As early as 1873, William Budd “clearly described the contagious nature of the disease and incriminated transmission via fecally contaminated water sources (Levine, 2018, p. 114; see also Budd, 1873). Besides a vaccine that conferred some protection and newer versions still given to those traveling to areas where typhoid fever is still endemic, typhoid fever was nearly eliminated by public health approaches, mainly treatment of water; but also safer handling of foods (e.g., Curschmann, 1901; Vaughhan, 1894; Whipple, 1908). As Levine writes: The risk of disease can be reduced by preventing mosquito bites through the use of mosquito nets and insect repellents, or with mosquito control measures such as spraying insecticides and draining standing water. Several medications are available to prevent malaria in travellers to areas where the disease is common. The classic symptoms of pertussis are a paroxysmal cough, inspiratory whoop, and fainting, or vomiting after coughing. The cough from pertussis has been documented to cause subconjunctival hemorrhages, rib fractures, urinary incontinence, hernias, and vertebral artery dissection. Violent coughing can cause the pleura to rupture, leading to a pneumothorax [lung collapse]. The development of vaccines against poliomyelitis has been a major achievement of modern preventive medicine. It might seem remarkable that United States policies in regard to poliomyelitis vaccination are being reexamined in view of the extraordinary success of the present program. Recently, serious questions have been raised about the present policy that advocates the use of the live attenuated oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) to the virtual exclusion of the killed, or inactivated poliomyelitis vaccine (IPV). This policy has been in effect since 1962 when the decision was made to change from the use of IPV even though paralytic disease had decreased dramatically in the eight years since its introduction [my emphasis].

Given that at least 5–10% of measles vaccine result in fever and rash, then there are approx. 650–000–1,300,000 case of measles in the US per year (p 372). Next, Dr Humphries claims that measles is at best a mild disease and nothing to fear. This may be true in many cases. However, as a homeopath, Dr Humphries may not be professionally inclined to see serious measles cases. As soon as measles complications do arise (eg such as coma or encephalitis) a sensible parent would rush their child off to hospital for treatment (which may involve antibiotics, an IV drip and a range of medical interventions to try and save the child’s life). If the child dies or develops complications in hospital such a hearing impairment or brain damage it is easy for the homeopath to retrospectively lay the blame for death or disability on “medical interventions”. In considering the available data with particular reference to the experience in countries where only IPV has been used, the committee concluded that when properly used, either vaccine is highly effective both in preventing disease and in reducing circulation of wild virus in the community.

Malaria, a mosquito-borne disease, showed an exponential decline in both morbidity and mortality for the first half of the 20th Century, and was basically eliminated in the United States by the end of World War II through economic policies and public health measures. Poliomyelitis When Silfverdale evaluated thousands of vaccinated and unvaccinated breastfed and non-breastfed children looking at the risk of measles, breastfeeding had a far larger impact on measles risk than vaccinating. (p 389)

Measles can be controlled by large-scale vaccination, and where this is employed successfully the frequency of non-measles associated disease should be considerably reduced. Diphtheria is fatal in between 5% and 10% of cases. In children under five years and adults over 40 years, the fatality rate may be as much as 20% ( Wikipedia. Diphtheria; see also: CDC. Diphtheria; CDC. Pink Book. Diphtheria; Tejpratap, 2018). Forgotten the title or the author of a book? Our BookSleuth is specially designed for you. Visit BookSleuth People without antibodies can be completely protected from clinical illness by cellular immunity. Therefore antibody is a mere surrogate that has questionable significance (p 389). That the drop in diphtheria morbidity and mortality is not wholly due to preventive immunization appears to be indicated by the fact that this decline set in actually in the nineteenth century before diphtheria antitoxin began to be used generally, and continue progressively even before preventive immunization became widespread. The death rate among children up to 10 years of age in New York City was 785 per 100,000 in 1894, declining to less than 300 in 1900; and in 1920, when active immunization of school children began, it fell below 100…Certainly, the downward course of diphtheria morbidity and mortality has at least been accelerated by preventive immunization (Rosen, 1993, pp. 312-314).About one child out of every 1,000 who get measles will develop encephalitis (swelling of the brain) that can lead to convulsions and can leave the child deaf or with intellectual disability ( CDC. Measles). In the year 1927, for the first time, no case of variola major was reported in the USA, and apart from an outbreak in 1929 no further cases were notified until 1946. In that year a soldier returning from Japan introduced smallpox into Seattle, Washington, which resulted in an outbreak of 51 cases, with 16 deaths (Palmquist, 1947). In 1947 a man with undiagnosed haemorrhagic smallpox died in a Manhattan, New York, hospital. Twelve other persons were infected. We used logistic regression with data for 10 207 individuals from the 1970 British Cohort study. Breast-feeding data were collected at five years of age, and information on clinical measles infection, as well as socio-economic measures was collected at the age of ten years.

Ask any physician who treated measles cases in the 1960s and they may paint a very different picture of the disease.

The main focus of this paper is Humphries claim that polio was an “insignificant” disease. However, given that her book covers each of the diseases compared in Figure 1, the following will give a description of each based on the five points listed above, allowing the reader to gain a better picture of each disease, why Humphries is comparing apples to oranges, and, especially how, by focusing on incidence and death, Humphries mostly ignores suffering and disabilities. Besides polio, measles is a prime example of this. Though I believe the following description of each of the diseases is well worth a look, feel free to skip to the Poliomyelitis section below. Measles A disease may be feared on account of its causing death, but a disease which permits the patient to live in an enfeebled conditions is even more dreaded and its occurrence in a community makes a much deeper impression ( Ruhräh, 1917, p. 97). The March of Dimes From Rosen, as with smallpox, diphtheria may well have mutated to a more benign form, though still lethal for many, and antitoxin and finally a vaccine ended its reign. Syphilis and sequaelae Scientists were surprised when they learned that individuals with a deficit in antibody production recovered from measles just as well as normal antibody producers. […] Therefore the antibody part of immunity is not at all necessary for the natural recovery from measles (p 364). These data suggest that cellular responses to measles virus may be better sustained than antibody titers after vaccination and revaccination in some subjects. ( Source )