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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMeet the vegetarian anti-vaxxers who led the smallpox inoculation backlash in Victorian Britain
As the world hangs its hope on a new vaccine for COVID-19, it is easy to forget how controversial these life-saving treatments have been throughout history. People may have heard some of the divisive and controversial arguments of todays anti-vaxxers. But it is perhaps more surprising to learn that there was a significant backlash from vegetarians and animal rights advocates when the first smallpox vaccines were being introduced almost 200 years ago.
When smallpox vaccination was introduced in England in 1840, the government abolished inoculation using the live smallpox virus taken from the blisters of humans with the infection. The live virus was dangerous because it infected people with smallpox and so carried the risk of death, disfigurement and bringing smallpox into an area which was previously disease-free.
This made cowpox lymph the only option. This is where lymph containing white blood cells which fight against the disease are extracted from calves which had been inoculated with smallpox. But using calf lymph (also taken from blisters) was unacceptable to vegetarians and anti-vivisectionists who were growing in number from the mid-19th century.
Smallpox vaccination was made compulsory for children in England in 1853. In the following years, groups opposing compulsory vaccination began to appear across England. They had coalesced into a more structured movement by the mid-1860s under the leadership of Richard Butler Gibbs, a noted vegetarian and food reformer.
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https://www.yahoo.com/news/meet-vegetarian-anti-vaxxers-led-141505977.html
erronis
(14,941 posts)David Gorski on June 22, 2020
https://respectfulinsolence.com/2020/06/19/becker-and-blaxill-use-covid-19-to-claim-vaccines-cause-sids/