What Caused Cancer Before We Had Vaccines???
Since anti-vaccine influencers are now pushing the idea that if you have cancer, then it must be vaccine induced turbo cancer, doesn’t that get you to wonder what they think caused cancer before we had vaccines?
Of course, they probably don’t think anyone had cancer before we had vaccines…
When Did People Start Getting Cancer?
We did though.
A lot of people got a lot of different types of cancer back when we were only giving the smallpox vaccine.
A time when vaccination was far from universal.
They were getting a lot of other diseases that anti-vaccine influencers also now like to blame on vaccines. From diabetes and heart disease, to epilepsy and asthma, it is important to note that these have all been around a long time, even before the vaccine era.
And even though the death rates from cancer (think smoking and an aging population) increased over the years, that also doesn’t confirm any kind of link with vaccines.
After all, the death rate remained steady and eventually dropped, even as we were giving children and adults more vaccines to protect them against more vaccine preventable diseases.
As did the number of people actually getting diagnosed with cancer.
Oh, and let’s not forget that we know that cancer has been around for thousands of years!
Well, actually, millions of years…
“We describe the earliest evidence for neoplastic disease in the hominin lineage. This is reported from the type specimen of the extinct hominin Australopithecus sediba from Malapa, South Africa, dated to 1.98 million years ago.”
Osteogenic tumour in Australopithecus sediba: Earliest hominin evidence for neoplastic disease
Anthropologists have found evidence of a malignant cancer in a bone that was nearly 2 million years old!
And in dinosaur bones that are 70 to 80 million years old!
Also, let’s not forget that it was Hippocrates who gave cancer it’s name, carcinos, as he observed the growth of hard, rapidly spreading tumors that reminded him of a crab’s legs.
When did Hippocrates first identify cancer?
It was over 2,400 years ago, in 400 BCE.
The earliest signs of cancer in humans were tumors found in fossilized bones and mummies from 3000 BCE in ancient Egypt. The oldest written description of cancer is found in the Edwin Smith Papyrus from 3000 BCE. It was described as a “bulging tumor of the breast.”
A Brief History of Cancer
And before that, there is plenty of evidence that ancient Egyptians got cancer.
What Caused Cancer Before We Had Vaccines???
Wait, what caused the Greeks, Egyptians, and the dinosaurs to get cancer?
It couldn’t have been vaccines!
And for that matter, what caused the ancient Greeks and Egyptians to have arthritis, diabetes, epilepsy, and arteriosclerosis?
Again, it wasn’t vaccines!
Just as it isn’t vaccines now…
More on Cancer and Vaccines
Are Vaccines Evaluated for Mutagenicity, Carcinogenicity or Impairment of Fertility?
Mortality From Cancer and Other Malignant Tumors in the Registration Area of the United States: 1914. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsushistorical/mortcancer_1914.pdf
Mortality Statistics 1900 to 1904. Special Reports. 1906. 990 pp. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsushistorical/mortstatsh_1900-1904.pdf
Osteogenic tumour in Australopithecus sediba: Earliest hominin evidence for neoplastic disease
Dr. William Makis: Promoting the nonsense that is “turbo cancer”
I went to medical school in Paris at the Sorbonne, and the few Americans in my class and I laughed at the fact that the earliest recordings of cancer in 1600 BCE were recorded on a "papyrus" referred to as the less than ancient sounding "Papyrus Edwin Smith," and that "tumeurs ou ulcères du sein traités par cautérisation," - tumors and ulcers of the breast were treated with cauterization. No "turbo" was detected.