Checking the “facts”: Vaccination, Ellen White, and Adventist History - Part 1

Ellen White did not share these stories to instil trust in a controlling and profiteering medical system, but rather to encourage believers to embrace health reform and the truths of Scripture with confidence in simple treatments. It is hard to imagine that, today, Sister White would stand behind compulsory vaccination or view the influenza vaccine, for example, as essential for public health instead of simply promoting lifestyle and cleanliness as the more safe and reliable method in prevention. Indeed, there are those who desire both lifestyle and vaccination for health and to this we do not object. Either way, when faced with an influenza epidemic, Mrs. White did not yearn for a day when vaccination would eliminate infectious disease, but bemoaned the ignorance regarding the laws of health: “I appeal to you, mothers; do you not feel alarmed and heartsick in seeing your children pale and dwarfed, suffering with catarrh, influenza, croup, scrofulous swellings upon the face and neck, inflammation and cong