By:g9ija,lagos
iatrogenesis is a word coined from the Greek word: iatros which means healer or physician; genesis means origin. Put together we have ‘physician-originated’. Following this, iatrogenesis may be defined as any disorder brought on in a patient by reason of medical intervention. Ineffective, unsafe or erroneous medical intervention that could result in therapeutic failures, intentional and accidental poisoning, drug abuse, incorrect drug administration, noncompliance, adverse drug reactions, diagnostic procedures- mechanical and radiological procedures, therapeutic regimen which includes drugs, surgeries and invasive procedures, hospitalization, and so on.
The greatly treasured Hippocratic maxim: ‘Do no harm’ is perhaps the most salubrious guiding creed in medical practice. In conventional medicine, intervention-induced consequences are expected and prepared for or warned against. There are also evidence-based criteria in treatment dispensation. This has led to placing on many medications clear warnings of contraindications for its use. To further bring more light on this point, Homeopathic medicine was a product of the rejection of iatrogenic consequences of treatment procedures in the days of Samuel Hahnemann. Being dissatisfied with the result of his medical practice, Hahnemann gave up his practice in the first years of his married life and took up chemistry, writing and translation of scientific literature since he was a multilinguist. Hahnemann objected to unwholesome medical practices of his day like bloodletting, purging, leeching, etc saying that these practices caused more harm than good to patients. He would not partake to treat unknown pathological state with unknown medicine. He felt like a murderer of fellow human beings (Hael, 1922).
With the foregoing being established, we now move on to tackle the matter on hand.
Vaccination is a medical procedure in which the human immune system is pre-strengthened by being sensitized with an injection or oral administration of an artificial form of the potential threat. Technically put, vaccination implies the exposure of the immune system to inactivated toxin or attenuated pathogen for the purpose of eliciting antigen-specific clonal expansion i.e. the multiplication of thymus cells (T-cells) and Bursa cells (B-cells that recognize the antigen). The term ‘vaccination’ was used because the first vaccine (microorganism) was obtained from the cow in form of cowpox (Latin: vacca means cow). Immunization is practically the same with vaccination. Inoculation on the other hand, employs unweakened live pathogens. An instance of inoculation is the injection of the variola (smallpox) virus taken from a pustule or scab of the small pox sufferer in to the superficial layers of the skin usually the left deltoid muscle.
Vaccines contain a microorganism- bacteria or virus in an impotent or killed state or proteins or toxins from the organism. World-wide vaccination programs have greatly aided in the prevention and eradicationof such infectious diseases as polio, small pox, tetanus, measles, diphtheria, etc. Vaccination has been singularly effective in averting many infectious diseases for which there were no treatments in the conventional system howbeit at a cost.
Edward Jenner invented the smallpox vaccine in 1796. Nevertheless, the earliest recorded evidence of vaccination existed in India and China where powdered scabs of people infected with smallpox were given to those who had not contacted the disease in the 17th century. The Chinese, the Greeks and even some English and German men and physicians including Hahnemann had been employing the principle of vaccination before the publication by Edward Jenner in 1798. As far back as AD 1000, the tradition of vaccination was already being employed in India.
Before I go on with this treatise, it is essential to point out this discussion is about vaccinations before corona virus of 2019; this write-up is not necessarily pro-vaccination nor anti-vaccination but anti-iatrogenesis. A crucial point to bring up here is that the scientific concept behind vaccination is essentially homeopathic albeit in a crude form. The concept is real that is why we see good effects and undeniable results however the vaccine production procedures being crude have led to very terrible consequences.
Homeopathic explanation of vaccination §46, line 8, footnote.
Hahnemann writing in the Organon of Medicine noted
Small pox coming on after vaccination, as well on accounts of its greater strength as its great similarity, at once removes entirely the cow pox homeopathically, and does not permit it to come to maturity: but on the other hand, the cow-pox when near maturity does, on account of its great similarity, homeopathically diminish very much the supervening smallpox and make it much milder8, as Muhry9 and many others testify.
Footnote to line 8: this seems to be the reason for this beneficial remarkable fact, namely that since the general distribution of Jenner’s Cow Pox vaccination, human small pox never again appeared as epidemically or virulently as 40 – 45 years before when one city lost at least and often three quarters of its children by death of this miserable pestilence.
On the other hand, writing in the New York Press on 26 January 1909, W.B. Clark said, “Cancer was practically unknown until cowpox vaccination began to be introduced in 1853.” The following are common immunizations given to children- Measles vaccine, DPT which stands for diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough) and Tetanus, Oral polio vaccine (OPV), etc. Smallpox vaccine is no longer being given since the disease was eradicated in Nigeria in 1980. Besides these, there are several other infectious and noninfectious diseases which are preventable with appropriate vaccination.
Vaccines may contain live or killed laboratory altered microorganisms and in addition, carcinogens, heavy metals and mutated proteins. Some of the toxic immune adjuvants found in vaccines include: Squalene, aluminum (a neurotoxin linked to Alzheimer’s disease and dementia), ethylene glycol (antifreeze), Triton (detergent), formaldehyde (a carcinogen), monosodium glutamate (MSG), Neomycin, streptomycin, phenol (carbolic acid), polysorbate 80 (Tween80) (can cause severe allergic reactions including anaphylaxis) thimerosal (vaccine preservative, a mercury adjuvant, a neurotoxin associated with long-term immune, sensory, neurological, motor and behavioural dysfunctions. (Mercola, 2007, 2011).
With such toxic adjuvants in any drug and especially in vaccines being administered to children and adults, harmful consequences are inevitable. Due to countless recorded and reported cases of vaccination harm, there is a justified global outcry against vaccination. Uncontroverted evidence exist which reveal that vaccines do cause and contribute to disease: either the disease the vaccine is to avert or other diseases. Britain’s Public Health Laboratory Service (PHLS) revealed that while the vaccination of children against chicken pox may save thousands of lives over time, the after-effects is that thousands of elderly persons may suffer from the painful effects and may die prematurely from complications of shingles (herpes zoster, a painful, blistering rash). Even though chicken pox is practically harmless in children, the vaccine industry decided and produced shingles vaccine for elders which has 50% preventive capacity. Also in 2001, of the children who contracted chicken pox in Maryland, US, 75 percent of them had been vaccinated against the disease. In 2009, the US experienced the largest outbreak of mumps since 2006. Over 1000 persons fell ill from mumps of whom 77 percent were already vaccinated against mumps (Mercola, 2001). Literature is replete with horrific accounts of harm inflicted on humanity by an otherwise lifesaving procedure. It is as if vaccination has caused as much harm as the good it has done.
No surprise then that in the United States, the National Vaccination Injury Compensation Program, commonly called the “Vaccine Court” has as at 2017 paid out over 3.5 billion dollars in damages to parents with vaccine-injured children since its establishment in 1986! Yet this court is known to few Americans.
In homeopathy we do not have vaccines and do not employ vaccination as in the conventional system. Remember vaccination is a crude application of homeopathy. In homeopathy, preventive medicine (homeoprophylaxis) is carried out in line with the principle of similar. The reader may refer to previous articles in this series. The excellence of our homeopathic pharmacognosy is that even the most deadly poisons are transformed in to healing agents of unrivalled efficacy. Thus we use such terrible poisons as belladonna (deadly nightshade), arsenicum, mercury, snake venoms (eg lachesis from surukuku snake venom, crotalus horridus), anacardium, opium, caustic acids, etc.
This modification is made possible by the process of potentization which, if mechanically followed, consists of attenuation (dilution) and succussion. With this process, poisonous and practically inert substances (sand, lycopodium, chalk) are converted into efficacious remedial agents. Following this procedure, we have very few records of minimal negative side effects (drug-induced) from appropriate prescriptions in homeoprophylaxis and homeopathic treatments.
There is indeed need for every African nation to take responsibility for the health of her citizens. For a continent so blessed with some of the best personnel in every field of medical sciences, pharmaceutical sciences, microbiology, biochemistry, genetics and molecular biological sciences, etc. to seemingly intervene without their own home-made or with a foreign, health agenda is an error against the state.
Homeopathy is a field of medical practice which ought to be harnessed for the good of this nation, Nigeria. Also there are other important but unexploited disciplines like Naturopathy, Acupuncture, Osteopathy which with Homeopathy make up Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in Nigeria. Let CAM be integrated in to the Nigeria health system and watch the health indices of our Nation grow. This topic will be continued in the next article. Hopefully some homeopathic remedies will be mentioned which may be used to counteract or minimize the adverse effects of vaccination. drokekefc1@gmail.com