In light of my last post, I thought it might be timely to republish this article from September of last year…
A friend of mine recently sent me a link to a CNN article entitled: U.S. measles cases in 2013 may be most in 17 years. To anyone sitting on the fence, wondering if they should vaccinate their child, there’s a lot of scary-sounding information in that article:
“This year is on track to be the worst for measles in more than a decade, according to new numbers released Thursday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”
“There were 159 cases of measles in the United States from January 1 through August 24“
“This is very bad. This is horrible,” said Dr. Buddy Creech, a pediatric infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University who was on a telephone briefing with the CDC Thursday morning. “The complications of measles are not to be toyed with, and they’re not altogether rare.”
“According to the CDC, one to three out of every 1,000 children in the United States who get measles will die from the disease, even with the best of care.”
“Even if complications such as pneumonia and encephalitis aren’t deadly, they can make children very sick; in 2011, nearly 40% of children under the age of 5 who got measles had to be treated in the hospital.”
STOP RIGHT THERE! I’m calling my doctor… we’re getting the kids vaccinated RIGHT NOW!
Or not. Lets take a closer look at those statistics, shall we?
According to the article: “one to three out of every 1,000 children in the United States who get measles will die from the disease, even with the best of care.” Okay… and how many children in the US get the measles? Again, to quote the article “159 cases of measles in the United States from January 1 through August 24.”
So in an EIGHT MONTH period 159 out of the roughly 74 MILLION children in the US got measles. Lets give that a visual:
This map comes from the CDC website published August 24, 2013
Number of measles cases (N = 159), by state — United States, 2013:
Pretty scary stuff. Especially for those of us living in Kentucky.
But what about all these bad, horrible, “not to be toyed with” complications? What about the deaths?!
If, according to the article, 1-3 (we’ll estimate high and go with the number 3) out of every 1,000 children who get measles will die from measles and only 159 children got the measles in an 8 month period, that means roughly ONE child will die of measles every FOUR years.(Actually, there hasn’t been a measles death since 2003, despite years and years of “outbreaks.”)
And all those scary side effects that land so many kids in the hospital every year?
“Nearly 40% of children under the age of 5 who got measles had to be treated in the hospital”
For the sake of argument, lets say that all 159 children who have gotten the measles this year were under the age of 5. 63 of those children (40%) had to be treated in the hospital. 63. Can we stop and think about that for a second? 63 out of 74 MILLION children in this country had to be hospitalized because of the measles.
Pretty scary stuff. Statistically speaking, my children have more chance of being bit by a poisonous snake, drowning in a pool, or being killed by a tornado than they have of getting (and having complications from) measles. (Not to mention the fact that vaccinations aren’t always effective.)
Now lets compare that number with a much, much scarier number. 1 in 88 kids in the United States are suffering from autism. ONE IN EIGHTY-EIGHT. Don’t think vaccines cause autism? Here are a number of studies that show otherwise. It’s the largest epidemic in the history of the world.
Where are the CNN articles reporting on THAT?
.
Related Articles
Dear parents, you’re STILL being lied to … Exposing the threat of measles, mumps and hippopotamuses on vaccinated children and the unsupportable claims of a pro-vaccination scientist.
(outside links):
Rina Marie 
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The German Robert-Koch-Institut (on whose research and statements the official vaccination recommendations in Germany – where I come from – are based on) even states much lower figures, which is that the mortality rate of measels ranges from 1:10.000 bis 1:20.000. The official complication rates are also quite low – even though sometimes serious – but the very same goes for the complication rates of vaccinations. What I consider even more important is that, as you stated in your former article, that breast feeding can neutralise the antibodies in all vaccinations during the child’s first year (and even a bit later), so the vaccination does not have any effect at all in this case – and most children are vaccinated against measles when they are 12 months old. It would at least make a lot of sense to wait a bit with the vaccination untill the child’s immune system has developed.
Furthermore, if you get the measles “for real” you acquire a life long immunity against the desease, which you do not if you get a vaccination. This means that you will have to get another vaccination when you grow up (or you have to rely on that all children get vaccinated, since children with measles are suddenly a threat for adults, in times when everybody had had measles as a child something completely unknown). Plus there are reported cases in which even vaccinated people got infected for unknown reasons (I just wonder why?), whereas all doctors state that they have never heard of somebody getting measles twice. Honestly, when I first learned a couple of years ago that measles suddenly are considered a threat and deadly desease, I thought of a joke (I did not have any reason to investigate the topic since my childhood, this has changed now as I am expecting a child myself).
Everybody got measles when I was a child. And chicken pox. And a lot of other “children’s deseases” as they were called back then, because only children in elementary school age got them. Along with a life long immunity. An immunity a mother can pass on to her child in case she breastfeeds. It was unknown for babies to get measles. But nowadays it happens. If their mothers are only vaccinated, that is. You do not pass on any protection if you did not go through the desease yourself once, vaccination does not provide the baby with maternal passive immunity.
What I wanted to point out: I am not automatically against all vaccinations. I myself got vaccinated against polio, tetanus and diphteria and some other things, which I still consider serious deseases and worth thinking about. But measles?