Check out this Revealing 1969 Debate between 2 Pro-vaxxers (Talking Points have Changed!)

This is debate you are very unlikely to see today — which I why I’m surprised that it’s available on a government website.

The debate (which can be viewed below) is produced by the United States Public Health Service and available in the archives of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. It took place in 1969 and is titled “Smallpox Vaccination: Should our Policy be Changed?”

Participants include Dr. John Neff, who believes smallpox vaccination is for the most part no longer necessary, and Dr. Samuel Katz, who believes everyone should still receive smallpox vaccination. Dr. Paul Wehrle is the moderator.

Both the participants and the moderator are pro-vaccine (Neff is just more moderate than Katz); and yet despite, as you would expect, vaccine dangers are understated, still they make some very interesting statements that you would not expect to publicly hear from pro-vaxxers today. How the pro-vaccine narrative has shifted!

Public debate encouraged

Consider these statements by a man who introduces the show — according to him, publicly airing opposing views is a “basic responsibility.” Contrast this with today, where only one view (of extreme pro-vaxxers) is tolerated:

The opinions of eminent physicians of a given field vary wildly. The National Medical Audio-visual Center believes that openly airing such opposing views is a basic responsibility of medical communications.
(around the 1:18 mark)

Smallpox vaccine: efficacy questioned, a “very poor vaccine,” causes death significantly

Dr. Neff questions the duration of efficacy of the vaccine, and — heresy by today’s standards — calls it a “very poor vaccine” and points out complications, including “a significant amount of mortality”!

[B]y present day standards, smallpox vaccine … is a very poor vaccine. And I think for two reasons it’s a poor vaccine. For one reason, the duration of immunity that is afforded by smallpox vaccination is relatively short in duration and probably absolute immunity to smallpox from the vaccine is no longer than three years. Number two, there are a significant number of complications that are associated with this particular vaccine and a significant amount of mortality.
(around the 5:00 mark)

Smallpox can be hard to differentiate from chickenpox

In the debate Dr. Katz states that smallpox can be hard to differentiate from chickenpox:

We’ve not had the experience in this country at looking at smallpox; even the best physicians acquainted with tropical medicine would be perfectly frank to say that a bad case of chickenpox is impossible to differentiate from a mild or a more severe case of smallpox. … there can be confusion even with the laboratory report that’s required for the diagnosis in a country where smallpox is not occurring.
(around the 11:55 mark)

While the pro-vaxx narrative on this point may not be that different today, think about how such confusion can be used as a pretext to manipulate data to make the smallpox vaccine look effective. Those who were vaccinated but contract smallpox might be officially said to have contracted chickenpox instead. In fact, there has been deaths attributed to chickenpox that seem clearly to have actually been due to smallpox. See the quotes here (find via page search “chicken-pox’).

It’s obvious: don’t vaccinate a child with eczema

Vaccines cause eczema. While today vaccines are considered to be virtually infallible, and medical exemptions are rabidly under attack, in this debate it was considered obvious that those with eczema should not be vaccinated. How many of those with eczema today are told this? Note that Dr. Katz is very clear that this applies to “any live virus vaccine” (not just for smallpox).

Dr. Katz:

A child with eczema or the sibling of a child with eczema; a patient with a malignancy involving the immune mechanism; a patient on immunosuppressant drugs; these are patients we know will have trouble with smallpox vaccine — these latter ones — or any live virus vaccine. (around the 16:40 mark)

Dr. Neff:

It’s been known a long time that you shouldn’t vaccinate a child with eczema, or a family contact with eczema.
(around the 18:20 mark)

Dr. Wehrle (moderator):

Everyone knows you shouldn’t vaccinate a child with eczema.
(around the 19:50 mark)

Admitted ignorance on vaccine-caused encephalitis

Vaccine-caused encephalitis (brain inflammation) can cause autism. Dr. Katz, who has the more extreme position on vaccines, admits that encephalitis is a vaccine complication, and says we don’t know how to prevent it. This is a much more humble position than that of vaccine propagandists today who assure us that vaccines are infallible.

… those complications that are not preventible … encephalitis …we don’t know enough about post-vaccinal encephalitis to even discuss its pathogenesis. We don’t know how to prevent it.
(around the 20:40 mark)

“Serious complications” expected for a number of those vaccinated for smallpox

While vaccine propagandists today assure us that vaccines are safe, Dr. Wehrle, the moderator, actually says that a number of those vaccinated for smallpox can expect “serious complications.”

The second area that was brought out very nicely from our combatants is the problem of a risk associated with the use of this most effective vaccine. A number of patients have developed and can be expected to continue to develop serious complications.
(around the 26:09 mark)

Watch the debate in its entirety here. You can also download it here in case it is ever taken down for being by today’s standards “anti-vaxx.”