Vaccinations, vaccines
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One of the public’s shameful cases was the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ rejection of immunization. The Watch Tower Society had had three positions in its history regarding vaccines. Initially, they accepted it, then sharply negated them and finally (in 1952) allowed the vaccines again.
Until 1921, the Watchtower Society did not raise any criticism towards the vaccines. Their journal The Golden Age dated April 27 1921 (English edition), published an article that praised the vaccine. In this article the invention of the vaccines was considered as a proof of the invisible return of Christ, which supposedly occurred in 1874 (today Jehovah’s Witnesses teach that this event occurred in 1914, not in 1874):
Your readers will not fail to notice that it is only since our Lord’s Return in 1874 A.D., that the above wonderful discoveries in medicine were made. (The Golden Age April 27, 1921 p. 441).
In recent years our knowledge regarding the specific bacterial anti-bodies produced by inoculation has greatly increased. The immune substance develops slowly and increases gradually in quantity as the result of successive inoculations, and when once produced it is eliminated slowly from the system, so that the immunity lasts from three months to several years. It may be assumed that the success which has so far been achieved from the use of these detoxicated vaccines represents only the beginning of the ultimate possibilities of the immunizing agents in the prevention and cure of disease. (The Golden Age April 27, 1921 p. 442).
It must be stressed here, that in the early years of the Watchtower Society, various inventions, and those in the field of medicine, were counted among the characteristic signs of a ‘new day’ for the earth that came. Along with the invisible return of the Messiah in 1874.
It was in the year 1874, the date of our Lord’s second presence, that the first labor organization in the world was created. From that time forward there has been a marvelous increase of light, and the inventions and discoveries have been too numerous for us to mention all of them here, but mention is made of some of those that have come to light since 1874, as further evidence of the Lord's presence since that date, as follows: Adding machines, aeroplanes, aluminum, antiseptic surgery, artificial dyes, automatic couplers, automobiles, barbed wire, bicycles, carborundum, cash registers, celluloid.... (The Harp of God 1921 pp. 234-235).
In the same year of 1921, a few months later, the Watch Tower Society radically rejected the immunization. The criticism of the vaccines was carried out by the organization for many years until the end of 1952. Over that period of time they were discouraging its members from vaccination, citing above all the law of God:
Vaccination never prevented anything and never will, and is the most barbarous practice of an otherwise civilized nation. (...) We are in the last days; and the devil is slowly losing his hold, making a strenuous effort meanwhile to do all the damage he can, and to his credit can such evils be placed. (...) Use your rights as American citizens to forever abolish the devilish practice of vaccination. (The Golden Age October 12, 1921 p. 17).
Thinking people would rather have smallpox that vaccination, because the latter sows the seed of syphilis, cancers, eczema, erysipelas, scrofula, consumption, even leprosy and many other loathsome affections. Hence the practice of vaccination is a crime, an outrage and a delusion. (The Golden Age May 1, 1929 p. 502).
The Sacredness of Human Blood (...) REASONS WHY VACCINATION IS UNSCRIPTURAL
(...) This plainly suggests that much of the looseness of our day along sexual lines may be traceable to the easy and continued violation of the divine commands to keep human and animal blood apart from each other. With cells of foreign blood racing through his veins man is not normal, not himself, but lacks the poise and balance which make for self-control. (...) Vaccination is a direct violation of the everlasting covenant that God made with Noah after the flood. (The Golden Age February 4, 1931 p. 293).
Vaccination has never saved a human life. It does not prevent smallpox. (...) The man that makes it his business to pollute the blood of man with all manner of filth taken from the blood of animals is committing one of the most criminal offenses toward God that was ever committed by man. (The Golden Age February 4, 1931 pp. 294-295).
Vaccination – Why Not?
Of all the inventions that have been foisted upon mankind for their defilement the most subtly devilish is that of vaccination. (The Golden Age February 4, 1931 p. 295).
Syphilitic Symptomal After-Effects
There is a striking similarity in the aftereffects of vaccination to the constitutional derangements resulting from venereal syphilis. The only comparative difference would seem to be a usual absence of the marked scrofulous symptoms often met with in sufferers from this disease. (The Golden Age February 4, 1931 p. 295).
Its Dementalizing Influence
One of the noticeable marked effects of vaccination upon the human system is that of mental and moral degeneration. However, not an who are vaccinated perceptibly experience these degenerating influences. The reason for this is that the exercise of the mind and win in proper channels tends to resist dementalizing and moral degenerating influences. But sometimes even with such, dementalizing influences are too strong and insanity results. And insanity has had a tremendous impetus since vaccination and serum treatments became general. (The Golden Age February 4, 1931 p. 298).
The theory that vaccination results in a blood poison related to venereal syphilis is not a mere opinion. And while it is usually of a somewhat milder form, it has, nevertheless, an insidious weakening effect upon constitutional vitality and, what is even worse, an apparent influence towards mental deterioration. This influence in the young would in many cases naturally cause a moral reflex toward crime and immorality through a dulling of the moral senses in its paralyzing influence upon the higher brain cells. (The Golden Age February 4, 1931 p. 299).
The life is in the blood, and as vaccination is a direct injection of animal matter in the blood stream, vaccination is a direct violation of the holy law of Jehovah God. (The Golden Age April 24, 1935 p. 471).
While the ecclesiastics inoculate the people with spiritually poisonous doctrines, the medicos vaccinate them with deadly serums. How the Devil must laugh at the cruel hoax by which bodies are said to be made healthy through the injection of diseased tissues, and immunity to disease is obtained by corrupting the blood-stream! (Consolation May 31, 1939 p. 3, article „The Crime of Vaccination”).
In addition, short texts against vaccination were published. The title of the second one listed below is self-explanatory and repeated in 1939:
Vaccination and Sleeping Sickness (The Golden Age August 10, 1927 p. 712).
The Crime of Vaccination (The Golden Age October 16, 1929 p. 48).
Since December 15th, 1952, the Watchtower Society has rejected its prejudice against vaccination. During those days even the organization’s missionaries were the subject of the immunization injections.
Sometimes the mass vaccination could not be served to all, due to the shortage of the vaccines available.
Is vaccination a violation of God’s law forbidding the taking of blood into the system? (…) The matter of vaccination is one for the individual that has to face it to decide for himself. Each individual has to take the consequences for whatever position and action he takes toward a case of compulsory vaccination, doing so according to his own conscience and his appreciation of what is for good health and the interests of advancing God’s work. And our Society cannot afford to be drawn into the affair legally or take the responsibility for the way the case turns out. After consideration of the matter, it does not appear to us to be in violation of the everlasting covenant made with Noah, as set down in Genesis 9:4, nor contrary to God’s related commandment at Leviticus 17:10-14. Most certainly it cannot reasonably or Scripturally be argued and proved that, by being vaccinated, the inoculated person is either eating or drinking blood and consuming it as food or receiving a blood transfusion. Vaccination does not bear any relationship to or any likeness to the intermarriage of angelic “sons of God” with the daughters of men, as described in Genesis 6:1-4. Neither can it be put in the same class as described at Leviticus 18:23, 24, which forbids the mingling of humans with animals. It has nothing to do with sex relations. Hence all objection to vaccination on Scriptural grounds seems to be lacking. The only proper objection that some persons could raise to it would be on the matter of the health risks involved or of keeping their blood stream clean from diseased matter coming from a foreign source, whether from an animal sore or from a human sore. Medical science, in fact, claims that vaccination actually results in building up the vitality of the blood to resist the disease against which the person is inoculated. But, of course, that is a question for each individual concerned to decide for himself and as he sees it to be Jehovah’s will for him. We merely offer the above information on request, but can assume no responsibility for the decision and course the reader may take. (The Watchtower December 15, 1952 p. 764).
Vaccination or Inoculation Not Feeding on Blood; Not Connected with Sex Relations (“Make Sure of All Things” 1953, 1957 p. 48).
These words are clearly a polemic with the previous point of view represented in the past. It looks like the organization was arguing against its own previous views.
Often vaccinations or inoculations, which are not made from blood, are required when children enter school or when tourists or missionaries travel to foreign countries. The objective is to stimulate the producing of antibodies in advance to prevent a person from contracting a certain disease should he be exposed to it. (The Watchtower June 1, 1974 p. 351).
Although the Kingdom work was still under ban in Portugal, thousands there prepared to travel through Spain to Toulouse, France. Their spirits were high. Then news came of a cholera outbreak in Spain. Only those vaccinated against cholera could travel through that country. However, there was insufficient vaccine available for all from Portugal who wanted to attend the convention. (2000 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses pp. 76).
Vaccinations were even called “good news for millions of people”:
In 1955, when Dr. Jonas E. Salk discovered a vaccine that was effective in preventing paralytic polio, that, too, was received by millions as good news, but neither was that the top news story of our time. (The Watchtower February 15, 1962 p. 100).
After releasing the ban on vaccinations, even N. Knorr (the president of the Watchtower Society, died 1977) emphasized that he used them while travelling to other countries:
At last the health officer decided that any holding a certificate showing inoculation for yellow fever could be passed through to go on their way. I had such a certificate, but Brother Franz was without one, as he had not expected to go to any territory where yellow fever prevailed. Therefore he and about fifteen other passengers lacking the certificate (very rarely needed, except in certain parts of Africa) were detained. (The Watchtower May 15, 1957 p. 300).
Interestingly, before 1952 the vaccines could somehow be provided for travelling visitors and missionaries of the Watchtower Society. Could it be that they were allowed to receive them, and ordinary followers were not?
Obviously, after allowing the practice of vaccination among Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Watchtower Society stipulated it. The condition was that only such vaccines should be used which did not contain ingredients of blood, but that fact sometimes makes vaccination impossible. The article of Awake! August 8, 1993 pp. 22-25 Should My Family Be Immunized? mentions several types of vaccines which should be avoided by Jehovah’s Witnesses, because some vaccines contain ingredients of blood:
Immunizations Not Derived From Blood
Baby shots (DPT, OPV, MMR)
Hib vaccine
Pneumovax
Toxoids
Flu shots
Recombivax-HB
Immunizations Derived From Blood
Heptavax-B
Rhogam
Antitoxins
Antivenins (for snake and spider venom)
Immune globulins (for various diseases)
Gamma globulin
Hyperimmune serum preparations (antirabies serum, for example) (Awake! August 8, 1993 p. 24).
The other publication gave the following reply to the question: “Would it be proper to accept a vaccination or some other medical injection containing albumin derived from human blood?”:
Frankly, each Christian must personally decide on this.(...) Other medical preparations may come into use in the future that involve a comparatively small amount of albumin, since pharmaceutical companies develop new products or change the formulas of existing ones. Christians may thus want to consider whether albumin is part of a vaccination or other injection that a doctor recommends. If they have doubts or have reason to believe that albumin is a component, they can inquire of their physician. (Watchtower October 1, 1994 p. 31).
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