If pressed on the matter, the average person would probably insist that vaccines save lives, and that the science is incontrovertible in support of this position. Even many vaccine skeptics who reject some of the more modern vaccines like HPV and the flu shot would be quick to interject that society would still be facing epidemics of polio, for instance, if it were not for the advent of vaccines.

Though a commonly held belief, vaccines are not lifesaving medical tools as many people have been falsely led to believe. In fact, evidence compiled over many decades suggests that the exact opposite is true — that not only are vaccines not responsible for eradicating communicable illnesses like polio, but that in many cases they have actually caused them.

Here are four solid pieces of evidence from history showing that the polio vaccine — the holy grail of vaccinology — was basically a fraud from the outset:

1) Polio was already on the decline long before the first polio vaccine was introduced

Research published in the journal International Mortality Statistics back in 1981, shows that incidences of polio had already been rapidly declining in the years between 1923 and 1953 — largely as a result of improved sanitation and plumbing — before the time when the first polio vaccine developed by Dr. Jonas Salk was even introduced. Over the course of this 30-year timeframe, the polio death rate in the United States and England had already dropped 47 percent and 55 percent, respectively, illustrating that the vaccine played no part in this often-cited reduction. (Related: Learn more truth about the history of medicine at Medicine.news)

2) The first polio vaccine gave 40,000 orphans polio, killing at least 10 of them

When Dr. Salk first introduced his experimental vaccine, he worked with the government and church organizations to test it out on vulnerable orphans who didn’t have parents to provide parental consent signatures. They were basically guinea pigs in illegal government experiments — experiments that resulted in 40,000 cases of vaccine-induced polio, hundreds of paralyzing injuries and at least 10 deaths.

It was a disaster of epic proportions, and one that even TIME magazine wrote about in its May 30, 1955, issue:

“In retrospect, a good deal of the blame for the vaccine snafu also went to the National Foundation (for Infantile Paralysis), which, with years of publicity, had built up the danger of polio out of all proportion to its actual incidence, and had rushed into vaccinations this year with patently insufficient preparation.” (Related: Find out what you’re not being told about vaccinations at Vaccines.news)

3) The AMA ordered doctors to cover up the truth about polio vaccines causing polio, or else lose their medical licenses

There was no denying that Dr. Salk’s polio vaccine was responsible for causing polio, and the only way to cover it up was to rename the disease. The official instructions given by the American Medical Association (AMA) to affiliated doctors was to classify polio as one of a number of other medical conditions, including acute flaccid paralysis (AFP), cerebral palsy, Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) and Lou Gehrig’s Disease (ALS).

Doctors who refused to comply with this mandate were threatened with losing their medical licenses if they told the truth, as the AMA issued a notice in 1956 explaining that “every licensed medical doctor … could no longer classify polio as polio, or their license to practice would be terminated.”

4) DDT pesticide scientifically linked to causing polio

One of the interesting things about polio is that, while it isn’t contagious, it has an extensive history of triggering clustered outbreaks that suggest otherwise. Research published by the vaccine research group Vactruth helps explains this anomaly, showing that various agricultural pesticides and herbicides, including the now-banned DDT chemical, are directly correlated with many of the 1950s polio outbreaks that appeared to have no common denominator.

Stay informed on environmental causes of disease, including pesticides and herbicides, at Environ.news.

Sources for this article include:

March-Against-Monsanto.com

VacTruth.com