Vaccination: axioms, evidence, and historical lessons

Wellness principles #2

The idea that “vaccination works” is widely taken as an axiom in public health. Yet, rather than being a self-evident truth, its justification rests on historical, scientific, and philosophical layers that are often less robust than assumed. The “science” is not always as settled as it appears.

Natural Epidemic Patterns

In the early 19th century—well before germ theory was accepted—British statistician William Farr noticed that epidemic death curves often rose and fell in symmetrical, bell-shaped patterns, independent of medical interventions. In 1840 he wrote:

The death rate is a fact; anything beyond this is an inference.

This principle—that epidemics often decline naturally—raises an important question: how much of the decline in infectious disease can genuinely be credited to vaccines, and how much reflects intrinsic epidemic dynamics?

Declines Before Vaccines

Nearly fifty years ago, medical sociologists John and Sonja McKinlay analysed mortality trends from ten major diseases, including tuberculosis, scarlet fever, influenza, pneumonia, diphtheria, whooping cough, measles, smallpox, typhoid and polio. In every case, the vaccine or therapy credited with “conquering” the illness appeared long after death rates were already in decline.

Historian Thomas McKeown made a similar observation: mortality from bronchitis, pneumonia, and influenza had dropped sharply decades before the medicines credited with their reduction were introduced. Improvements in sanitation, nutrition, and living standards appear to have played the more decisive role.

Case Studies in Vaccine Setbacks

The Cutter Incident (Polio, 1955)

During the rollout of the polio vaccine, a manufacturing error at Cutter Laboratories allowed live poliovirus to contaminate vaccine batches. Over 250 children developed paralytic polio, shaking public confidence and leading to tighter safety protocols.

High-Titre Measles Vaccine (HTMV, late 1980s)

Trials of HTMV, intended for infants under nine months, showed paradoxical results. While effective against measles itself, vaccinated girls experienced roughly double the overall mortality of those who received the standard vaccine. The WHO withdrew HTMV in 1992.

These episodes underscore that vaccines are not always unequivocally “safe and effective,” and that unintended outcomes can emerge even after rigorous trials.

COVID-19 Vaccines and Contested Outcomes

The COVID-19 era revived these debates. Many physicians observed that patients often contracted COVID shortly after vaccination; some developed severe illness or died. While mainstream narratives denied causality, adverse event reporting databases recorded striking patterns:

Heart-related deaths clustered shortly after vaccination.

Weeks later, COVID-19 itself became the most commonly reported cause of death following vaccination.

Internal pharmaceutical data have since suggested limited or contrary benefits, while US Senate hearings have begun questioning whether some COVID vaccines should remain authorised. Concerns about both short- and long-term harms from mRNA platforms continue to accumulate.

Trust in Physicians

Public confidence has suffered. In North America, trust in physicians has fallen dramatically since the pandemic—by 30 percentage points in general trust and 14 points in ethics/honesty ratings.

In Europe, the picture is more mixed: some nations (like Norway) saw temporary increases in trust during early pandemic management, but overall, confidence in the medical profession has declined.

Medicine rests on a handful of foundational assumptions, and vaccination has long been treated as an unquestionable axiom. Yet history shows that epidemics often recede naturally, vaccines have sometimes produced harmful or paradoxical effects, and official narratives have not always aligned with the underlying data.

The challenge is not to reject vaccines wholesale, although a vocal minority now does, but to ask harder questions:

How much of the credit for disease decline is truly due to vaccination?

When adverse outcomes occur, are they fully acknowledged?

And can public trust be rebuilt without a more transparent reckoning with these uncertainties?

The evidence suggests that the story is far more complex than the slogan “safe and effective” allows.

References & Further Reading

Epidemic Dynamics

Farr W. Letter to the Registrar General’s Report (1840). Early analysis of epidemic death curves.

Trilliant Health. Revisiting Farr’s Law (2021). Modern retrospective on epidemic patterns.

Disease Declines Before Vaccines

McKinlay JB, McKinlay SM. Medical measures and the decline of mortality. Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly (1977).

McKeown T. The Role of Medicine: Dream, Mirage, or Nemesis? London: Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust (1976).

Vaccine Case Studies

Offit P. The Cutter Incident: How America’s First Polio Vaccine Led to the Growing Vaccine Crisis. Yale University Press (2005).

CDC. Polio: The Cutter Incident (archival retrospective).

Aaby P, Samb B, Simondon F, et al. Increased female mortality after high-titre measles vaccines: Randomised trial in Senegal. The Lancet (1993).

WHO. Withdrawal of High-Titre Measles Vaccines (1992 policy note).

COVID-19 Vaccines and Trust

VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, USA). Aggregated reports of post-vaccination deaths and adverse events.

OECD. Trust and Public Institutions during COVID-19 (2022).

Gallup Poll. Confidence in Physicians and Ethics Ratings, US & Canada (2021–2023).