Don’t Panic Over Measles – Check the Facts
Every year the media run the same playbook, inducing fear and panic over measles outbreaks (in case the anxiety of bird flu wasn’t getting our attention). I’m compelled to speak out about it this year as it’s in my soon-to-be home state of Texas and affecting my older son who is already in Texas at college.
My son got an email from the health center on campus pushing students to get the MMR vaccine. It linked to a web page entitled “Measles Information” stating total inaccuracies and fear mongering. For example, it states that “1 in 5 unvaccinated people who contract measles require hospitalization”. There is so much wrong with this statement I need a whole article to sort it out.
Outbreaks in Context
Contrary to the claim that measles was eliminated in the US twenty years ago, there are cases of measles every year despite an overall MMR vaccination rate of 90.8 per cent of two year olds according to the CDC.
While it is tragic that a child died in Texas from pneumonia after testing positive for measles, there hasn’t been any prior deaths from measles in the last twenty years.
According to VAERS (the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System established in 1990) there have been 115,849 serious adverse events associated with the measles vaccine, including 572 deaths.
There is absolutely no evidence that the MMR vaccine is safer than a natural measles infection which confers lifelong immunity not only to measles but has been shown to reduce the risks of cardiovascular events and cancers later in life¹.
The MMR vaccine is known to cause a variety of serious side-effects including brain inflammation, seizures, autoimmune disorders and allergic reactions.
It is quite possible that the child in Texas was actually given the MMR vaccine on reaching the hospital, as some medical professionals have been advised to do, even though the package insert from Merck clearly states the vaccine should not be given to anyone experiencing a fever — a common symptom of measles.
The Forgotten History of Measles
A hundred years ago, measles was definitely an illness to be feared with epidemics sometimes claiming 20 per cent of children who caught it (one in five). But it was well known that it was the complications, such as susceptibility to other infections like tuberculosis, that were the problem rather than the measles itself. As nutrition improved the death rate plummeted.
By the time the vaccine was introduced in the US in 1963, deaths had fallen by 98.7 per cent. The vaccine was introduced in England five years later by which point deaths there had already fallen by 99.8 per cent.
In 1969 the popular TV show, the Brady Bunch, had an episode called “Is There a Doctor in the House?” when all six Brady kids got the measles at the same time. The issue was played for laughs with the kids happy to get a few days off school. You can watch a clip of the episode on YouTube if it hasn’t been taken down again.
Measles was considered a right of passage in those days much like chicken pox, and Moms would encourage their kids to be exposed so they could get the lifelong immunity a natural infection conferred.
Vaccine Induced Herd Immunity is a Fallacy
The whole discussion aiming to shame parents into vaccinating their children to “protect the herd” needs to stop.
For a start, vaccinated children can actually shed the measles virus and pass it onto others without getting sick themselves.
It is not only the unvaccinated who develop measles. The MMR vaccine is known to wane over time and hence teenagers and adults may still be susceptible to measles. Texas is reporting that vaccinated children are also coming down with measles.
In fact, in 2015 in the highly publicized Disneyland outbreak, the strain of virus in suspected cases was sequenced and it was found that nearly half had the vaccine strain of measles rather than wild measles, proving the outbreak was caused in part by the vaccine.
“During the measles outbreak in California in 2015, a large number of suspected cases occurred in recent vaccinees. Of the 194 measles virus sequences obtained in the United States in 2015, 73 were identified as vaccine sequences” (Rebecca. J. McNall, CDC)
As long as there is a vaccine containing live virus, the measles will never be eliminated. In fact, the introduction of the vaccine likely disrupted the natural weakening of wild measles into an illness that is barely noticeable from a cold. There is evidence of a particularly virulent strain of measles developing in the most intensely vaccinated countries. Similar to antibiotic resistance, there are signs of vaccine-resistant measles which could become more problematic in future.
How to Manage a Measles Infection
Healthy children do not die from the measles. The biggest predictor of a more severe case is vitamin A deficiency. Cod Liver Oil, high in retinol (vitamin A), is the best remedy at the first signs of infection and was commonly given to children decades ago.
Jigsaw is a popular brand of cod liver oil today. I have no ties to this company but felt they deserved a shout-out as they mobilized their operation to quickly accommodate the very large community order put in by Gaines County, Texas, to get cod liver oil and vitamin C to as many children as possible in the area on the advice of local integrative doctors.
Vitamin C is important at the onset of any virus. It’s actually interesting to see the data on the mortality rates from scurvy in England over the same period that measles deaths plummeted. Scurvy occurs when there is a chronic deficiency of vitamin C. There were no such data points available for vitamin A deficiency. But as access to fresh produce increased after World War II the death rates from all infectious disease fell, measles was no exception.
For cases that do turn serious with patients in respiratory distress, doctors have found that Budesonide, a steroid often used for asthma, can be helpful. It is not the “standard of care” for measles but a case of thinking outside the box and treating the patient in front of you instead of following the protocols issued by centralized institutions.
To sum up then:
Don’t panic over measles.
Address overall health and particularly any chronic conditions or nutrient deficiencies.
Think critically about what you’re seeing in the media and check the facts.
Whether or not to vaccinate is a personal decision and should be taken only with access to full information of the pros and cons for the individual in question.
Additional Resources
National Vaccine Information Center
Protocol 7 movie – dramatization of the true story of a Merck whistleblower over the MMR vaccine fraud
¹A large Japanese study found that a history of measles and/or mumps in childhood significantly protected against deadly heart attacks and strokes later in life. Another study found that each additional contagious disease contracted in childhood, such as measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox, and scarlet fever increased the protective effect against cardiac events as adults by 14 percent. There is plenty of medical literature documenting tumor remissions after a measles infection. It’s all God’s amazing design that we don’t yet understand.
