Why we should always keep an open mind and ask questions.
I recently became aware of some research that had been undertaken by a US engineer (Roman Bystrianyk) several decades ago regarding the history of vaccines. His research followed some personal health issues and was self-funded and therefore had no affiliations to any interest groups – which is always a good measure of authenticity and commitment from my viewpoint and probably one of the main reasons for attracting my interest. His research culminated in him writing a book many years later in 2013 which he called ‘Dissolving illusions’.
This ‘fact’ based analysis of vaccines described the early history and discovery of ‘immunization’ back to the 1700’s when Edward Jenner realized that milk maids who were in contact with cows and the associated ‘cowpox’ virus were much less likely to contract ‘smallpox’ – which at that time was quite a common and serious condition. This idea led Jenner to conceive that if the cowpox virus could be collected and transferred to humans then it should provide some sort of ‘immunity’ to the bodies development of smallpox. At that time his method of transfer was by scraping infected material from the skin of the cow and then rubbing it into a laceration inscribed on the human arm with a lance. This was carried out initially on a small scale but then expanded as the concept became endorsed by society who were desperate for solutions or ‘perceived solutions’ to this horrible smallpox disease which at best left the host misfigured with ugly skin craters.
This was the start of the human ‘vaccination’ journey which was subsequently developed and applied to many more diseases over the decades and centuries and often mandated by governments as a requirement to protect public health – and today (as most of us are aware) is administered in many forms to the very young and elderly alike – justified with the benefit of historical reference and validation and widely unquestioned by medics or the general population. In fact, the vaccine market is now an integral multi-billion dollar part of the modern medical industry and recently applauded as the saviour of many throughout the recent Covid 19 virus outbreak.
With this 200 + years history and confirmation of vaccine success, it would seem implausible that anyone would question the benefits of vaccines or most medicines and I remember all of us at school waiting in line patiently for our vaccine doses without any absentees or questions asked. This was the late1960’s and there were a small minority of people at that time that were starting to question many aspects of our developing technologies and practices – although were generally ridiculed by the mainstream media.
In the 1980’s however, I remember my mother who was an exceptionally kind and mannerly nurse returning home from her daily duties with an air of frustration about her – and subsequently during our evening meal was revealed that she had unintentionally initiated an argument with the doctors over their increasing use of antibiotics. It was a small rural and friendly community and so no-one really sought to cause trouble, however this was obviously something she cared about. She claimed that ‘over use’ of antibiotics could lead to an ‘arms race’ of the diseases that they were being used to treat. Furthermore, she also found out that the doctors were receiving quite significant ‘gifts’ from the drugs representatives for purchasing many of these new medicines and so was apparent to her that the lucrative world of medicine was being manipulated by the pharmaceutical companies and supported by doctors who should ultimately be ‘impartial’.
She left her job shortly after this confrontation and although continued nursing became increasingly sceptical of many of the drugs and procedures being administered and following a couple of further arguments with doctors finished the remainder of her medical career in palliative Cancer care. Her belief of simple health benefits such as good diet, fresh air and sun always stayed with me as did her instinctive old-fashioned attitude of stoicism and ‘just getting on with things’ – and so Roman Bystrianyk’s work resonated with me.
In a ‘nutshell’ what Roman had discovered from his research in reviewing the medical data regarding vaccines – was that nearly all the ‘serious diseases’ which most of us have been vaccinated against from the 1960’s had almost completely disappeared prior to the development of the vaccines? At first, he did not believe this could be correct and so checked the data several times to confirm it. As an engineer, he then asked himself the questions – ‘why would anyone want to develop a vaccine for a disease that was almost non-existent’ and ‘what has caused these diseases to become almost non-existent’?
The second of these questions he found easier to answer as research data clearly demonstrates that health is directly related to diet and living conditions and so with the advent of clean water, sanitation, better food and nutrition, improved living and recreational spaces etc – by the 1950’s nearly all the serious diseases that had no vaccines such as measles, hooping couch, polio etc had almost completely disappeared and so could only logically be attributed to advances in diet and living conditions.
The question of ‘why develop vaccines for non-existent diseases’ then became his main concern – and so using his data was able to investigate back in the UK to the 1840’s and in the US from the early 1900’s to establish the validity of previous vaccine effectiveness such as for the smallpox virus. He was stunned to find that despite the perceived number of deaths being the ‘reason’ for vaccine development – in reality none of the data indicated that there had been any reduction in deaths following the use of the smallpox vaccine – and in fact there was more evidence to suggest that deaths actually increased! It was this epiphany that led Roman to question ‘how can something that clearly does not work become accepted by the public, professionals and governments for over 200 years’?
This is indeed something that we all need to consider, and I believe that Roman’s choice of ‘illusion’ reasonably encapsulates this! Another word could be ‘belief’ however, illusion is more accurate because it indicates human intervention.
We should accept that there is good evidence to suggest that ‘immunization’ does work to stimulate the immune system to act against a particular disease – however, what may be less obvious is the ‘knock on’ effect of the immunization with respect to protecting against other diseases?
For example – in engineering, every material and design is a compromise – and so the objective is in finding the best compromise of materials and design for a product to operate in a particular environment. If however you take this finished product and place it in a different environment – it will probably fail! Therefore, it is almost impossible to manufacture a product that can operate effectively in all environments without having variations and likewise when you ‘program’ the immune system to operate against one virus with a vaccine – the chances are that it will be less effective against other viruses – and so whilst the data may show a resounding success with respect to the target virus A, you may be diseased or killed by virus B or C etc.
This is what I suspect happens and why the overall data shows no reduction of deaths and actually may increase deaths via other diseases. This is especially problematic when you administer a vaccine to a general population where the virus in question may not be very virulent to many in that particular group – however, may cause a reduced ability for the immune system to counteract against other diseases?
As engineers we come across this aspect of ‘compromise’ all the time and so is sort of ‘intuitive’ to us and is one reason why like my late mother I treat all medicine as a resort of last choice rather than one of prevention or protection.
However, the reason for this blog is not to contest vaccination or medicine but to highlight the issue and endemic nature of ‘illusions’ in our society as I believe there are many historic illusions just as important and unbelievable as vaccines with many new ones in the making? I would also acknowledge that most illusions are debunked relatively quickly as would be expected, which is why long-lasting illusions are so intriguing?
Another example of an historical illusion (and probably the most important) is ‘climate change’ whereby we have believed that burning coal, oil, nuclear fuels etc and ‘injecting’ all that pollution and heat into the atmosphere was/is a ‘good thing’ for humanity – in a similar way to ‘injecting’ substances into our bodies – and like vaccines it has taken over 200 years for us to question it!
Artificial intelligence on the other hand is a ‘new’ and possibly the ‘ultimate illusion’ as it will not just effect our bodies (as with fossil fuels and vaccines) but also our minds as this is the direct route of this particular messenger virus – and so we may never realize it! Perhaps lunacy and pollution combined will cull the human population in which case our species will rely on the few that manage to remain aware and vigilant?
On the other hand – energy requirements may simply outstrip humanity’s ability to deliver and a long ensuing ‘blackout’ may provide a necessary period of quiet contemplation? Conversely, thoughtful people that have invested their faith in nature such as with ‘water powered technologies’ may still have everything they need!
Phil Selwyn
(CEO/Founder Water Powered Technologies) 26th September 2024