Smallpox Comitatus

See above.

I feel the same way.

The Posse Comitatus act was passed in the Post- Reconstruction US as a result of the military occupation and administration of the South by the Union after the war.

It never applied to the National Guard, the Navy or the Marine Corps, and it never will.

US troops have been used to 'quell insurrection" many times since the law was passed. The most recent was the LA Riots of 1991, and the Oklahoma City Bombing of 1995, as well as the 9-11 attacks in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania.
I've been in the active or reserve military for 24 years. I would refuse an oppressive order and not carry it out, because I am legally required as an officer to do so if one is issued by the UCMJ.
I dont remember any vast conspiracies with the dedicated troops I encountered at Oklahoma City or in the Washington attacks. Most of them probably post like me to Freerepublic.

Good governance means good common sense use of government assets. Instead of pointing fingers at the "tyranny to come" most people need to point fingers at the self serving morons they elect to represent them, be they Republican, Democrat, or other.

Well, thats my 2 cents worth.

Thanks for your service and welcome to FR.

Ridiculous!

To put it as charitably as possible, that is stark raving nuts.

Footnote: #7 refers to #4: not Joe 6-pack's post.

To put it as charitably as possible, that is stark raving nuts.

This stuff is as tiresome as the libertarian threads.

To put it as charitably as possible, that is stark raving nuts.

Is that your esteemed medical and scientific opinion, or are you just saying that because you don't understand what the evidence demonstrates?

Please post any scientific studies you might know of that prove the smallpox vaccination actually works. You could even post some scientific evidence demonstrating that vaccines are effective if you'd like...

There must be Islamic money behind this continuous anti smallpox vaccine propaganda.

Lurker is all over these threads. He just doesn't seem to understand that you can find books/articles refuting almost anything - putting something in print doesn't make it true. Look at the global warming nonsense.

And on another thread the antis were trashing the polio vaccine and insisting that these diseases were really eradicated by better sanitation. Also wanted to know if we understood empiricism.

Uh, yeah, we empirically saw our classmates stricken with polio in the early 50s and then the vaccine was introduced and then we didn't see anymore of our classmates stricken - duh. I guess that's a case of who are we gonna believe - him or our lyin' eyes!!?

Oh, I know American sanitation was so bad in the early 50s that polio was running rampant and then in just a couple of years, we (sorry I can't resist) cleaned up our act.

I still say these people have a severe case of "Belonephobia".

You might be interested to know that the inventor of the vaccine, Edward Jenner, was a quack..

From The Case Against Vaccination Verbatim Report of AN ADDRESS By WALTER HADWEN J.P., M.D., L.R.C.P., M.R.C.S., L.S.A., Etc (Gold Medalist in Medicine and in Surgery)

HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT.
   Thomas Carlyle has told us "that no error is fully confuted until you have seen not only that it is an error, but also how it became one." It will, therefore, be as well for me to take you over something of the history of the movement, and give an idea how this gigantic superstition and this monstrous fraud of vaccination came to be enforced, and came to be adopted by the profession and the public. The "discoverer" so-called was, as you all know, a man by the name of Edward Jenner, who lived at Berkeley, in your own county. He was not, however, the discoverer. The whole thing was a superstition of the Gloucestershire dairymaids years before Jenner was born--(laughter)--and the very experiment, so-called, that he performed had been performed by an old farmer named Benjamin Jesty twenty years previously. Now this man Jenner had never passed a medical examination in his life. He belonged to the good old times when George III. was King--(laughter)--when medical examinations were not compulsory. Jenner looked upon the whole thing as a superfluity, and he hung up "Surgeon, apothecary," over his door without any of the qualifications that warranted the assumption. It was not until twenty years after he was in practice that he thought it advisible to get a few letters after his name. Consequently he then communicated with a Scotch University and obtained the degree of Doctor of Medicine for the sum of £15 and nothing more. (Laughter.) It is true that a little while before, he had obtained a Fellowship of the Royal Society. but his latest biographer and apologist, Dr. Norman Moore, had to confess that it was obtained by little less than a fraud. It was obtained by writing a most extraordinary paper about a fabulous cuckoo, for the most part composed of arrant absurdities and imaginative freaks such as no ornithologist of the present day would pay the slightest heed to. A few years after this, rather dissatisfied with the only medical qualification he had obtained, Jenner communicated with the University of Oxford and asked them to grant him their honorary degree of M.D., and after a good many fruitless attempts he got it. Then he sent to the Royal College of Physicians in London to get their diploma, and even presented his Oxford degree as an argument in his favour. But they considered he had had quite enough on the cheap already, and told him distinctly that until he passed the usual examinations they were not going to give him any more. This was a sufficient check in Jenner’s case, and he settled down quietly without any diploma of physician.
   The period in which he lived was undoubtedly a very filthy period. It was a time when, to take London for instance, the streets were nothing but a mass of cobble stones, the roads were so narrow that the people could almost shake hands across the street, and as for fresh air they scarcely knew anything about it, for locomotion such as we have to-day was unknown. Sanitary arrangements were altogether absent. They obtained their water from conduits and wells in the neighbourhood, Water closets there were none, and no drainage system existed. It was in London especially that small-pox abounded, where bodies were buried in Old St. Paul’s Churchyard in Covent Garden only a foot below the soil, and people had to get up in the middle of the night and burn frankincense to keep off the stench; and where those who could afford it had houses on each side of the Fleet river, so that when the wind blew towards the east they lived in the west, and when it blew towards the west they lived in the east. This was the condition of old London, and you cannot be surprised if small-pox was then what Dr. Bond calls a scourge; you cannot be surprised if small-pox has declined since, even after this wonderful discovery of vaccination--(laughter and cheers)--and let us not forget that sanitary improvements began in London as early as 1766, and small-pox began to decline as a consequence before vaccination was invented.
   I won’t go now into the personal character of Jenner, but Dr. Creighton has well described him when he tells us that he was vain and petulant, crafty and greedy, a man with more grandiloquence and bounce than solid attainment, unscrupulous to a degree, a man who in all his writings was never precise when he could possibly be vague, and never straightforward when he could be secretive. This is the character that Dr. Creighton gives him; and as for the statement, which we constantly hear, that Jenner received such wonderful homage in the later years of his life, we well know that his closing years were years of misery as the failures of his fetish began to crowd upon him. It was on January 23rd, 1823, that he wrote his last letter to his confidential friend, Gardner, when he told him he was never surrounded by so many perplexities. Two days later Jenner breathed his last.

A SUPERSTITIOUS PERIOD.
   This practice of vaccination was simply a legend. The idea of charming away disease has been common in all countries and at all times, not only amongst the ignorant but amongst the educated. In old herb books we find how much the remedies for certain diseases depended on the jingle of the names; and there is no doubt that the way in which the idea got amongst the dairymaids that a person who had cow-pox never had small-pox depended upon the jingle of cow-pox and small-pox, and it was this which had such an extraordinary effect upon the mass of the people at that time. In the old herb books, for instance, we find that if you want to prevent suffering from the bite of a mad dog you must carry a herb called hound’s tongue, and again, to prevent the ill-consequence of a dog bite you must take a portion of the root of a dog rose. This kind of thing was common at that time; it was a most superstitious period in which Jenner lived, when live frogs were swallowed for the cure of worms; when cow dung and human excreta were mixed with milk and butter for diptheria; when the brains of a man who had died a violent death were given in teaspoonful doses for the cure of small-pox. Even Jenner had invented, not merely a cure for smallpox, but also one for hydrophobia, which quite takes the steam out of Pasteur’s treatment. All you had to do was to duck the man who had been bitten three times in a stream of running water, only taking care that each time you ducked him life became almost extinct. (Laughter.) He said he never knew that to fail under any circumstances. (Renewed laughter.) He evidently had an idea that persons bitten by a mad dog become possessed of an evil spirit, and should be treated as they used to treat the witches. So much for Jenner.
   When he first of all heard the story of the cow-pox legend that the dairymaids talked about, that if you only had cow-pox you can’t have small-pox, he began to mention it at the meetings of the Medico-convivial Society, where the old doctors of the day met together to smoke their pipes, drink their glasses of grog, and talk over their cases. But he no sooner mentioned it than they laughed at it. The cow doctors could have told him of hundreds of cases where small-pox had followed cow-pox, and Jenner found he would have to drop it.

JENNER’S EXPERIMENTS.
   In 1796, however, he performed his first experiment as it is called. He took a boy named James Phipps and inoculated him with some lymph which he took from a cow-pox vesicle. A short time afterwards he inoculated this boy with small-pox, and for very solid reasons which could be explained, the small-pox did not take. "Now," said Jenner, "is the grand discovery. This will answer my purpose, and I shall soon be able to get another paper for the Royal Society," to follow in the wake of the glorious cuckoo, which has been wittily termed "the bird that laid the vaccination egg." (Laughter.) That was in 1796, and we are close upon the century since that wonderful experiment. Russia is preparing to celebrate it, and the Bristol medical men are sending round for subscriptions for £1,000 in order to purchase the relics of this wonderful man--such as his snuff box, his lancets, and the chair the great man sat in--to put in the museum of the Bristol University. I have noticed that the doctors have omitted one important article which appeared in the Bristol Exhibition--a hair from the tail of the first cow that supplied the vaccine lymph. (Loud laughter.) I am sorry they have left that out. I am sure nothing would so stir the hearts of the coming race of medical men as an evidence of belief in the principle contained in the old herb book by which a person had to carry a hair of the tail of the dog that bit him. (Laughter.) I do not know whether the sensation from Russia is going to filter through to England, but unless you people in Gloucester are going to be swayed by the manifesto issued by the medical men my advice to you is to keep your rejoicings for the 5th November, and then if you happen to be hard tip for a companion for Guy Fawkes I would advise you to have an effigy of Edward Jenner to help feed the flames of your bonfire. (Laughter and cheers.)
   Jenner inoculated this boy James Phipps in 1796. Then, as soon as he had done that, he wrote it down--(laughter)--and went round the neighbourhood collecting desultory information with regard to cow-pox and cow-poxed milkers. He got cases of those who had had cow-pox years before and had never had small-pox, as if everybody was bound to have the small-pox. Then he took some worn-out paupers, over 6o years of age, who had had the cow-pox years and years before and inoculated them with small-pox to see if they would take. He found they did not take, because as people get advanced in life they are more or less proof against it. "This," said Jenner, "is the grand proof of the value of inoculation of cowpox as a preventive of small-pox."

HOW JENNER CHANGED HIS TACTICS.
   These were the materials which he got together in order to present his paper to the Royal Society. It was not to be surprised at that, with miserable material such as this, the Royal Society, though at that time at so low an ebb scientifically, should, nevertheless, immediately reject his paper as unsatisfactory and unsuited to a scientific society or a healthy public. (Cheers.) Jenner took care in that paper never to mention the cases of people who had cow-pox and had small-pox afterwards, he mentioned the cases of a dozen old men who had cow-pox and did not take small-pox afterwards, but he could have had hundreds of cases who had had both. These he took good care never to say anything about. As soon, however, as he came back with his paper the cow doctors were at him. They said this was all rubbish and began to pour on him hundreds of cases, just as we pelt the pro-vaccinists with figures showing that 90 per cent, of those who have had small-pox have already been vaccinated. (Cheers.)
   So Dr. Jenner soon found he would have to change his whistle, and invented a novel idea. The idea he started was this: he said there are two kinds of pox. One is the genuine kind and the other spurious, and those who have had cow-pox and yet have had small-pox afterwards, have had the spurious variety. Those who had cow-pox and did not have small-pox afterwards were those who bad had the genuine disease. This was a very clever and specious kind of argument, and the next thing that Jenner had to do was to find out where the genuine cow-pox could be found. Accordingly, on going into a stable one day he found that a cow had been affected with a very peculiar kind of disease that was produced in this way. It seems that a man had been seeing to the grease upon a horse’s heels, and had gone to milk the cows without washing his hands. The result was that it produced that peculiar kind of disease known by the name of horse-grease cow-pox. "This," said Jenner, "is the life-preserving fluid," and he went home to write about the wonderful virtues of horse-grease cow-pox. However, it was necessary to perform an experiment, and he inoculated a boy named John Baker with horse-grease, direct from the horse’s heels. He intended later to inoculate him with small-pox in order to see whether it would take, but it was something like the case of the man, you remember, who had an idea that if he only gave his horse a gradually diminishing diet he would at last be able to keep it on nothing. You remember that the horse died before the experiment could be completed, and it was the same with John Baker, for the poor boy died in the workhouse directly afterwards from a contagious fever contracted from the inoculation. ("Shame.")

JENNER SUBSTITUTES HORSE-GREASE FOR COW-POX.
   He then took some of the horse-grease cow-pox and inoculated six children, and without waiting to see the result or to prove whether it would take or not he rushed to London to get his paper printed. And in that paper he had the audacity to assert that it was not necessary to wait to see the result because the proofs he already had were so conclusive, and time experiments had told such an extraordinary tale--although he had completed but one experiment in his life, and that did not prove it at all. That boy James Phipps was hawked about the country as a proof of the value of vaccination, but he had not been inoculated with horse-grease cow-pox at all, but with spontaneous cow-pox, which Jenner now declared in his second paper was absolutely useless and unprotective against the disease!
   But as soon as the paper was published the outcry was tremendous. "What," said the people, "take horse-grease, filthy grease from horses’ heels, take that and put it into the blood of a child?" No, they would have nothing to do with it. They did not mind having cow-pox without the horse, but they could not think of having the cow-pox with the horse in it. Dr. Pearson wrote Jenner telling him he must take the horse out, or "it would damn the whole thing." Consequently--there is no accounting for taste--they denounced horse-grease cow-pox, but were prepared to accept spontaneous cow-pox.

JENNER HARKS BACK TO COW-POX.
   What did Jenner do? Did he attempt to stick up for his creed or to prove that he was right? No; he wanted money. He said he was looking forward "in the fond hope of enjoying independence," declaring he was in an impecunious condition. He accepted the verdict of the people. They wanted cow-pox; they should have it. And accordingly he wrote a third paper and tried to wipe out what he had written before. With the exception of a solitary footnote, in that paper, horse-grease cow-pox was not mentioned at all, and he fell back on the spontaneous cow-pox theory which he had previously denounced as useless and unprotective. This spontaneous cow-pox is what we are recommended to have by Dr. Bond in almost his last clause, i.e., lymph direct from the cow--which is denounced by the discoverer himself as absolutely unprotecive against the disease in question. (Cheers.)

Seen any smallpox cases lately?

Anyhow, it goes in the same file as "the CIA controls my brainwaves." That is all.

There must be Islamic money behind this continuous anti smallpox vaccine propaganda.

Perhaps you are an Islamic terrorist that desires the death of millions of Americans due to the vaccine, as it weakens the immune system and makes one MORE susceptable to smallpox. In fact, it appears to have CAUSED smallpox in many cases..

Perhaps you desire to weaken the immune systems of the troops overseas so that they might be more easily killed by bioattack.

Perhaps you are a traitor..

Seen any smallpox cases lately?

Well gee whiz, when do you think they STOPPED vaccinating people here in the US? Hint: It was THREE DECADES ago...

LOL! Busted! You're just too smart for me.

Whoops - forgot who I was dealing with - I guess I better add the </sarcasm tag.

Oh, I know American sanitation was so bad in the early 50s that polio was running rampant and then in just a couple of years, we (sorry I can't resist) cleaned up our act.

From Polio Transmission

Transmission

- How is poliomyelitis transmitted?

Humans are the only known reservoir of poliovirus, which is transmitted most frequently by persons with inapparent infections. There is no asymptomatic carrier state except in immune deficient persons.

Person-to-person spread of poliovirus via the fecal-oral route is the most important route of transmission, although the oral-oral route may account for some cases.

Poliovirus infection typically peaks in the summer months in temperate climates. There is no seasonal pattern in tropical climates.

Poliovirus is highly infectious, with seroconversion rates in susceptible household contacts of children nearly 100% and over 90% in susceptible household contacts of adults. Cases are most infectious from 7 to 10 days before and after the onset of symptoms, but poliovirus may be present in the stool from 3 to 6 weeks.

Source : CDC's document about Poliomyelitis

The "fecal-oral route" described above could very well have come into play due to the poor hygene of migrant workers harvesting and handling produce that ended up at our supermarkets.

With better sanitation and hygene, the transmission of the disease declined.

Former Lurker, you may choose to forego immunization, but your survival will be dependent on the herd immunity provided by those who exhibit moderate levels of common sense.

In short: you will be a parasite.

That's fine, as far as it goes. Keep in mind, however, that to the degree that folks who are exposed to your swill are persuaded by it, the herd immunity will decrease and your parasitism will be less viable as a survival mechanism.

For the rest, here's a good resource for answers to the anti-vaccine propaganda:

QuackwatchSM
Your Guide to Health Fraud,
Quackery, and Intelligent Decisions
Operated by Stephen Barrett, M.D
If you write, please mention how you found this Web site.

Misconceptions about Immunization

Introduction

Immunizations should be part of routine health care obtained through one's personal physician (or in some instances, through one's local health department). Long-lasting protection is available against measles, mumps, German measles (rubella), poliomyelitis, tetanus (lockjaw), whooping cough (pertussis), diphtheria, chickenpox (varicella), Hemophilus influenzae b (Hib), and hepatitis B. Immunization against all of these is recommended for children by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Family Practice, and the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

All states now require proof of immunization or other evidence of immunity against some of these diseases for admission to school. However, the requirements vary from state to state, and exemptions may be granted for medical, moral, or religious reasons.

Immunization is also important for adults. Those unprotected against any of the above diseases (except whooping cough) should consult their physicians. Tetanus boosters should be administered every ten years. Flu shots (which give only seasonal protection) and immunization against pneumococcal pneumonia are recommended for high-risk patients, elderly individuals, and certain institutional populations.

The success of vaccination programs in the United States and Europe inspired the 20th-century concept of "disease eradication" -- the idea that a selected disease can be eradicated from all human populations through global cooperation. In 1977, after a decade-long campaign involving 33 countries, smallpox was eradicated worldwide. Polio caused by wild virus has been eradicated from the Western Hemisphere; childhood vaccination levels in the United States are at an all-time high; and disease and death from diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, measles, mumps, rubella and Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) are at or near record lows. In April 1999, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control issued a fact sheet with some interesting statistics about the impact of vaccination on childhood diseases.

Average annual number of smallpox cases in 1900-1904: 48,164.
United States cases per year since 1950: 0.
Worldwide cases per year since 1977: 0.
Average annual number of diphtheria cases in the U.S. in 1920-1922: 175,885.
U.S. cases in 1998: 1.
Average annual number of pertussis cases in 1922-1925: 147,271.
U.S. cases in 1998: 6,279.
Estimated average annual number of tetanus cases in 1922-1926: 1,314.
U.S. cases in 1998: 34.
Average annual number of paralytic polio cases in 1951-1954: 16,316.
U.S. cases of wild type poliovirus in 1998: 0.
Average annual number of measles cases in 1958-1962: 503,282.
U.S. cases in 1998: 89.
The number of mumps cases in 1968: 152,209.
U.S. cases in 1998: 606.
Average annual number of rubella cases in 1966-1968: 47,745.
U.S. cases in 1998: 345.
Estimated average annual number of cases of congenital rubella syndrome in 1966-1968: 823.
U.S. cases in 1998: 5.
Estimated average annual number of Hib cases before vaccine licensure: 20,000.
U.S. cases in 1998: 54.

Common Misconceptions

At least ten misconceptions can lead parents to question the wisdom of immunizing their children. If you encounter others you would like Quackwatch to address, please contact us.

Misconception #1: because of better hygiene and sanitation, diseases had already begun to disappear before vaccines were introduced.
Misconception #2: The majority of people who get the disease have been immunized.
Misconception #3: There are hot lots of vaccine that have been associated with more adverse events and deaths than others. Parents should find the numbers of these lots and not allow their children to receive vaccines from them.
Misconception #4: Vaccines cause many harmful side effects, and even death -- and may cause long-term effects we don't even know about.
Misconception #5: DTP vaccine causes sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
Misconception #6: Vaccine-preventable diseases have been virtually eliminated from the United States, so there is no need for my child to be vaccinated.
Misconception #7: Giving a child more than one vaccine at a time increases the risk of harmful side effects and can overload the immune system.
Misconception #8: There is no good reason to immunize against chickenpox (varicella) because it is a harmless disease
Misconception #9: Vaccines cause autism.
Misconception #10. Hepatitis B vaccine causes chronic health problems, including multiple sclerosis.
Misconception #11. Thimerosal Causes Autism

Opposition by Chiropractors and Naturopaths

Large percentages of chiropractors and naturopaths advise parents not to immunize their children. These actions are irresponsible and can cause serious harm both to patients and to our society as a whole.

For Additional Information

U.S. Centers for Disease Control
- National Immunization Program offers answers to common questions.
- CDC Information Hotline: (800) 323-2522.
The American Academy of Pediatrics answers common questions and provides its recommended childhood immunization schedule.
Health Canada: Laboratory Center for Disease Control
The Immunization Action Coalition, whose mission is to increase immunization rates, offers childhood and adult immunization information and answers questions by email.
The Immunization Gateway: Links to many other authoritative sites.
Immunization Newsbriefs: Online and e-mail newsletter from the National Network for Immunization Infoirmation
The Vaccine Page: Vaccine news and a database
Healthy People 2010: Surgeon General's goals for immunization
Immunization: The Inconvenient Facts: A science-based response to Viera Scheibner.
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases: Jordan Report 2000: Accelerated Development of Vaccines
National Network for Immunization Information
Vaccine Education Center (Children's Hospital of Philadelphia)

Quackwatch Home Page

This page was revised on April 20, 2002.

Quackwatch Immunization Thread Here

There isn't enough time in the day to deal with the woodwork-crawlers. Take the vaccine. Or don't. But if you don't, and a smallpox outbreak occurs, have the good grace to shut up and die quietly...

With better sanitation and hygene, the transmission of the disease declined.

There are, at this very minute, more people living on planet Earth in unhygenic and unsanitary conditions, than at any other time in human History. There are more today than yesterday, and there will be more tomorrow. There were more unsanitary and unhygenic people in 1970 than 1950, 1900, 1800, 1700, 1500, 1000, 500, 100 BC, 1000 BC or 1400 BC.
Why have there been no naturally occuring smallpox cases in the last 24 years anywhere in the First, Second, or Third Worlds?