Vaccines, Autoimmunity, and the Changing Nature of Childhood Illness

One Doctor’s Surprising Answer to the Epidemic of Autoimmunity and Chronic Disease

Over the past fifty years, rates of autoimmunity and chronic disease have exploded: currently 1 in 2.5 American children has an allergy, 1 in 11 has asthma, 1 in 13 has severe food allergies, and 1 in 36 has autism. While some attribute this rise to increased awareness and diagnosis, Thomas Cowan, MD, argues for a direct causal relationship to a corresponding increase in the number of vaccines American children typically receive—approximately 70 vaccine doses by age eighteen. The goal of these vaccines is precisely what we’re now seeing in such abundance among our chronically ill children: the provocation of immune response.

Dr. Cowan looks at emerging evidence that certain childhood illnesses are actually protective of disease later in life; examines the role of fever, the gut, and cellular fluid in immune health; argues that vaccination is an ineffective (and harmful) attempt to shortcut a complex immune response; and asserts that the medical establishment has engaged in an authoritarian argument that robs parents of informed consent. His ultimate question, from the point of view of a doctor who has decades of experience treating countless children is: What are we really doing to children when we vaccinate them?

About the Author

Thomas Cowan, MD, has studied and written about many subjects in medicine, including nutrition, homeopathy, anthroposophical medicine, and herbal medicine. He is the author of Cancer and the New Biology of Water; Vaccines, Autoimmunity, and the Changing Nature of Childhood Illness; and Human Heart, Cosmic Heart; principal author of The Fourfold Path to Healing; and coauthor (with Sally Fallon) of The Nourishing Traditions Book of Baby and Child Care. Dr. Cowan has served as vice president of the Physicians’ Association for Anthroposophic Medicine and is a founding board member of the Weston A. Price Foundation. He also writes the “Ask the Doctor” column in Wise Traditions in Food, Farming, and the Healing Arts (the Weston A. Price Foundation’s quarterly magazine), has lectured throughout the United States and Canada, and is the cofounder of two family businesses, Dr. Cowan’s Garden (drcowansgarden.com) and Human Heart, Cosmic Heart (humanheartcosmicheart.com). He has three grown children and currently resides in San Francisco with his wife, Lynda Smith.