THE NATIONAL ANTI-VACCINATION LEAGUE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3111, 29 October 1913, Page 58

THE NATIONAL ANTI-VACCINATION LEAGUE.

TO THE EDITOB. Sir,—l am directed by the Council of the National Anti-Vaccination 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 Australasia. 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 diseases until June, by which time, by the way, only some 80 cases had occurred. Seeing that Sydney was almost a totally unvaccinated town, surely if this disease had really been smallpox, and if smallpox is really the contagious disease in the unvaccinated it has been represented by the medical profession to bo it would have spread .with greater rapidity. Even after the panic started, and over 400 cases wore reported by the beginning of August, there were still no deaths. Why was this? The doctors say that smallpox in the unvaccinated is a terribly fatal complaint. If the Sydney cases were unvaccinatod, why was the disease so mild, and if they were vaccinated why did smallpox go about picking out the small minority of vaccinated persons for 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 nund>ers of cases in Australia and New Zealand the results have been very severe, whereas the smallpox cases have boon of the mildest typo. Has not the time come for a calm, dispassionate consideration of the facts? On the one side wc have a very mild disease causing no loss of life, not a great deal of suffering, and in a number of cases no inconvenience at all. It may or may not have been smallpox, but in any case it spread chiefly in the poorer and more overcrowded districts of Sydney. The cases numbered 400 in about four months. On the other hand over 300,000 persons in New South Wales and thousands in other parts of Australasia submitted to vaccination during a period of about six weeks. The great majority of these were really ill for several days, and a largo number suffered excruciating 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 and discomforts, private arrangements for visits, eto. ; were interfered with, and 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 arc far worse in Australia than smallpox. Scarlet fever, typhoid, diphtheria, all take a large toll of human lives every year, but nothing is said. Is this because there is no saleable inoculation for these d’soases, which can bo imposed on the healthy? It pays the doctors to create a smallpox panic, and they have reaped their rewai-d now; but will not the publio 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 for themselves, and sec that the doctors are in this matter “blind leaders of the blind?” Surc-lv. they have by this time learned the tremendous folly of giving power over the bodies of the people into the hands of the medical profession. If they have grasped that' danger, this sad affair will not have been in vain.—l am, etc., L. Loat. Secretary the National Anti-Vaccination League. 27 Southampton street, Strand, London, W.C., September 10, 191?