The Decline of Childhood Disease BEFORE Vaccination
"The decline of childhood diseases before vaccination There is a generally held concept that mass vaccine programs were largely responsible for control of former epidemic diseases, but with the probable exception of the polio vaccine, in most instances this was not the case. From 1911 to 1935 the 4 leading causes of death among those aged 1 to 14 years, covered by Metropolitan Life Insurance policies, were diphtheria, measles, scarlet fever and whooping cough.11
"However, by 1945 the combined rates from these 4 diseases had declined by 95%, before mass vaccine program began in the United States...
"In 1979 Sweden banned the pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine, considering it both ineffective and dangerous. In spite of the banning, or perhaps because of it, Sweden maintains one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world. In 1975 Japan raised the age of pertussis vaccine to 2 years of age, considering it dangerous in infancy. Since that time, sudden infant death syndrome (cot deaths) have largely disappeared in Japan.13"
http://www.jabs.org.uk/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1582
Medical Measures and the Decline of Mortality, John B. McKinlay, Sonja M. McKinlay, published in book, The Sociology of Health & Illness: Critical Perspectives, Peter Conrad