In response to any criticism of current vaccine policy, the polio vaccine inevitably gets dragged into the debate by the pro-vax side. What they don’t understand, because they’ve never bothered to find out, is that the polio vaccine, from the 50’s to the present, has a history that does not help their argument for vaccine safety. One historical tidbit left out of the discussion is that the polio virus used in the vaccines was cultivated on monkey kidneys, a process thought to be harmless at the time. It turned out not to be harmless, because the monkeys were infected with simian virus 40, and passed it on to 90 million Americans via Jonas Salk’s vaccine. SV40 is a prime suspect as the cause of mesothelioma, a fast-moving, lethal cancer that suddenly appeared sometime after 1950, one that kills around 3,000 Americans each year.

Another historical episode that never seems to make it into any discussion is the Cutter Incident, which refers to the mass vaccination campaign of 200,000 children in 1955. The problem was that the polio virus had been improperly inactivated, resulting in vaccine-induced polio in over 40,000 children, including many deaths.

Something else that is interesting: the monkeys used to culture the polio in mass quantities necessary for vaccine production were infected with simian immunodeficiency virus, similar to the human immunodeficiency virus, of which there is no documented case in a human before 1959. Vaccine scientist Hilary Koprowski conducted polio vaccine experiments in Africa between 1957 and 1960, administering his experimental vaccine to over 300,000 equatorial Africans. His vaccine was never approved. The first known case of HIV was eventually traced to a patient that visited a clinic that administered Koprowski’s experimental vaccine in 1959.

From the SF Chronicle

The observation that voters who are closely wedded to a single political party will usually blindly follow that party on any issue, regardless of what it concerns, is fairly common. This instinctual herd behavior has probably contributed to our survival as a species in a fundamental way, but it’s nevertheless disheartening to see it in action in regard to politics. For example: the Iraq War of 2003 was universally seen as a Republican war, because it was a Republican White House that launched it and expanded upon it. Republican voters virulently defended the actions of their President, no matter how often destructive to liberty or peace. It was mindless support.

Now, if the Iraq War had been launched by a Democratic President, it would be the mass of that party’s voters who would have been unconditionally defending every overseas atrocity. They would have defended the Patriot Act, rather than oppose it, it a Democratic President had signed it. Because we humans are hardwired for a religion of some type, we fill that need with whatever doctrine is most emotionally satisfying, one that everyone takes part in.

I say this due to the fact that the Democratic Party of various states appears to be the sole driver of vaccine mandates. California is in the news for its recent legislation that severely weakens the ability of a medical doctor to write a vaccine exemption for a child that the doctor deems to be at risk for injury. But Democrats have traditionally been the party that questioned the power of corporations, and sought to weaken those corporations’ hold upon government and the public. But we see Democrats voting unanimously to force a pharmaceutical product on citizens who would rather abstain. They are granting a corporation vast power and wealth, while it is the Republican Party, traditionally seen as the pro-business party, is the one attempting to stave off this massive attack on the ability to choose what is injected into our bodies.

The Democratic Party has been the defender of “my body my choice”, which is a wonderful slogan. Just imagine where that simple motto would take you if extended to every area of life! That affirmation of bodily sovereignty should be extended to an inject-able pharmaceutical product, but because the pro-vaccine hysteria has short-circuited the critical-thinking capacity of so many, it is ignored, or downplayed. The “greater good” argument has been used by corporate-captured legislatures to thrust upon the public vaccine mandates, while remaining willfully blind to the dangers of those vaccines.

Which brings me to my final point: people are stubbornly immune to facts that contradict the tenets of their political herd. Beliefs that they’ve tethered their emotions to, even false beliefs, will be clung to, and no amount of evidence will change their minds. Which is fine for the most part. We all have unfounded beliefs that might not stand up to scrutiny. My problem is with the blindly-held beliefs in the political realm that affect everyone via legislation. They believe that their beliefs should be forced upon others, that their ideas about the appropriate direction for all of society should be mandated. That’s our primal nature, though, to feel a desire to force our beliefs on others. But it’s also in our nature to thrive in an environment of liberty, where force is removed from our interactions with others. It is the sole duty of government to ensure the elimination of force. Any action beyond that makes the government an instrument of someone else’s desire.