leads to higher infant mortality, and to say that she was is to grossly misconstrue this section. And BTW the quote here, which the reviewer attributes to Humphries, was from the authors of the study in question. Dr. Humphries’ book should be required reading for every physician in the country, and for every parent concerned that what the vaccine authorities are telling us may not be the truth.

Vaccines have long been considered to be one of the greatest medical innovations of all time. It's common knowledge that vaccines greatly reduced or eliminated most infectious diseases that ravaged populations during the 19th century and into the first half of the 20th century… or so we are told. According to the authors of Dissolving Illusions, vaccines played a very minimal role in the reduction of infectious diseases. But why then would nearly everyone, including most medical doctors, be so much in favor of vaccines? Therein lies a fascinating story. Truth is, indeed, stranger than fiction! Author Dr. Suzanne Humphries was a very highly paid MD (as a kidney specialist) in a hospital, and for years was in synch with the hospital's pro-vaccine agenda. But then she began see problems in some of her patients that seemed to be connected to their vaccines. Her attempts to do something about this were brushed off by the hospital authorities. This eventually led to her voluntary resignation in 2011. She spent the next few years doing full-time research of the scientific literature and on the history related to vaccines. She then began to teach the shocking truths she had discovered, bucking threats and being called a "quack" in the process. Coauthor Roman Dystrianyk is a father of three children. He had researched vaccines and tried unsuccessfully to convince his wife that they were unsafe. She was a nurse who sided with the medical authorities. She had their kids vaccinated with multiple shots all in one visit, without Roman's knowledge. All three kids got sick and Roman found out what had happened. This led him to do much further research. It is apparent that money was a not a motivator for either Suzanne or Roman. (However, as we can see from other sources, money in the multi-billions is likely a motivator for the vaccine industry. And there is evidence of enormous conflicts-of-interest within and between Big Pharma, the CDC, FDA, and academia.) The formatting of this book is brilliant. Generally throughout we have a few paragraphs of authors' commentary followed by a supportive brief excerpt from an authoritative source (all sources identified), a bit more commentary, another referenced excerpt etc. This makes for enjoyable easy reading and maximum comprehension. Photos and graphs are appropriately inserted. The book starts with an overview of what life was like in "The Not So Good Ol' Days," (1700s and 1800s). Life was much harder than many of us can imagine. Disease was common, life spans were shorter. Crude inoculations against Smallpox were used in the 1700s and through the 1800s. Death rates remained high despite periods of mandatory vaccination until sanitation measures began to be employed in the late 1800s. The Smallpox story is discussed in great detail. Most infectious diseases declined markedly in the late 1800s and especially during the early decades of the 1900s before vaccines had even been invented for most to them. This was due to vast improvements in sanitation, sewage systems, better water, plumbing, the gasoline engine enabling trucking and better transportation, electricity, better farming and nutrition, refrigeration, and higher standard of living. The polio story is especially intriguing. Pictures of people encased in iron lungs and kids wearing braces hooked people emotionally. (I was 12 years old in 1954 when the Salk Vaccine was announced and I still remember the jubilation in my school.) Eventually reports of vaccine success against polio were reported. But research of the facts reveals that this was due to fudging of statistics and changing disease definitions to give the appearance of success. A modern version of the iron lung is still with us which is called a ventilator. It is a much smaller and far less dramatic-looking device for treating cases of breathing paralysis stemming from "transverse myelitis" – which still occurs, and which results from many possible causes usually NOT related to the polio virus, but which would historically have been generalized as "polio." Seventy pages of the book are devoted to the very complex and twisted story of the supposed "disappearance" of polio. The bottom line is that the wild polio virus itself was never as serious a threat as was assumed. Polio vaccines (Salk and Sabin) did much more harm than good for several reasons – the authors explain how so in detail. By the way, Franklin Roosevelt probably did not have polio, but Guilain-Bair syndrome (GBS). The story of vaccines against whooping cough (pertussis) is also involved and dramatic, as is the measles story, both of which are covered in detail. The authors explain why "herd immunity" for most diseases (if any) cannot be achieved through vaccinations no matter how high the percentage of people vaccinated. It is clear that vaccines in general are not nearly as effective as the authorities claim, and they are far more dangerous than is generally believed. The final chapter is on "Belief and Fear" – fear of disease leading to reliance on those considered to be knowledgeable authorities. Hopeful thinking along with big money have had much to do with the "authorities" becoming conditioned to believe the mythology of "safe and effective" vaccines. The effectiveness of the vaccine approach has long been greatly exaggerated, the science corrupted, and vaccine risk "continuously denied and underplayed." We humans have the ability to deceive ourselves, especially when fear or money is involved. Dissolving Illusions is a wonderful tool for educating people on the truth regarding vaccines.

This book hardly needs any more 5-star reviews, so rather than reiterate what others have said positively about it, I thought I’d take the time to address a couple of the 1-star reviews which, unlike the vast majority of other negative comments, actually contained what appeared to be substantive and thoughtful responses to the point that, in reading them, I was almost dissuaded from purchasing and reading this book. TL;DR -- the book is still very much worth reading, and while some of the objections have more merit than others, none suffice to dismiss the central ideas or history presented in the book, which you should definitely still get and read for yourself. One more note before the details -- I'm forced to cut substantial portions of this review due to Amazon's character count limit, not because I didn't (or couldn't) address some of the objections. Perhaps I'll publish the full version elsewhere at some point. The first negative review is titled “Pseudoscience Classic” by David Rintoul, which was the more measured and articulate of the two. Professor Rintoul argues that the authors have constructed a textbook example of pseudoscience, manipulating facts and twisting narratives to present a simplistic and false worldview which is used to arrive at predetermined and "dangerous" conclusions. Each of these is addressed in more detail next, but a general comment at the outset is that quite a few of these are interconnected and apply just as appropriately within the arguments that Rintoul makes, and the the broader medical and scientific establishment are also just as (if not more) guilty of the same "pseudoscientific" cognitive traps. I found it interesting going back to re-read this review after completing the book, as the very first complaint (“A search for a simple answer”) came across as not just wrong, but an inversion of reality which the authors specifically addressed repeatedly throughout the book. Vaccination as developed and practiced in the Western world is a textbook example of a search for a simple answer to a very complex problem. One particularly relevant quote cited in the book is worth reproducing in full: "..'the immune system remains a black box' says Garry Fathman, MD, a professor of immunology and rheumatology and associate director of the Institute for Immunology, Transplantation, and Infection...It's staggeringly complex, comprising at least 15 different interacting cell types that spew dozens of different molecules into the blood to communicate with one another and to do battle. Within each of those cells sit tens of thousands of genes whose activity can be altered by age, exercise, infection, vaccination status, diet, stress, you name it... That's an awful lot of moving parts. And we don't really know what the vast majority of them do, or should be doing... We can't even be sure how to tell when the immune system's not working right, let alone why not, because we don't have good metrics of what a healthy immune system looks like. Despite billions spent on immune stimulants in supermarkets and drugstores last year, we don't know what -- if anything -- those really do, or what 'immune stimulant' even means" [p.330-331, B. Goldman, Stanford Medicine, 2011]. The idea that vaccination is the universal answer to the problem of infectious disease is no less a simple minded than the simplified argument “vaccines are bad” as attacked in this objection. Raising the boogeyman of “vaccines cause autism” is not appropriate either here, as the book mentions the disease only in passing on a couple occasions. This book is clearly not concerned with autism, and casting it in that light is yet another example of oversimplification and imputing the intent of concerned parents who might read the book (which is the exact kind of faulty argumentation employed in his "boogeyman" objection -- see below). The first of the "lies of omission" is a study on an epidemic outbreak in St. Petersburg, from which the authors of the book selectively quote the abstract and disregard a sentence which Rintoul claims should be included. While the two sentences are found in the abstract and it is true that the authors of the book only included the latter, the devil is in the details here. In the Mortality section and associated table in the cited study, we learn that only a single patient under the age of 30 died during the epidemic outbreak, and that for the purposes of the study, "vaccinated" refers to "[p]atients who had got the basic diphtheria vaccination in childhood and one or more booster doses of toxoid vaccine during the last 5 years." In the discussion section of this paper, we learn that the "mortality (2.3%) was much lower than in the recent out-breaks [sic] in the Western countries (about 10%) Only 16 of the 42 patients who died were non-alcoholics...There may be many explanations for the low mortality." Among these "many" explanations for low mortality, the vaccination rate, cited as "unsatisfactorily" low later in the paper, is conspicuously missing. Furthermore, the "underestimation" of the efficacy of vaccination refers to prevention of the more toxic forms of infection, not mortality. I personally think it's probably safe to infer this is because the actual mortality-correlated data did not support the same finding regarding vaccination (or else they would have included it), but even being charitable on this point, the authors "arrived" at underestimated vaccine efficacy as follows: "Vaccination data were especially lacking for male alcoholics and persons who died soon after admission. These patients may have had a lower incidence of vaccination. Thus, our results may underestimate the protective efficacy of vaccination." This is the full extent of their reasoning, which I hardly need to point out is pure conjecture. So while yes, the authors could and perhaps should have included a more detailed citation of the paper than the limited quote from the abstract, the full story isn't nearly as close to a full about-face that would amount to intentional mischaracterization. The second "lie of omission" is the alleged requirement of Leicester medical staff to have been vaccinated against smallpox. Here, once again, Rintoul is guilty of that which he accuses the authors, which are clear from the very first page of the chapter that vaccination rates in Leicester never dropped to zero, but rather to around 10 percent which is far below the standard messaging from the medical community about vaccination coverage and "herd immunity", and can hardly qualify as "many people [who] remained in the population". Presumably, the hospital and medical staff throughout the rest of England was also required to be vaccinated, and yet throughout there continued to be epidemic smallpox outbreaks the same time during which the experts were wringing their hands about Leicester. Even if it is true that all medical staff in Leicester received the smallpox vaccine (and presumably continued to receive the boosters which were also required), the truth still holds that the massive epidemic of smallpox, which for decades all of the wisest doctors predicted would descend upon it, never occurred. Given the thoroughly well-established adverse effects of the smallpox vaccine, the Leicester example would still demonstrate that the concept of herd immunity through vaccination only is not based in reality, and that it would be in the interest of both health and freedom to not compel vaccination. Instead, in a throwback to the first objection, the simple and unifying answer of vaccination is thrust forward regardless of the evidence. Regarding gish-gallop: just because Rintoul disagrees with the purpose of the picture of the mosquito treated with DDT (or with any of the "irrelevant graphs and images") does not mean that they do not contribute to the story the authors are trying to tell. It's clear that, in example after example, any alternative potential explanation related to infectious diseases and their associated vaccines lack a substantial body of peer-reviewed research to establish a clear mechanism. In a sense, what this book outlines is just why that is the case; namely, that the conceptual biases and monetary (among other) conflicts of interest come together, making it effectively impossible to break though this establishment blockade of information and research. To round out the response to this objection, it's absurd to complain that the citation list is too extensive and full of irrelevant information, and that "the authors might have produced a book less than 10% the length", as if the authors had done so, the objection of course would have been rather that the narrative was not sufficiently documented or based in the scientific literature. The story of the history of vaccines in relation to diseases necessarily requires a narrative form as the people, places, and conditions involved span several continents and centuries. As such, the book is not presented as a rigorous scientific text on the same level as journal articles. Between the two options of not citing enough and over-citing, both of which establishment-minded individuals would attack, the authors made the correct choice in opting to include more the primary source material and extended quotations rather than sticking to the bare minimum which, again, would have been criticized as incomplete and amateur. The authors make it clear in numerous places throughout the book that correlation does not equal causation. This is a cheap and low-hanging criticism which does not find merit when reading the book. Now moving on to "False Dichotomies". But so what that "medical doctors could have prevented lots of deaths by washing their hands"? The so what is that doctors are not some special class of people with perfect knowledge or practices, as evidenced throughout history not just with the example of puerperal disease. Mentioning nutrition is defeating the purpose here as well, as the authors make clear that it was not just sanitation but also an evolution of nutritional understanding which lead to the overall drop in infant mortality during the 19th and 20th centuries. It is rather the doctors and medical research establishment (funded of course by the same companies who are lobbying congress to make their very products mandatory, for which, incidentally, they also have lobbied congress to bear no legal liability) who fall back to simple answers as opposed to complicated ones -- the simple answer being that vaccines are responsible for the eradication of infectious diseases, with little to no attention given at all to the compounding factors which are laid out in historical detail throughout this book. The authors do in fact give consideration to the idea that both advances in sanitation practices and infrastructure and vaccines were responsible for the drop in disease-related deaths, but the conclusion that they draw is that the contribution from the vaccine part of that analysis is highly dubious to say the least. Just because they examine the historical facts and come to a conclusion that one of the factors is not nearly as important as claimed by establishment orthodoxy doesn't mean that they are presenting a false dichotomy or reducing the question to a univariate analysis. I'm honestly surprised objection on "personal subjective anecdotes" is even included, as it adds no substantive critique of the book. Leaving it in and mentioning that anecdotal stories are "not as obvious" within the book, it sounds as though he couldn't find any beyond the author's personal introductions, which are, by definition, a more informal avenue of discussion between the readers and the authors. One can hardly expect an author's introduction to consist of an immediate dive into the data, nor to be a sterile accounting of objective facts about the authors. This is ridiculous grasping at straws, and if there were further examples from within the book they would have been included. Finally, we'll look at the "conspiracy theorist" and "boogymen" objections together. Rintoul says tat "If a scientist figured out a way to overturn a paradigm, or, even better, advance human health, he/she would immediately do so, and the notion that some vague international cabal could keep them from that is not only dubious, it is insulting to very real scientist on the planet". Well I happen to be a real scientist on this planet, and the treatment of Wakefield in the book, which I think was no longer than a paragraph, can hardly be characterized (honestly) as belief that some international cabal pulling all of the strings is disingenuous at best. While I am not familiar with Wakefield or any of the controversy surrounding him, this objection really belies a naive and historically uninformed perspective on precisely how scientific ideas which challenge and overturn existing paradigms evolve conceptually and socially within the broader scientific community. Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions gives a detailed accounting of how, necessarily, radical shifts in scientific paradigms and foundational assumptions are not simply a matter of "immediately doing so" (publishing), but are invariably met with bitter resistance and bias against the change. This objection is really yet another example of an observation that scientists today are not sufficiently trained in any appreciable manner in the history and development of scientific thought, nor in philosophy or epistemology. Both Kuhn and Whitehead were ahead of their time in warning that such one-sided and hyper-specialized training of the mind could have disastrous consequences for the further development of science. Furthermore, there is a growing trend in our society to stick an other-ing label on those we disagree with rather than engage in honest debate about the disagreement. Certainly that is not all that Rintoul is doing with his objections, but throwing around charged categorical classifications to elicit a conditioned response at the group level is not appropriate for thinking people. The fantastical idea that those in positions of power will never work with others to further their own interests, which is what a categorical dismissal of "conspiracy theories" constitutes, is a far more untenable position to maintain than even some of the kookier theories floating out there on the internet. The anti-vaxxer is the quintessential boogeyman -- a terror which plagues reasonable and responsible parents everywhere throughout civilized society. Using labels such as anti-vaxxer (and others which reduce disagreement to a categorical error equivalent to Orwellian wrongthink) does the exact opposite of engender objective and reasoned analysis between two camps who have a disagreement. But of course, that is not the goal of mainstream establishmentarians -- they seek instead to impose their orthodoxy upon the uneducated masses who lack the same kind of credentialed expertise of they and their peers in the ivory towers (built with research money from big pharma). Once again, even if this were to be a totally valid criticism, it applies just as equally to the arguments made from the other side. I'll spend significantly less time addressing Isabella B.'s review titled "Fine, make a case against vaccines, but why use deception?" for reasons that will quickly become obvious. These are similar arguments as addressed under "lies of omission" above. But who indeed is "deliberately trying to confuse and mislead readers"? Directly before the quoted sentence from her first "claim", the authors make the point explicitly that this was an early form of the measles vaccine which used a whole "killed" virus approach. The point of bringing this up is yet another example of how patients were injuring by following the established best medical practices of the day, not that the early measles vaccine is the same that is currently in use, nor that the same potential side-effects still apply to a vaccine which is structural and functionally different. On the very next page, the authors are again explicit: "The killed vaccines were quickly abandoned"; to present the quote as a deliberate attempt to mislead is to either not have read the full context or to be willfully deceptive. The quote in the second claim is not found on the page given in the citation, nor anywhere else in the chapter (although I'll admit I didn't re-read the entire chapter to hunt down this quotation -- the point is, it isn't where she said it is). Isabella also intentionally misquotes the passage in claim 7 by changing "significant impact on on lowering measles risk when compared to non-breastfeeding" to "far larger impact on measles risk than vaccinating". As with Rintoul, she is guilty of the same kind of unconscionable lies and mischaracterizations for which she attacks the authors. The full quote from p.389 is included here: "When Silfverdale evaluated thousands of vaccinated and unvaccinated breastfed and non-breastfed children looking at the risk of measles, breastfeeding had a significant impact on lowering measles risk when compared to non-breastfeeding, independent of vaccination." While the cited journal article does assert that vaccination offers a larger risk reduction for measles than breastfeeding by itself, the only intellectually honest criticism which can be leveled against the authors is that they don't mention this statistic which is a long way from claiming that the authors intentionally obfuscated and mischaracterized the paper by claiming breastfed babies were on the whole less likely to contract measles than vaccinated babies. The authors of the book quote the article in length right after these claims, which state: "The inverse association of measles diagnosis with breast-feeding was found also in children vaccinated against measles with an odds ratio (and 95% confidence interval) of 0.74 (0.60–0.90) for those breast-fed for more than three months compared with those who were never breast-fed. Among children not vaccinated against measles the odds ratio for breast-feeding for more than three months was 0.63 (0.50–0.79) compared with those who were never breast-fed." Contrary to the Isabella consulting the actual study and finding that "it did not claim that breastfeeding protection lasted up to 10 years", the very first sentence of the conclusion states "Breast-feeding may be associated with a modest reduced risk for clinical measles infection up to the age of ten years". In summary, almost every objection that is made against this book and these authors applies just as strongly if not more so to those in the mainstream who level such objections. In a sense, this review is probably only preaching to the choir. Those who, for whatever reason, have accepted as part of their worldview that mega-corporations inherently are motivated by greed which leads to corruption will have no objection with this review or the fundamental thesis of the book -- that this is exactly what has happened over the past 100+ years in the West with the pharmaceutical industry. Those who accept "scientific truths" (as defined by the mainstream consensus) as they are presented will probably still feel as though my arguments here are guilty of the same kind of "pseudoscience" which is attacked in the book itself. My purpose here however is not to move the needle for those who already know in which camp they reside, but rather to provide a hopefully well-reasoned response to (what appeared to me at the time I purchased the book) a set of cogently constructed criticisms. Certainly some of these criticisms are valid, but they are by no means so pervasive or the errors so egregious as to negate the significance or worthiness of the book as whole, which, again, you should certainly get and read for yourself.