THE NATIONAL ANTI-VACCINATION LEAGUE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1163, 25 October 1913, Page 4

THE NATIONAL ANTI-VACCINATION LEAGUE.

Office; Garrick House, 27 Southampton St., Strand, W.C. (To the Editor.) Sir. —I am directed by the Council of the National AntiVaccinaliou League to request you to allow me to put before your readers the following facts concerning smallpox and vaccination, with special reference to the recent “scare” in Sydney and other parts of Australia. From newspapers and letters received by our League we find that the authorities did not diagnose the first cases of the eruptive disease which occurred in Sydney last April as smallpox, but allowed them to be treated as other until June, by which lime, by the way, only some 80 cases had occurred. Seeing that Sydney was almost a totally uuvacciuated town, surely if this disease had really been smallpox, and if smallpox is really the contagions disease in the uuvacciuated it has been represented by the medical profession to be, it would have spread with greater rapidity. Even after the panic started, and over 400 cases were reported by the beginning of August, there was still no deaths. Why was this ? The doctors say that smallpox in the unvacciualed is a terribly fatal complaint. If the Sydney cases were unvacciualed, why was the disease so mild, and if they were vaccinated, why did smallpox go about picking out the small minority of vaccinated persons lor attack ? In any case, why was this awful scare worked up ? Why did the general public allow themselves to be so frightened that they rushed in thousands to be vaccinated, whereby hundreds suffered far worse than those who were down with the alleged smallpox ? Even the staunchest advocates of the operation have had to admit that in numbers of cases iu Australia aud New Zealaud the results have been very severe, wlureas the smallpox cases have been of the mildest type. Has not the time come for a cairn, dispassionate consideration of the facts ? On the one side we have a very mild disease causing no loss of life, not a great deal of suffering aud in a number of cases no inconvenience at all. It may cr may not have been smallpox, but in any case it spread chiefly iu the poorer aud more overcrowded dis • tricts of Sydney. The cases numbered 400 iu about four months; on the other hand over 300,000 persons iu New South Wales, aud thousands in other parts of Australasia submitted to vaccination during a period of about 6 weeks. The great majority of these were really ill for sever. 1 days and a large number suffered excrutiatiug pain and were incapacitated for several days. In at least three cases it is believed that death resulted- In addition to this personal suffering, the trade at Sydney was brought to a standstill, travellers were subjected to all sorts of annoyance aud discomforts, private arrangements lor visits, etc., were interfered with aud in every direction there was discomfort, loss and suffering. Was there at any time any real cause for what took place? Are not the official doctors greatly to blame for working up this panic ? Other diseases are far worse in Australia than smallpox. Scarlet fever, typhoid, diptheria all take a large 101 lof human lives every year, but nothing is said. Is this because there is no saleable inoculation for these diseases which can be imposed on the healthy ? It pays the doctors to create a smallpox panic, aud they have reaped their reward now, but will not the public be on their guard in future and refuse to be frightened or coerced into undergoing this blood-poisoning operation, which may have such dangerous consequences ? Will they not examine the facts lor themselves aud see that the doctors are in this matter “blind leaders of the blind ?” Surely they have by this lime learned the tremendous folly ol giving power over the bodies of the people into the bands of the medical profession. If they have grasped that danger this sad affair will not have been iu vain.—Your obedient servant, L. Loat, Secretary of the National AntiVaccination League.