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Yet, the relationship between the natural health community and vaccination is complex.

Stories such as the Adelaide naturopath for using a newspaper column to spread vaccine misinformation may make headlines.

But other stories like the director of Australia’s or even publicly advocating for COVID vaccination are more representative.

Although the link between natural health beliefs and vaccine hesitancy gets a lot of , there’s actually little evidence on the topic.

I led a which found opposition to vaccination was a minority opinion among natural health practitioners and users. Opposition was more likely related to an individual’s personal beliefs than a default philosophical position associated with natural medicine.

Some have suggested natural health practitioners could even help . This isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds. There are of natural medicine practitioners highlighting the alignment between vaccination and natural approaches to health.

One thing people often overlook is the adaptive immune response caused by vaccination is natural. Vaccination prepares the body’s immune system in the “natural” exposure to infection does. It just does it in a safer, controlled way with a much lower dose.

Given there’s no underlying reason why natural health and vaccination cannot coexist, why does this perception exist, and why does it persist?

Opposition to vaccines wasn’t always a given

One main reason for historical opposition to vaccination in natural health communities wasn’t due to the vaccine. It was because – the concept that unseen external pathogens like bacteria and viruses led to disease.

Early naturopathic pioneer “germs, bacteria and parasites are products of disease rather than its cause”. He argued “germs themselves cannot create disease – if they could, humanity would soon be extinct”. Also in the early 1900s, chiropractic founder Daniel Palmer there was any cause of disease beyond misalignment of the spine.

It’s important to view this historic opposition in context, given germ theory had only become mainstream in conventional medicine in the recent decades before these statements. Views of these natural health professions have similarly evolved.

Natural health communities sometimes raised “toxins” in vaccines as a concern. It’s important to remember, however, that vaccines up until the mid-1900s weren’t like the vaccines of today. First generation smallpox vaccines, for example, were crudely produced from calf lymph in a process , which were often closely linked with natural health movements.

Also, the natural health community didn’t reserve judgement for vaccines and pharmaceutical medicines. Natural health adherents saw other “drug systems”, such as herbal medicine and homeopathy, as equally invasive and unnatural. Although few would see these therapies as incompatible with natural health today, their adoption by naturopathic practitioners in the budding “drugless” profession.

Just as vaccine hesitancy can be a proxy for deeper concerns about , conflict between the natural health community and medicine also came to influence vaccine views.

Opposition wasn’t always a given. One of Australia’s blamed medicine for stealing vaccination from natural healers without credit.

Towards the second half of the 20th century, anti-vaccination statements increasingly began to target those vaccinating (usually medical doctors) as much as the vaccine. Eventually the oppositional stance of “alternative” health parts of the natural health community.

Due to their marginalisation by the medical community, parts of the natural health community positions that were more about opposing conventional medical practice than about aligning with natural health philosophies.

These are similar to why so many people opposing COVID vaccines as unnatural put their faith in equally unnatural alternatives such as ivermectin today.

What are the natural alternatives to vaccination?

To put it bluntly, there aren’t any.

Homeopathic remedies are marketed by some practitioners as . The most are those claiming to such as malaria and even COVID. A 2011 survey found nearly one-quarter of Australians thought these “homeopathic vaccines” were an effective replacement for conventional vaccinations. Some have even unknowingly thinking they’re conventional vaccinations.

Linking homeopathy and vaccination isn’t surprising. Both in the 1790s and both focused on infectious diseases (vaccination for prevention of smallpox, homeopathy to address symptoms of malaria).

Homeopathy’s founder Samuel Hahnemann viewed vaccination not only as effective and powerful, but also as an of his own theories.

It might not surprise you homeopathic vaccination alternatives aren’t supported by the scientific community. But it may surprise you to know they’re by the homeopathic community, either.

According to homeopaths, this is because the mechanism of action of “homeopathic vaccination” is with .

Homeopathic vaccines are neither homeopathic nor are they vaccines.

What about just increasing immunity ‘naturally’?

Some natural health practitioners their therapies can offer similar immunity as vaccines. However, these views are usually fringe and roundly rejected by their natural health and peers.

What’s more, boosting for a bigger immune response isn’t necessarily better. Boost the wrong parts in favour of others, and a hyperactive immune system can make things worse in the short term, as well as the long term. Autoimmune disease (where an overactive immune system starts attacking the body) is thought to be one of the .

In natural health we talk about the . This recommends using low level interventions which encourage self-healing processes to avoid more intrusive and invasive therapies where possible.

Vaccines – once properly tested and assessed for safety and efficacy – clearly fit this bill. They’re a minimal dose, preventive intervention that support and develop the body’s own healing resources to fight disease.

And they offer the opportunity to avoid the alternative of of infection and associated symptoms later on.

Ultimately vaccination, like the use of natural therapies, is a matter of personal choice. But as someone passionate about both natural health and public health, it’s one I would highly recommend people take up.

If you’re hesitating to get vaccinated because you’re concerned it may not align with your preferences for a natural approach to health, there’s no need to be. Vaccines may have more in common with natural health approaches than differences.

, Professor of Public Health,

This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the .

 

Media contact: Caitlin Zillman, NCNM Marketing and Communications Manager, +61 424 632 177 or caitlin.zillman@scu.edu.au