Page 35 - Summer2015

Some Thoughts on the

Vaccination Debate

by Nicholas Gonzalez, MD

I

recently had the opportunity to join a Functional
Medicine Journal Club online debate on vaccinations,
which prompted me to write the following response. In

my mind the discussion, sometimes heated, really brought

into focus the larger, more global issues of infectious
disease, the nature of infection, and the all-important
participant in the action: the host. I wanted to share all

of these crucial matters with the larger audience of the

Weston A. Price Foundation.

I don’t think it too helpful when physicians and scientists, as happened
in the discussion, turn to emotional arguments and pleas in defense of vac-
cination that do little to advance a scientific, objective perspective. Evoking
the vision of an unvaccinated relative paralyzed by polio, for example, or
poor Thai children stricken with diphtheria doesn’t teach us what we need
to know about the role of innate immunity and the pathogenicity of micro-
organisms.

Wise Traditions SUMMER 2015 Wise Traditions 35

154242_V16N2_text.indd 35 6/25/15 3:54 PM