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Media Panic Over Measles Distracts From Real Threats to Kids’ Health and Safety
Measles outbreaks in several states, and one death in Texas, are fueling media reports of a coming public health crisis — one that could push more states to remove religious exemptions from vaccine mandates. But doctors and scientists interviewed by The Defender said the hype distracts from what’s really harming kids today.
It is “self-limiting,” meaning that it goes away on its own. By 1962 — prior to the introduction of the first measles vaccine a year later — the CDC described measles as a disease with low mortality.
By that time, the death rate had declined 98% since the beginning of the century due to improvements in public health. It carried a hospitalization rate of 11.5 per 1,000 cases and a mortality rate of 0.2 per 1,000 cases. Parents and medical practitioners considered measles an inevitable stage of a child’s development.
“We have a forgotten history of measles,” Children’s Health Defense (CHD) Senior Scientist Karl Jablonowski told The Defender. “The 1950s Vital Statistics report states, ‘measles are poorly reported because a large proportion of the cases are never seen by a physician.’ This, at a time when 600,000 annual reports of measles was normal.”
Despite Wednesday’s tragic reported death of a child in Texas, deaths from measles in the U.S. are extremely rare. Typically, people who die from measles have some other serious underlying condition.
Dr. Liz Mumper, a pediatrician, said it is “very uncommon” for a child to die from a measles infection in developed countries such as the U.S. that have access to clean water and good sanitation systems.
Although the CDC reports that the U.S. death rate from measles is 1 to 3 deaths out of every 1,000 reported cases, prior to the reported death on Wednesday in Texas, the last U.S. measles death was in a young immunocompromised woman in 2016. The last time a child died of measles in the U.S. was in 2003.
Hospitalization rates for measles are high, but that’s partly because people are often hospitalized to keep them isolated to stop transmission of the contagious illness, according to the CDC.
Treatment in hospitals typically involves keeping people hydrated and lowering their fevers.
“Effective treatments include vitamin A in high doses and attention to hydration status,” Mumper said. “Many natural methods to help the body fight viruses, like extra vitamin D and vitamin C, are effective but not widely recommended by mainstream medicine.”
Is the measles vaccine effective?
Most media reports blame the recent outbreak on unvaccinated people — mostly children — and claim the only way to resolve the crisis is to get the vaccination rate up to the professed target of 95% through mass vaccination campaigns.
This approach implies that without the measles vaccine, measles complications and deaths would be rampant.
CBS News suggested that if people can’t find their vaccination records or are worried about exposure, they should get a booster — because they are “safe and effective,” implying there’s no risk.
However, Mumper said it can’t generally be assumed that outbreaks are caused by unvaccinated people — cyclical outbreaks still occur even in populations, such as college students, with nearly 100% vaccination. The vaccine’s protection is not complete and wanes over time.
Measles vaccines come with a long list of serious side effects
The measles vaccine, like all vaccines, can cause serious side effects in some people, according to the author of “The Measles Book.”
Today, there are two measles vaccines available in the U.S. — Merck’s MMRII and GSK’s Priorix. Neither were safety-tested against a true placebo, according to pediatrician Dr. Paul Thomas, co-author of “Vax Facts: What to Consider Before Vaccinating at All Ages & Stages of Life.”
MMRII was tested against the vaccine components without the virus — which included the adjuvant — and Priorix was tested against the MMRII.
Merck’s label for MMRII, the most commonly given measles vaccine, reports that clinical trials and post-marketing studies identified a wide range of adverse reactions affecting almost every system in the body.
Examples include atypical measles and measles-type rashes, pancreatitis, thrombocytopenia, myalgia, respiratory illnesses like pneumonia, skin disorders, encephalitis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, convulsions or seizures, syncope and many other possible reactions.
The possible side effects for Priorix are similar. During the drug’s trials, there were high rates of serious adverse events and emergency room visits. New onset of chronic diseases occurred in both groups.
“To any sane mind, that means both the MMRII used as placebo and the new Priorix are dangerous,” according to Thomas.
A series of studies by the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine) conducted in the 1990s to 2000s found similar adverse effects associated with the MMR vaccines.
Since the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) was established in 1990, there have been 115,849 adverse events associated with the measles vaccine reported, including 572 deaths.
All reports in VAERS are not necessarily verified and vary in completeness. However, underreporting is a known and serious disadvantage of the VAERS system. Researchers have found that the number of injuries reported to VAERS is less than 1%.
In addition to VAERS reports, many thousands of parents who saw their children regress into autism after taking the MMR vaccine have filed claims in the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP).
Even though research shows a link between the MMR vaccine and autism, the VICP denied those claims en masse — and that denial is used to justify the now-common claim that there is no link between vaccines and autism.
An ongoing lawsuit alleges that the U.S. Department of Justice committed fraud to cover up the potential link between vaccines and autism. The case is pending in federal court.
“Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; - Exodus 20:5
