A Book Review – The Poisoned Needle – By Eleanor McBean, PhD, ND (1957)
Overview
Originally written and published in 1957, The Poisoned Needle by Eleanor McBean is one of the earliest comprehensive critiques of vaccination policy and medical orthodoxy. The author, a naturopath and health researcher, draws upon medical records, government data, and historical sources to argue that vaccines have not only failed to prevent disease but have caused widespread harm to human health.
McBean positions the book as both an exposé and a warning — revealing what she viewed as deliberate suppression of truth by vested medical and political interests. Her message is that vaccination represents a grave error in scientific understanding and a violation of natural health principles.
1. The False Foundation of Vaccination
McBean begins by dismantling the foundational premise that immunity can be achieved through injecting diseased material. She maintains that health and resistance arise from within the body and cannot be produced through contamination of the blood with toxins or animal matter.
According to McBean, Edward Jenner’s early vaccination experiments lacked genuine scientific method and were rooted in assumption and superstition. She argues that governments and medical authorities adopted vaccination without evidence of its safety or efficacy, turning it into a state-sanctioned medical dogma rather than a scientific practice.
2. Historical Evidence and Disease Decline
Using historical records, McBean shows that the major declines in infectious diseases occurred before vaccination campaigns began. She attributes these improvements to sanitation, hygiene, nutrition, and living conditions — not to vaccines.
Charts and data within the book demonstrate how diseases such as smallpox, cholera, and typhoid fell naturally as standards of living rose. In several documented cases, she notes that compulsory vaccination was followed by an increase in deaths and outbreaks, contradicting the claims of health officials.
3. Medical and Government Suppression
McBean accuses the medical establishment and government agencies of concealing the dangers of vaccination and silencing dissent. Doctors and scientists who reported vaccine injuries were often ridiculed, censored, or stripped of their professional standing.
She explains that medical journals, public health boards, and funding systems have been constructed to promote vaccination while suppressing unfavourable evidence. The result, she says, is a long-standing conspiracy of silence sustained by financial and political power.
4. The Poisoned Body: How Vaccines Harm Health
At the heart of McBean’s thesis is the idea that vaccines pollute the bloodstream with toxic substances such as mercury, formaldehyde, phenol, aluminium, and diseased animal proteins. She argues that this artificial contamination weakens the body’s vitality, disturbs its natural balance, and lays the groundwork for chronic illness.
The author connects vaccination to a range of degenerative conditions, including paralysis, arthritis, neurological disease, heart disorders, and autoimmune dysfunction. She also documents historical reports of “vaccinal syphilis” and “post-vaccinal encephalitis” as examples of the damage caused by early inoculations.
5. Deaths and Documented Cases
McBean presents numerous examples of individuals and populations suffering after vaccination. These include infant fatalities, mass illnesses among soldiers, and epidemics in highly vaccinated regions.
She cites mortality figures showing that death rates rose in parallel with compulsory vaccination laws, while unvaccinated groups often remained healthier. Her conclusion is that vaccination not only fails to prevent disease but contributes directly to its spread and to premature death.
6. The Smallpox and Polio Narratives
Smallpox: McBean challenges the entire history of smallpox vaccination, arguing that the disease declined due to improved hygiene rather than vaccination. She documents cases where heavily vaccinated communities experienced severe epidemics, while unvaccinated regions did not.
Polio: She claims that the mid-20th-century polio epidemic was largely a result of environmental poisoning, particularly through chemical exposure such as DDT, and not a contagious viral infection. McBean maintains that the polio vaccine further intensified health problems under the guise of prevention.
7. Cancer, Syphilis, and Other Disorders
McBean explores the connection between vaccination and degenerative diseases. She references early medical observations showing tumour development and other pathological changes following inoculation.
She also argues that contaminated vaccines introduced syphilis and other infections into healthy individuals, with health authorities choosing to conceal the evidence to avoid public backlash.
8. The Politics of Fear and Profit
Vaccination, according to McBean, is maintained by fear rather than science. Public health campaigns exploit emotional manipulation, warning of deadly epidemics to ensure compliance. Behind these campaigns, she says, lies a vast commercial interest — pharmaceutical companies, government contracts, and professional prestige.
She calls vaccination a “sacred cow” of modern medicine, protected by propaganda and financial incentives. The medical industry, she suggests, profits both from vaccine sales and from treating the chronic diseases that vaccination itself causes.
9. Natural Immunity and the Path to Health
McBean advocates for a return to natural health principles. She teaches that true immunity arises from vitality, nutrition, rest, sunlight, and toxin-free living — not from artificial injections.
She encourages natural detoxification methods such as fasting, clean diets, and avoidance of chemical exposure. Disease, she writes, is not an external enemy but a healing and cleansing process within the body.
10. The Moral and Spiritual Dimension
In her conclusion, McBean views the vaccine system as a moral and spiritual corruption of natural law. She condemns forced vaccination as a violation of bodily autonomy and human conscience.
She urges readers to question authority, research independently, and reclaim responsibility for their own health. To her, resisting vaccination is both a personal and ethical act — one that defends life, freedom, and truth for future generations.
Key Takeaways
- Written in 1957, this book challenges the entire foundation of vaccination science.
- Vaccines were introduced without proof of safety or necessity.
- Disease decline resulted from hygiene and nutrition, not vaccines.
- Vaccines introduce poisons that damage health and lower resistance.
- Many chronic and degenerative diseases trace back to vaccination.
- Government and medical systems conceal evidence and protect profits.
- Smallpox and polio are presented as prime examples of vaccine failure.
- Health depends on natural living, not chemical or biological interference.
- Fear and propaganda maintain public compliance.
- Bodily sovereignty and informed choice are central moral rights.
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