10 JANUARY 1969, Page 25

Sex and science

Sir: We challenge Dr John Rowan Wilson's statement (13 December) that 'Vaccination and the development of antibacterial drugs have protected [man] against most of the traditional plagues of mankind.'

Anyone who has studied the vaccination question knows that with all the old-time in- sanitary conditions, open cess-pits etc, small- pox deaths were around 2,000 per year, whilst after the first compulsory trial of vaccination, Britain had her greatest smallpox epidemic with 46,000 deaths, due largely to the live virus used. In every country in the world where this has been tried, the same results have fol- lowed, including the Philippines where there was a moderate amount of smallpox until the Americans moved in with their vaccines, after which the world's greatest smallpox epidemic followed again, on account of the live virus. Out of a population of 11,000,000, there were 71,000 deaths, and everyone that died had been vaccinated between two and eight times. We also have much information and data concern- ing other countries, right up to the present time.

Recently, among the eminent medical authorities who have condemned vaccination is Professor Leon Grigorski of the Athenian Faculty of Medicine, who has stated that we are `heading towards general cancerisation and mental defectives through encephalitis by the use of vaccines.' The French government has recently paid out much money for vaccine deaths and damage in children. At the annual meeting of the National Anti-Vaccination League in London this year, Monsieur Delarue, the secretary of the French Anti-Vaccination League, cited many of these cases which were very terrible. The fact is that many of these things are going on in this country and de- liberately not related to the cause, which is the vaccine. We suggest that it would be a very good idea for Dr John Rowan Wilson to contact us and apply himself to a little bit of research into the facts about this, and he may be more than surprised at what he finds.

Clive R. Desmond Secretary, the National Anti-Vaccination League, 2a Lebanon Road, Croydon, Surrey