By a fellow DDFer...
http://collive.com/show_news.rtx?id=29712&alias=anti-vaccine-calls-and-halacha
A response:
A RESPONSE TO RABBI SHOLOM SHUCHAT'S MARCH 30, 2014 COL ARTICLE CONCERNING THE REBBE'S VIEWS ON VACCINATIONS
By Yaakov Shapiro
THE ARTICLE
http://collive.com/show_news.rtx?id=29712&alias=anti-vaccine-calls-and-halachaTHE RESPONSE
Dear Readers,
While Rabbi Shuchat is correct that Chasidim should be interested in obtaining the Rebbe’s view on any given topic, including medical concerns, in the hope that there is clear guidance on the matter, it is my assertion that in this regard there is more to the discussion than he presents.
Rabbi Shuchat quotes two letters from the Rebbe featured in the Kehos book, Healthy in Mind, Body and Spirit volume 2, chapter 11, in support of vaccinations, as well as two letters from volume 1, chapter 4, in which the Rebbe speaks of Torah’s instruction to follow a doctor’s orders.
Let us address the letters from volume 1, chapter 4, first.
The letters in that chapter, as evident to any reader, are extremely general and vague; they do not reveal the natures of the patients’ maladies or of their hesitations in following their doctors’ advice.
Rather, the letters in that chapter revolve around five general themes:
1) G-d Himself demands that a person not procrastinate in seeking out a doctor’s advice nor in following it
2) One should not rely on Torah and mitzvos alone to heal oneself
3) General fears about the future of one’s health should not paralyze a person from implementing their doctor’s instructions
4) One should not put their own self-diagnosis and opinions on how to heal above their doctor’s
5) One should not minimize the importance of the body’s health on account of one’s focus on spirituality
These themes have no bearing on the modern discussion about vaccinations in particular, as shall now be demonstrated.
If there were any letter in that chapter that Shuchat could better have quoted, it is the (undated and un-sourced) letter found on page 43:
“…A person may well have his doubts about the efficacy of a drug prescribed by his physician. Will he refuse to take it until he has been able to attend medical school and learn all that his doctor has learned during his lifetime of study and experience? Will he not rely on the authority of the medical specialist?
If he has doubts about the expertise of one doctor, he can obtain a second opinion, and a third; but when all agree that he needs a particular medicine or a prescribed regimen, would he refuse to take that expert advice even if he still has “strong doubts” about it?”
On the surface, this letter would appear to support Shuchat’s contention, and that expressed by numerous commenters on his article, that the anti-vaccination movement should stop being defiant and accept the collective word of the medical establishment.
But this is not the case at all, and certainly not when it comes to the discussion of vaccinations, for:
a) The nature of the person’s ailment, the exact medicine prescribed, and the psychological-emotional attitude of the person the Rebbe is writing to, are not revealed at all in the letter. We are certainly not able to determine if the medicine in question was at that time under scrutiny for possible dangerous side effects. And if there is anything implied by the letter, it is that this person was offering the Rebbe nothing more than emotional “strong doubts,” which the Rebbe is telling the person to put to rest in the face of his doctor’s expertise.
b) The Rebbe speaks of a case where “all doctor’s agree” on a certain course of action. In the case of vaccinations, there is hardly consensus among doctors; there is only, perhaps, consensus among the pharmaceutical companies who produce and sell them.
c) The Rebbe is clearly speaking of a doctor’s expertise based on extensive schooling and practice to DIAGNOSE and PRESCRIBE. This has no bearing on the discussion of vaccinations, which are administered to HEALTHY children – not because the doctor has “learned” about them over years of experience, but, again, because the pharmaceutical companies “vouch” for their safety, necessity and effectiveness.
Which brings us to our discussion of the Rebbe’s views on vaccinations in particular:
Let us begin this part of our discussion with another letter from Healthy in Mind, Body and Spirit, vol.2, page 129, where, in 1960, the Rebbe warns against the over-use of antibiotics, based on new medical research that came to light at that time.
The Rebbe, there, says specifically NOT TO RELY SOLELY ON YOUR DOCTOR – and I quote:
“You are surely aware that in the United States the enthusiasm and ardor to give antibiotics has dampened, and doctors are beginning to have serious reservations about their excessive use...
…It would be particularly beneficial for you to encourage him [the doctor] to check this out specifically with those who have been actively researching this matter, since by and large practicing doctors do not have too much time for research. [This is] particularly so, since the drug companies that manufacture these antibiotics are not at all interested in such research, as can readily be understood, [as it would lower their sales, etc.]."
The Rebbe clearly acknowledges that doctors, while they are well-meaning, are not to be CATEGORICALLY relied upon for questions relating to medical research, as they are generally too consumed by their field to analyze such research properly, and that the drug companies certainly cannot be relied upon to provide accurate information either to the public or to the doctors themselves.
Add to this the fact that in regard to medical doctors, their license precludes them from contradicting what they have been taught in medical school.
[Parenthetically, the fact that the collective medical establishment laughed at the “alternative health” community for decades about their reservations about antibiotic use, should alone give pause to Shuchat. As is now well-known, that same medical establishment now admits the damage caused by its over-use of antibiotics – well past 1960, when the Rebbe penned the above letter]
As far as the handful of letters in that same book, by which Shuchat invokes the Rebbe’s ‘categorical’ support of the use of vaccinations, the Rebbe is speaking about only one type of vaccine, and in the 1950s. Thus, one cannot extrapolate from there that the Rebbe would have supported all the vaccines that are administered today, 60 years later, and in the multiple combinations and at the younger and younger ages that they are now given.
Rabbi Groner, one of the Rebbe’s secretaries, whom I consulted years ago on the matter, claimed that the Rebbe supported the use of vaccines through the 1980s. HOWEVER, being that all the research about the potential dangers of vaccines only came to public awareness AFTER GIMMEL TAMMUZ, we cannot assume the Rebbe himself would have maintained his earlier stance. The Rebbe was very conservative when it came to medicine (see Healthy in Mind, Body and Spirit, vol 2, page 22, footnote 4, in the name of one of the Rebbe’s secretaries), and we cannot presume to know that he would have continued to endorse vaccines after evidence of their dangers came to light.
And if you'll argue that the Rebbe would never change his mind on any matter (playing the "ruach hakodesh card"), I can only point you back to the letter above about antibiotics, and ask:
Did the Rebbe warn against antibiotics in the 1950s, before NEW research about their dangers came to light in 1960?
Not that we know of.
As far as disinformation in this very community: when the mumps outbreak occurred in Crown Heights a number of years back, three doctors of the community sent out a signed letter to all the schools blaming the outbreak on unvaccinated children (I received the letter from my son’s pre-school class at one of the two main boys schools here). The letter first stated that the disease was taking root and "gaining velocity" (sic) in the unvaccinated kids, and then spreading even to the vaccinated kids. But it then added that perhaps the mumps epidemic was a new strain which nobody was vaccinated against to begin with!
In other words, they first created panic and discord, blaming the unvaccinated kids, and then they noted that perhaps the vaccines were ineffective.
[By the way, if they were suggesting some kind of new strain had somehow mutated, like a “super-bug” which develops due to over-use of antibiotics, one must wonder where such a mutation would more likely to occur, in an unvaccinated person or a vaccinated one?]
A few weeks later, there was an outrage in the comments on COL when they published a headline that one local doctor had supposedly asked schools to no longer accept new kids that were unvaccinated. Without getting into the entire debate that ensued, which pitted neighbors and friends against each other, there was never a report that just a few weeks later, that very same doctor's office posted a notice on its front desk – which I saw with my own two eyes – that the TRUE cause of the outbreak was that the mumps vaccine wears off after a certain number of years, and that one must get another dose when one reaches teenage-hood.
Guess what! According to reports at the time, the mumps outbreak began amongst the VACCINATED TEENAGE BOYS of Crown Heights, not the unvaccinated kindergarteners.
The bottom line is this: there is in fact a lot of disinformation out there about vaccines, even from the medical establishment, even from the well-meaning doctors within our own community.
But to draw lines in the sand between members of our community, accusing one side of betraying the Rebbe, and supporting such an accusation by surgically extracting pithy quotes from letters that are taken out of context and not properly analyzed, is nothing short of sinful.
The vaccination-safety question is far from settled, even among doctors.
And it should be noted that while the pro-vaccine camp harps on the issue of autism and the pharmaceutical companies’ claims that they have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that autism does not result from vaccines, the fact of the matter is that this is not just about autism. There are numerous other harmful side effects caused by vaccines that do not get so much publicity. GO AND LEARN!
A few personal cases in point:
1) A close family friend’s nephew had his child given the chicken pox vaccine. The next day the child developed a tremendous fever, resulting in complications that eventually led to brain death.
2) Another close friend used to poke fun at me for not vaccinating my children. But when it came time to sending my first child to school, he offered to put me in touch with a lawyer to help me cut through any objections the school might raise. Why? Because he and his wife had decided to hold off on vaccines for their son, and then after he was a few years old, when the child received his first dose of multiple vaccines, he developed severe eczema the following day, and at the time of our discussion had been suffering with it for months.
3) My wife’s grandmother recently got her flu vaccine. Shortly afterwards she developed Bells Palsy on her face. When she went to the doctor, the nurse asked her if she had recently received a flu shot. When she replied that she had, the nurse responded: “Well, that explains it.”
Think about it: Every medicine has a long list of potential side effects. But we are supposed to believe that vaccines – ALL OF THEM – are perfectly safe, and not only for adults, but for ALL newborn children?!
All parents, according to halachah, are obligated to guard their children’s health in the best way they know how. Some parents believe that the risks of immunizing are small compared to the risks of the diseases they prevent. Others believe the risks of those diseases are small compared to the risks of injecting known toxins into a healthy child. That we must choose one set of risks over the other is one of the many challenges G-d sends us in this formidable task called “parenthood.”
The decisions parents face in order to protect their children are painful and difficult. But we must stop demonizing those parents who make decisions different than our own.
[As a footnote, Shuchat’s citation of one extremely vague letter of the Rebbe about an unnamed form of psychic healing, and his application of it equally to ALL forms of non-Western, “alternative healing methods,” reveals a gross ignorance of his subject]
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