Year: 2019

Work in the Seat of Government? Then You’re a Wh*re!

Paul Craig Roberts worked as Treasury Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy in 1981 under Ronald Reagan.

As he tells it:

I had held a presidential appointment from a President of the United States. I ended up fighting battles for him against entrenched interests who opposed his policies to end stagflation and the cold war. I helped to win the battles for him, as his accolades to me testify, but my success ended any career for me in government.

So he knew Trump would utterly fail from the very beginning:

I knew that, unlike Reagan who had prepared his run over the years and had a movement behind him, Trump had not. Moreover, also unlike Reagan, Trump had no idea of what he was walking into and no idea of who to appoint to important offices who might be inclined to help him. Generally speaking, the value of a presidential appointment, such as the one I had, lies NOT in helping the president, but in helping the ruling private establishment. Any Assistant Secretary can be very helpful to private interests and end up a multi-millionaire. Indeed, most of them do.

But I put the country’s interest ahead of mine and helped Reagan to cure stagflation and to end the cold war. Curing stagflation was perceived as a threat by the economics profession which had no cure and didn’t want to be shown up by dissident supply-side economists, and much of Wall Street misunderstood what the media called “Reaganomics” as more inflationary deficit spending that threatened their stock and bond portfolios. Ending the Cold War threatened the budget of the military/security complex, a dangerous undertaking.

Here’s the meat:

A decade or two ago a person I had known when I was in Washington, who was a professor in Massachusettes, telephoned me. He said he had just returned from Washington where he had had lunch with some of my former colleagues. He had asked them about me, and according to his report, they said: “Poor Craig. If he had not turned critic, he would be worth tens of millions of dollars like us.” My former acquaintance said that he stood up and said that he didn’t realize that he was having lunch with a bunch of wh*res and left.

Obviously, my aquaintance did not intend to return to a Washington career.

But forget “honest graft”. The state almost never uses its “justice system” against its own functionaries. For blatant examples, see the original article.

Was Rabbi S.R. Hirsch Against Kabbalah? Of Course Not!

Rabbi Shelomoh E. Danziger, in a 5756 Jewish Action review of Rabbi Joseph Elias’ “The World of Rabbi S. Hirsch: The Nineteen Letters”, accuses the latter of distorting Rabbi Hirsch to make him seem tamer than he really is. Rabbi Danziger claims Rabbi Hirsch viewed Kabbalah as misconstrued “suggestions” (and also that Rabbi Hirsch thought the same of Aggadah. As for that one, the reader can judge for himself over here).

I intend to place Rabbi Hirsch in the boring, pro-Kabbalah camp.

But first let’s quote Rabbi Danziger to the contrary (pages 3-4):

In Letter Eighteen, Rav Hirsch writes: Presently, a form of learning came into existence about which, not being initiated in it, I cannot venture to pass judgment, but which, if I comprehend rightly what I believe I understand, is an invaluable repository of the spirit of Tanach and Talmud, but which has unfortunately been misunderstood. What should have been eternal progressive development was considered a static mechanism, and the inner significance and concept thereof was taken as external dream-worlds… Had it been correctly comprehended, practical Judaism might perhaps have been imbued with spirituality. Since it was misconstrued, however, it became thereby a magic mechanism, a means of influencing or resisting theosophic worlds and anti-worlds.

This criticism is also voiced in Letter Ten, in which Rav Hirsch complains that the misinterpretation of kabbalah reduced its spirit to physical terms, and man’s inner and outer endeavors came to be interpreted as mere mechanical, magical, dynamic building of cosmic worlds – thereby often reducing all those activities that were meant to train and give vitality to the [human] spirit to mere amuletic performances.

Rav Hirsch’s critical attitude to kabbalah, or as Dayan Grunfeld prefers to term it, “this guarded attitude” (Introduction to Horeb), has in the interest of “ideological correctness” been reinterpreted apologetically by Jakob Rosenheim and Dayan Grunfeld, who are followed by Rabbi Elias. The apologia runs as follows:

  1. Rav Hirsch does, after all, acknowledge kabbalah as “an invaluable repository of the spirit of Tanach and Talmud.”
  2. We find in Rav Hirsch’s writings echoes of and parallels to ideas from kabbalistic literature.
  3. Preparatory notes for Horeb indicate that Rav Hirsch made use of the Zohar.
  4. It is said that his personal siddur contained marginal notes of a kabbalistic nature.

Therefore, the explanation of Rav Hirsch’s attitude is, in the words of Dayan Grunfeld (Introduction to Horeb), that “Hirsch was concerned with the ethical side of Jewish symbolism and not its mystical side … His ethical symbolism did not exclude the possibility of a mystical symbolism which holds that every mitzvah has also a cosmic significance and that the effect of a commandment observed reaches to the remotest ramifications of the universe.”

Or, in the words of Rabbi Elias (p. 155): Rabbi S. R. Hirsch’s avoidance of mystical and otherworldy speculation does not, however, indicate a denial of kabbalistic ideas. His ethical interpretations of the mitzvos and of Judaism in general merely represented emphasis on a different aspect of the Torah’s teachings which complements the kabbalistic approach, rather than contradicting it. Both Rabbi S.R. Hirsch’s approach to mitzvos and the kabbalistic approach stress that all human action produces effects. They differ only in that the kabbalistic approach emphasizes the effects on the whole universe, whereas the other approach underlines the effect on the doer and his world.

Rabbi Danziger himself disagrees, claiming the two approaches are opposing, not complementary:

A non-apologetic reading of Rav Hirsch’s words in Letter Eighteen about kabbalah will indicate that Rav Hirsch is referring to two opposing, rather than complementary, approaches – the ethical, on the one hand, and the mystical, extramundane on the other. He is not complaining that the ethical does not complement the extramundane. His complaint is that the proper understanding of kabbalah should have been ethical, not extramundane. No amount of apologetics can get around the hard fact that Rav Hirsch calls the extramundane worlds of (what is in his opinion) “misconstrued” kabbalah “external dream-worlds.”

In the same vein, Rav Hirsch’s commentary to Leviticus 7:38 reiterates: They (i.e., the korbanos) are neither a transitory concession to a generation that was still steeped in heathen ideas nor do they form a chapter of kabbalistic, magic mysteries. They are mitzvos, laws like the rest of the Torah. Their meaning and purpose is teaching the way to keep the ideals of the Torah, and a means of help to keep the Torah.

To Rav Hirsch, kabbalah is “an invaluable repository of the spirit of Tanach and Talmud” in the same sense as the aggadah contains that spirit. Both, in his view, are rhetorical and metaphorical works designed to suggest the betterment and spiritual elevation of man as he strives, through his acts, to draw nearer to God. Rav Hirsch, who was opposed to all theological speculations about Divinity (mystical as well as philosophical), uses kabbalah only as midrashic, metaphorical suggestions to man about his  duties. He does not use kabbalah as a theological source of information about Divinity.

See the rest of Rabbi Danziger’s arguments here.

I disagree below with both Rabbi Danziger and the “apologias” of Jakob Rosenheim, Dayan Grunfeld, and Rabbi Elias (as presented, anyway).

Exactly like all Litvaks everywhere, Rabbi Hirsch submits ignorance of the subject matter, reminding us of Niddah 7b: אין אומרים למי שלא ראה את החודש שיבא ויעיד. Who can know the truth about what Litvish rabbis really knew? As Chazal say: למד לשונך לומר איני יודע שמא תתבדה ותאחז.

The “ethical side” of Judaism versus the “mystical, extramundane side”? False Dichotomy!

Bi’ur Hagra Y.D. 179: אלא כל הדברים הם כפשטן, אלא שיש בהם פנימיות, לא פנימיות של בעלי הפילוספיא שהם חיצוניות, אלא של בעלי האמת. Indeed, the perennial response to opponents of Zohar/Kabbalah is that they err in taking metaphors literally. Sefer “Tomer Devorah” is meant to be a summary of the Ramak’s system, but it’s hardly obscurantist. In a weaker example, Mesilas Yesharim is reportedly a summary of Ramchal’s ideas, too.

As the Zohar says:

ולית לך מלה באורייתא דלא אית בה רזין עלאין וקדישין וארחין לבני נשא לאתתקפא בהו.

The Gra famously said the Arizal’s words, too, were intended as Meshalim (according to Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin). Rabbi Yehuda Leib Ashlag had a famous running disagreement with his contemporaries about our role in deciphering these parables (אכמ”ל).

Baal Shem Tov on the Torah, Va’eschanan 51, quoting “Keter Shem Tov”:

לימוד חכמת האמת נקרא נסתר, פירוש כי נסתר נקרא מה שאין אדם יכול להשיגו, כמו טעם של המאכל אי אפשר לספר לאדם שלא טעם טעם זה מעולם, שאי אפשר לפרש לו בדיבור איך ומה, ונקרא זה דבר סתר, כמו כן ענין אהבת הבורא ויראתו יתברך שמו אי אפשר לפרש לחבירו איך הוא האהבה בלב, ולכן נקרא זה נסתר, כי הלא כל מי שרוצה ללמוד הספר פתוח לפניו ואינו נסתר, ואם אינו מבין הרי הוא עם הארץ, ולפני איש כזה, גמרא ותוספות גם כן נקרא נסתר, אלא ענין הנסתרות שבספר הזוהר וכתבי האר”י ז”ל הכל בנויים על פי הדבקות האלהית.

Kabbalists, too, forever complain of being misunderstood. The Noda Beyehuda responsum against reciting “Leshem Yichud” is also saying Kabbalah is being “misconstrued”. Come on, is the Noda Beyehuda a Kabbalah reductionist, too?!

As is known, one must acquire via this study the qualities of Yir’as Haromemus/Ha’onesh, and Ahavas Hashem. If one remains unchanged, he missed the message (maybe for lack of the chief preconditions, especially purity, and maybe-maybe a beard).

(Rabbi Hirsch may also be referring to Chassidus’ adherents, who do funny things like “concretize” the Hebrew letters symbolized by Yachatz by actually trying to break the two pieces of Matza into the right letter shapes…)

Even written amulets aren’t meant as “magic mechanisms”, but a continuous-action prayer, though rarer in Ashkenaz.

Now, I don’t know what the original German contains, but the Hebrew translation uses the words “הם אינם ויתור זמני לדור הנתון עדיין תחת השפעת האליליות, ואף לא פרק נפרד שכולו קסם ומסתורין“, not “kabbalistic, magic mysteries“.

And who would deny Korbanos are “mitzvos like any other”? Nobody, that’s who. In which Kabbalah sefer can one find such a claim?! Correspondingly, the “transitory concession” idea from the Moreh Nevuchim is viewed by some Rishonim as not reflecting the Rambam’s true opinion (Ritva’s Sefer Zikaron, for instance). Which Kabbalist would protest upon seeing Rabbi Hirsch’s commentary to the Torah, including the sections on sacrifices?

Please don’t lump Rabbi Hirsch with even controversialist Yeshayahu Leibowitz (who considered Gershom Scholem a scholar…).

I first showed this article to a friend. He relates:

Many years ago I heard a Rosh HaYeshiva say that he is well-versed in Rav Hirsch and found so much either consistent with Kabbalah or developed from Kabbalah and expressed in the lashon more familiar to Rav Hirsch’s constituents. I heard him say that he did not see contradictions. Rather, he saw an uncanny (not sure if these were his exact words) consistency and familiarity in Rav Hirsch’s with the Rosh HaYeshiva’s own understanding of Kabbalah.

Bottom line, our great teacher Rabbi Hirsch is not putting even one toe out of the mainstream, that is, measured adoption of Kabbalah. He wasn’t “guarded”, “critical” (in the modern sense of the word), or all the rest.  There is a letter by the Chazon Ish explaining the praise of “שלא אמר דבר שלא שמע מפי רבו מעולם” which describes Rabbi Hirsch well.

I don’t relish even writing about Kabbalah, so I hope these hints suffice.

Making Aliyah? Consider Givat HaMoreh

Eretz Chemdah: An Inside View

Various Perspectives and Experiences of English speakers Living in Eretz Yisroel

Paving the Way

I am the youngest of eight siblings. We all grew up in England, and all of us ended up here in Eretz Yisroel for a few years of married life. That was the original plan—to be in this environment conducive to shteiging for a few of the formative years of life.

Most of my siblings had managed to make it here for at least two to three years before heading back to England. Finding that Yerushalayim was prohibitively expensive for a kollel couple, we had to think of an out-of-the-box solution for the longer term. Although we were still keeping two days of Yom Tov, we weren’t quite ready to leave Eretz Yisroel.

The new Litvish community in Givat HaMoreh, Afula, was the unlikely candidate. At the time we joined, there were about a hundred and fifty families, who, for the most part, were Israeli. The few English families that were there were mostly related to each other (and not to us), but it meant that there were enough people from a background similar to ours so as not to feel totally isolated. There were also a few Americans, as well as some English-speaking children of Anglo immigrants to Eretz Yisroel. Being that the Israeli members of the kehillah—almost all young couples like ourselves—were also far from their hometowns and “natural habitats,” they were more open to create new relationships with people a bit different from themselves, like us chutznikim. This was true even in regards to my wife, who at the time we came could barely speak in Hebrew.

Although the environment in Afula meant moving quite a bit out of our comfort zone, one thing that brought us here was the prospect of taking part in the creation of a new kehillah in Eretz Yisroel. That wouldn’t have been enough to make us stay, though—it took a while even here until we quit Yom Tov Sheini. Both my wife and I had almost all our family back in England, so we didn’t have any of the natural physical and emotional support that comes with living near family. We were basically staking it out alone in the wilderness, at least in the beginning.

Being a small community with most members not having family close by, this fostered an environment of mutual care and responsibility. This made up to some degree for the lack of family living close by. Having people around us who care about us was definitely a cause in the eventual shift to the realization that we are here to stay. This was in addition to the fact that the affordable housing here meant it was possible for us to seriously consider purchasing a home here, which would surely make our connection to this place much stronger.

Having lived here for about three years, we have come to appreciate our neighborhood and community. Members of the kehillah live peacefully with the surroundings, including traditional and not-yet observant neighbors, with some of them becoming inspired by the kiddush HaShemwe make as frum Yidden and decent people. The unfortunate occurrence of cars driving on Shabbos is not uncommon, considering we do live in a mixed neighborhood, but it is considerably less than what may sometimes be seen at the edges of some Chareidi neighborhoods of Yerushalayim, as this is a quiet neighborhood.

As far as chinuch is concerned, the local Chareidi cheider and school caters to a wide spectrum of backgrounds, including the diversity of the “Litvish” kehillah itself, which includes Bnei Torah who are Ashkenazim, Sephardim, Teimanim, and a bit of Chassidish-oriented as well, and both Israelis and chutznikim. The Chareidi populace of the general area, many of whom also attend these schools, includes also a few Chassidim as well as Sephardic baalei batim, which are very common to come across in these areas. The exposure to children from the homes of Yirei Shomayim from all different Chareidi backgrounds is, I think, an added benefit to the high scholastic standards of the schools.

After we settled here, others have considered following our path. My wife has a friend who eventually moved here with her husband, both originally from England, and I think it was much easier for them to make the move following our example. Of course, we also benefitted from their move as it meant having more people around us with whom we more closely identify, who speak the same language as we do, and share a similar mentality with us. We have a cousin from England who joined us here as well, and having us as cousins here already must have been a factor in their decision as well.

The kehillah now numbers about three-hundred families, bli ayin hara, kein yirbu, and although it seems that the kehillah will definitely stay a predominantly Israeli one, there is definitely room for us chutznikim who want to join and be a part.

Although in the beginning we had to move a bit out of our comfort zone, it has become our very own zone, and we are quite content with it—our own little piece of Eretz Yisroel.

Why Didn’t We Know About This?

One of the chutznik families here in Givat HaMoreh manage an apartment here that is rented out for weekends and short-term to vacationers.

A friend of mine was planning on terminating his stay in Eretz Yisroel, as it was just too expensive for him to stay being an avreich here. He decided to end his stay here with a weekend vacation and rented that apartment for a Shabbos.

After being exposed to the warm and fully functional kehillah here, and realizing that there were more English families here than only my own, he told me that it just never occurred to him that such communities existed where he would be able to afford staying here as an avreich. He was mistakenly comparing the finances of chutz la’Aretz to only Yerushalayim and its surroundings.

– Yehuda Orzel, Givat HaMoreh, Afula

This article is part of Matzav.com’s Eretz Chemdah series featuring English speakers, living in, settling, and building up Eretz Yisroel. For more info please contact yoel@naavakodesh.org or visit naavakodesh.org/eretz-chemdah

Reprinted from Naava Kodesh.

מזקנים אתבונן’ ר”ל *יותר* מן הזקנים, כננס ע”ג הענק’

תהלים קי”ט צ”ח-ק’:
מאויבי תחכמני מצותך כי לעולם היא לי.
מכל מלמדי השכלתי כי עדותיך שיחה לי.
מזקנים אתבונן כי פקודיך נצרתי.
פירוש הרב אבן עזרא:
מזקנים אתבונן, יותר מהזקנים כי פקודיך נצרתי מנעורי.
הושע י’ ט’:

מימי הגבעה חטאת ישראל שם עמדו לא תשיגם בגבעה מלחמה על בני עלוה.

הראב”ע:
מימי, יותר כמו מזקנים אתבונן מאויבי תחכמני ופירש שם עמדו על חטאי דורו כאילו עמדו עם בני בנימין הם בני עלוה כמו עולה והיתה לזעוה והי’ רק זועה והיום לא יפחדו שתשיגם מלחמה כאשר השיגה את בני בנימין מהשבטים וזה הכתב כמו כריח שדה שטעמו ראה ריח בני אשר ברכו ה’ כריח שדה.

FACT: Vaccination Does Not Always Work

My feelings about the vaccine debate

581 Replies

9th July 2019

As readers of this blog will know, my primary area of interest is cardiovascular disease, which a big and complex subject, where anyone questioning the ‘conventional’ ideas gets ruthlessly attacked. However, in comparison to the area of vaccination, the battles in cardiovascular disease pale into insignificance. Mere squabbles in the nursery.

I am a member of an on-line doctors’ community in the UK called Doctors Net. Not open to the public. Whenever any story about vaccination emerges, the vitriol, anger and naked rage is quite scary to observe.

Whenever the issue of MMR raises its head on Doctors Net, doctors have stated that Andrew Wakefield should be thrown in jail, and never allowed to earn any money ever again, that he is a crook and a criminal – and those are the nicer comments.

It is clear that, in the medical profession, there is an unquestioned faith in vaccination. That is, all vaccinations, for all diseases, everywhere – for everyone. Anyone who dares to hint that, ahem, there could be some negative issues associated with vaccination is subjected to withering contempt. ‘You will be responsible for killing millions of children.’ You don’t understand science.’ And suchlike.

When it comes to the science, it does amuse me that vaccination began before anyone understood any of the science – of anything to do with microbes and the immune system. It all began, so it is recorded, with the observation that milkmaids were much less likely to get smallpox.

This led to the idea that you should deliberately infect people with a bit of cowpox, to prevent them getting smallpox. Bold.

‘The terms vaccine and vaccination are derived from Variolae vaccinae (smallpox of the cow), the term devised by Jenner to denote cowpox. He used it in 1796 in the long title of his Inquiry into the Variolae vaccinae known as the Cow Pox, in which he described the protective effect of cowpox against smallpox.’ [from the website that cannot be named… Wikipedia actually]

This was suggested at a time when all doctors thought infections were spread by Miasma. Basically, a nasty smell. No-one had the faintest idea that there were bacteria, or viruses. Somewhat ironically, vaccination – giving a small amount of a substance to cure/prevent a nasty disease – became the underlying principle of homeopathy – which most doctors now angrily dismiss as ‘woo woo medicine.’

Clearly, vaccination did not start as science. It basically started as a hunch, based on no comprehension of the science at all. Of course, that doesn’t make it wrong, but you can hardly suggest it was founded on a thorough understanding of the human immune system. Edward Jenner did not know that such a thing existed, and nor did anyone else. It was just a good guess.

The science of vaccination then became, what I call, backwards rationalisation. ‘It works, now let us work out how the hell it actually works.’ Again, nothing wrong with this. The best science often starts with observation, not a hypothesis. Graphene is a recent example. Two scientists larking about in the lab with Sellotape and pencils.

Just in case you are wondering. Yes, I do believe that vaccination works. Or, to be more accurate I believe that some vaccination works. Most vaccination, all vaccinations?

However, I do speak as one who has had seven hepatitis B inoculations and, once, just about managed to provide a blood test to show that I had made enough antibodies – to allow me to work as a doctor. A friend, who worked as a surgeon, had twenty-two hep B inoculations, and never managed to raise an antibody. He did explain to me how he continued to work as a surgeon, but I have forgotten how he managed.

Which means that I have personal – and slightly painful – experience that vaccination is not equally effective for everyone. Why not? Does anyone care about such things? It seems not. Just close your eyes and vaccinate away. No-one can question anything. Such as, why do inoculations produce antibodies in some people, and not others? Kind of interesting you would think – but no. Question not, the mighty vaccination.

This is strange, because it has been clearly established that vaccination does not work in many people:

‘An outbreak of measles occurred in a high school with a documented vaccination level of 98 per cent. Nineteen (70 per cent) of the cases were students who had histories of measles vaccination at 12 months of age or older and are therefore considered vaccine failures. Persons who were unimmunized or immunized at less than 12 months of age had substantially higher attack rates compared to those immunized on or after 12 months of age.

Vaccine failures among apparently adequately vaccinated individuals were sources of infection for at least 48 per cent of the cases in the outbreak. There was no evidence to suggest that waning immunity was a contributing factor among the vaccine failures. Close contact with cases of measles in the high school, source or provider of vaccine, sharing common activities or classes with cases, and verification of the vaccination history were not significant risk factors in the outbreak.

The outbreak subsided spontaneously after four generations of illness in the school and demonstrates that when measles is introduced in a highly vaccinated population, vaccine failures may play some role in transmission but that such transmission is not usually sustained.’1  

We are told that if you reach a measles vaccination rate of 95%, in a population, you cannot get an outbreak. Seems that is wrong. You can get an outbreak in a 98% vaccinated population. Wouldn’t it be nice to know why?

It does seem weird that measles is the chosen battleground for the vaccine furies. I am not entirely sure why. You would think the highly vocal pro-vaccinators would point to smallpox, or polio – or suchlike. Although, to be frank, I look at smallpox and wonder. I wonder how the hell we managed to eradicate this disease so quickly and simply. The entire world successfully vaccinated in a few years – with a perfect 100% record. No vaccine failures, all populations in the entire world vaccinated? Quite some feat.

An alternative explanation is that some diseases naturally come and go. Measles, for example, was an absolute killer three hundred years ago. Captain Cook introduced it to South Seas islands. The mortality rate was enormously high in native populations that had never been exposed to it before. Gradually the death rate attenuated. In most of the Western World measles was becoming a ‘relatively’ benign disease by the time vaccination came along.

If we look back in history, the black death wiped out half the population of Europe. What was it? It was almost certainly not the plague, although many people claim that it was. From the descriptions of those who died from it, it seems it was possibly a form of Ebola (haemorrhagic fever).

‘The Black Death of the 1300s was probably not the modern disease known as bubonic plague, according to a team of anthropologists studying these 14th century epidemics. “The symptoms of the Black Death included high fevers, fetid breath, coughing, vomiting of blood and foul body odor,” says Rebecca Ferrell, graduate student in anthropology. “Other symptoms were red bruising or hemorrhaging of skin and swollen lymph nodes. Many of these symptoms do appear in bubonic plague, but they can appear in many other diseases as well.”

Modern bubonic plague typically needs to reach a high frequency in the rat population before it spills over into the human community via the flea vector. Historically, epidemics of bubonic plague have been associated with enormous die-offs of rats. “There are no reports of dead rats in the streets in the 1300s of the sort common in more recent epidemics when we know bubonic plague was the causative agent,” says Wood.’ 2

Of course, we cannot be sure what the Black Death was. We do know that it came, it killed, it went. It also appeared to leave a legacy of people with CCR5 Delta32 mutations. People with this mutation cannot, it seems, be infected by the Ebola virus (or, indeed HIV). Ebola and HIV both gain entry to cells using the CCR5 protein, and if it is missing, the virus cannot get in. [Yes, you can cure HIV by giving bone marrow transplant from a donor with the CCR5 Delta 32 mutation – little known fact].

Why would we have this mutation far more commonly in areas of Europe than, in say, Africa – where the Black Death did not occur? Unless it provided a survival advantage at some point, against a virus that was (or was very like), Ebola.

Looking back at smallpox, did vaccination get rid of it? Or did vaccination simply apply the final push to see off a weakened opponent?

The plague itself – where has it gone?

Yes, I do look at the official history of vaccination with a jaundiced eye. The greatest successes… Well, it seems inarguable that vaccination has created enormous health benefits. Polio and smallpox – gone. But has this been entirely due to vaccination – possibly? I am yet to be convinced.

In truth, I find the entire area of vaccination quite fascinating. But the problem, the great problem, is that even by writing this blog I will have said several things that cannot be said.

  • Vaccination does not always work – burn the unbeliever.
  • Vaccination may not have been entirely responsible for ridding the world of smallpox – burn the unbeliever.
  • Measles is not the killer disease that it once was – burn the unbeliever.
  • You can have measles vaccination and still get measles – burn the unbeliever.

To me, these are just facts, and to state them is simply part of valid scientific questioning. For some reason, I am not entirely sure why, to question any ‘fact’ about vaccination is to be flung into the outer darkness. People get very, very, angry. They close their minds and they get polarised. Parts of this blog will almost certainly be taken out of context and used to attack me.

I don’t really know how to open the debate out into something sensible. Something scientific, something questioning and positive. Screeching at people that they simply don’t understand ‘science’ is not a good approach. In addition, yelling that they are ‘killing thousands of children’ is not a way to conduct a debate.

I feel that I do understand ‘science’, whatever that means exactly. Or at least I understand the scientific method. Which primarily consists of questioning everything – and feeling free do to so. One thing I do know is that anyone who states that the science is settled, and inarguable, and all the experts agree, and must therefore be right – clearly does not understand anything about science. At all.

1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1646939/

2: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/04/020415073417.htm

From Dr. Malcom Kendrick, here.