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IMMUNISATION AGAINST DIPHTHERIA.
A Society known as the Clapton and District Anti-Vivisection
Society has been established in Hackney ostensibly for the protection
of animals from painful experiments. Members of the Society
whose names and subscriptions support the movement comprise
members of the clergy, Salvation Army officers, county councillors,
borough councillors, ex-mayors and social workers who are all
individually as anxious to improve the well-being of the community
as any member of a public health department can be, and who are
all possibly under the impression that the protection of animals
from painful experiment is the principal or only objective of the
movement. This is by no means the case; the movement has many
activities, some of them not in any way directed towards the
protection of animals.
The Clapton Society is affiliated to the Animal Defence and
Anti-Vivisection Society which publishes a periodical, " Progress
To-day," and supplies to the local Society a van from which
literature is distributed.
At this moment literature is being distributed from this van
near the Council's Diphtheria Immunisation Clinic ostensibly in
opposition to painful experiments on animals but actually as part
of a campaign to oppose immunisation against diphtheria. In
fact, a member of my staff was informed that a special campaign
against immunisation in this borough had begun and that diphtheria
immunisation was chosen in retaliation for the local authority's
provision of facilities for immunisation against this disease. A
special campaign then is proceeding by means of pamphlet distribution
from a van under the supervision of the Secretary of the
Clapton and District Anti-Vivisection Society, who is the wife
of the President, and also by door-to-door distribution of pamphlets.
I have received reports of some results of this campaign in the
borough. For instance, a health visitor states that she found a
woman in tears because she had had her child immunised and, upon
reading a pamphlet distributed bv the Clapton and District AntiVivisection
Society, had gained the impression that immunisation
against diphtheria was connected with dreadful suffering caused to
the pancreas of the dog. Information of a similar nature has been
brought to me by other members of the Public Health Department
and by members of the public, one having called at the Town Hall.
The President of the Clapton and District Anti-Vivisection
Society, who possesses a medical and surgical qualification, is a
Vice-President of the Anti-Vaccination League and is described in