In the forward by George R. Schwartz, MD, he states that "a voice is seeking dialogue and requiring counterpoint" (page 8). Dr. Schwartz does not provide this counterpoint but only states that he "advocates the standard vaccinations" (page 7). But this is critical for the average reader to make an informed decision. Both sides of the issue should be presented in this book in order to help the reader make the best decision possible. Perhaps a format where the author presents his findings with an opposing view of from the medical establishment and rebuttals would serve the reader best.
The book presents some very convincing statistics, however I was very disappointed in the misleading manner some of the numbers were reported.
Many times the author points out that infection rates were falling before the vaccine was introduced and implies that the continued rate of decline was not due to the vaccine. Although the prior decline is relevant it doesn't prove that the vaccine is not effective. The infection rate might have stabilized at a higher rate without the vaccine. Even if the vaccine were effective this argument could be used to show that it wasn't. The data that needs to be compared to resolve this are infection rates for comparable populations of those vaccinated versus those not vaccinated.
Another example is on page 29 where it states that "In 1989, 89% of all school-aged children in the U.S. who contracted measles were adequately vaccinated". This is a misleading way to present the numbers. It makes it impossible to evaluate the effectiveness of the vaccine. To demonstrate this, suppose that million children were vaccinated and 22 were not. Also suppose that there were 89 cases of measles from the vaccinated group and 11 cases from those not vaccinated. In this scenario 89% of cases are from vaccinated persons. However what needs to be compared is the percent of cases in the vaccinated group versus the percent of cases in the non-vaccinated group. In this example 0.0089% of the vaccinated group became ill versus 50% of the non-vaccinated group. These numbers are fabricated and are only used to demonstrate that some of the statistics reported in this book can be misleading and are not the best data to using in determining the efficacy of the vaccination.
What I find more troublesome is that author "is a medical research journalist", has a degree with "an emphasis on statistical analysis", and is a member of Mensa (a society for those with a genius level I.Q.). With this background the author, Neil Miller, must realize that the data mentioned above is misleading and is not the relevant statistic to compare to judge the harm or benefit of the vaccination in question. What is needed is the rate of infection, death, or other complications, such as autism, in similar groups of vaccinated versus non-vaccinated populations. After seeing data presented in a purposely misleading fashion I came to question the author's sincerity when he states that "I merely try to present the facts in a clear and straightforward manner".
In conclusion I would like to point out that the author has done society a great service to gather a tremendous amount of information and raise very important issues regarding vaccinations. His conclusions might very well be correct! However the reader would greatly benefit if the author expanded the book and co-authored it with those of the medical establishment propounding alternate views and then include a series of rebuttals. With the tremendous amount of medical information available and contradicting positions the reader is generally left with doubts and concerns. Having an open dialog, as proposed in the forward of the book by Dr. George Schwartz, might help resolve and clarify many issues in the reader's mind.