Guest Essay by Kip Hansen — 24 March 2025 — 1900 words
Measles is getting rather spotty coverage in the press over the last couple of months. Most of the coverage deals with a measles outbreak in Texas, in and around Gaines, Terry and Dawson counties in the South Plains region of the U.S. state of Texas.
These three counties have a combined population of about 46,000 people. The media reports that there are many Mennonite families in the area which fail more often to have their children vaccinated.
What is MEASLES?
“Measles is an acute, viral, infectious disease. [The measles virus is a paramyxovirus of the genus Morbillivirus.] References to measles can be found from as early as the 7th century. The disease was described by the Persian physician Rhazes in the 10th century as ‘more to be dreaded than smallpox.’ ”
“Before a vaccine was available, infection with measles virus was nearly universal during childhood, and more than 90% of persons were immune due to past infection by age 15 years. Measles is still a common and often fatal disease in developing countries. The World Health Organization estimates there were 142,300 deaths from measles globally in 2018. In the United States, there have been recent outbreaks; the largest occurring in 2019 primarily among people who were not vaccinated.”
[ CDC – Epidemiology and Prevention of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases: The Pink Book, Chapter 13: Measles ]
Important Things to Know about Measles:
Measles is one of the most contagious diseases.
There is no cure and no real treatment for measles infection:
“There is no specific antiviral therapy for measles. Medical care is supportive and to help relieve symptoms and address complications such as bacterial infections.” [ CDC ]
Those supportive treatment options are limited to:
Rest: Encourage the patient to rest and avoid strenuous activities.
Hydration: Ensure the patient drinks plenty of fluids to prevent dehydration.
Fever management: Use over-the-counter medications like acetaminophen or ibuprofen to reduce fever.
Vitamin A supplementation: Two doses of vitamin A supplements may be given to patients, especially those with vitamin A deficiency.
Antibiotics: Antibiotics may be prescribed if the patient develops bacterial complications, such as pneumonia or ear infections.
Hospitalization: In severe cases, hospitalization may be necessary for supportive care, including oxygen therapy and intravenous fluids.
And Cod Liver Oil? as above,
“Under the supervision of a healthcare provider, vitamin A may be administered to infants and children in the United States with measles as part of supportive management. Under a physician’s supervision, children with severe measles, such as those who are hospitalized, should be managed with vitamin A.”
The World Health Organization states: “The risk of developing severe or fatal measles increases for children aged <5 years, and persons living in overcrowded conditions, those who are malnourished especially with vitamin A deficiency…” … “Vitamin A should be administered to all acute cases irrespective of the timing of previous doses of vitamin A. Vitamin A oral dosage should be given immediately on diagnosis and repeated the next day…”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., current U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, has publicly recommended Cod Liver Oil, a safe natural Vitamin A and D supplement, to parents whose children have the measles. One teaspoon of Cod Liver Oil contains about 13,200 IU of Vitamin A – about 1/4th the initial dosage recommended by the CDC for treatment to be followed by a second dose the next day. RFK Jr. was vilified and pummeled in the mass media for this helpful and medically correct recommendation to parents and for noting that children who were malnourished were more at risk. [Note that not one of the media reports that I have read in preparing this essay, well over 50 items, have mentioned the CDC or WHO recommendations on Vitamin A and its relation to Cod Liver Oil. ]
Where does measles come from?
Measles is endemic in human populations. That means that it is everywhere you find humans, except where it has been eliminated by exposure and vaccination. Vaccination creates pockets of measles-free populations, like the United States. Humans are the reservoir for the measles virus — a paramyxovirus of the genus Morbillivirus – which is not found in any other animal.
“Measles Epidemiology
Reservoir : Human
Transmission:
- Person-to-person via large respiratory droplets
- Airborne in closed areas for up to 2 hours” [ CDC Pink Book ]
Measles outbreaks in the United States in recent years have always been traced to those arriving from foreign countries, or those travelling abroad, after measles was declared eliminated in the United States in the 2000 following a decades-long massive immunization campaign. Now, outbreaks most often occur in “underimmunized close-knit communities” and can be traced to some infected individual coming into the community from abroad. (This is the case in the current Texas outbreak, though the origin of the first case has not been determined).
This graph, with the correct vertical scale, shows the true state of affairs with the measles in the United States over my lifetime (1940s onward). By 1969, measles had been eliminated as a major childhood disease. There were still occasional outbreaks, but no major outbreaks since 1992. None that show at that scale, in any case – but from a Public Health viewpoint, there were and are still “serious” outbreaks.
The above is total measles cases, where the previous graphic was “cases per 100,000 population”. The high points in this graph only show in the previous graph as a little blip around 1990. The current Texas outbreak is shown at the far right “2025”.
In today’s U.S.A., it is impossible for the measles to spread widely or to become epidemic. The majority of the adult population is immune, either from prior infection (usually as a child in pre-vaccination times, like myself) or from vaccination as a child. Measles can only be spread in a rare subpopulation that contains many non-immune people and then only to those not immune.
Infants younger than 6 months – too young to be vaccinated – are at risk everywhere – which is one of the reasons international travel is discouraged until they are older and can be vaccinated against measles and other diseases endemic in other parts of the world.
Adults who were vaccinated as children or who had measles as a child, can lose some immunity as they age – not everyone is 100% protected by vaccination or prior illness. Those adults re-infected with measles, or infected after having been vaccinated as children, usually have a mild case if they are otherwise healthy.
“Another group that may be at risk is adults who were immunized between 1963, when the first measles vaccine was approved, and 1967. During that period, some children received an inactivated (killed) measles vaccine that was less effective than the live vaccine. If you know that you got the inactivated vaccine and not the live one, or aren’t sure, you should get at least one dose of the live MMR vaccine, according to the CDC.” [ source ]
But, measles is a serious danger to pregnant women — “measles in pregnant women who are not vaccinated can increase the risk of miscarriage, premature labor [and] low birth weight” but not birth defects. [ source ]
Re-vaccination is recommended for women intending to become pregnant if their immunity is in question and for older adults who fall into the 1963-1967 vaccine time frame. (This would have included me if my father had not been a pediatrician).
So why the vaccination hesitancy?
First there is this:
This infographic, produced by a vaccine advocate, has the data correct – but it is nonetheless misleading (and very hard to see – click on the Full Sized Image link to see it in a new tab/window) . In the United States, it has been over 3 decades since there have been 10,000 cases of measles….out of the handful of active measles cases each year, there are thus very few serious side effects actually experienced.
However, 3.3 million children entered kindergarten in 2023. Thus about 990 of those children statistically may have experienced ‘fever related seizures’ related to MMR vaccination (3 out of 10,000); 12 children experienced allergic reaction and about the same abnormal blood clotting. The probability of your child having one of those adverse reactions is thus very small – but to some parents, it is still scary.
The controversial idea that MMR vaccination might cause conditions now classified as Autism Spectrum Disorder is widely considered to have been disproven – but it was recently announced that “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will study whether vaccines cause autism, despite numerous existing studies already showing there is no link.” [ ABC News ]
How well protected are our children today?
Here is the latest state-by-state percentages of fully vaccinated children entering kindergarten (those having received all vaccinations required, including 2 MMR vaccinations):
The light blue states, 20% of the 50 states, are considered as “full vaccination” in respect to public health. In total, about 92.7 % of children entering kindergarten in 2024 were fully vaccinated. That is a little short of the public health ideal of 95%.
The current situation with measles in the United States, as of 21 March 2025, is 378 known cases, 75% of those children. 52 children have required hospitalization (currently recommended for all serious measles cases). One school-aged child, who was unvaccinated, has died from measles.
Bottom Lines:
1. Measles is a serious and highly contagious disease, though less dangerous in developed countries with general good health and adequate nutrition.
2. There is no cure and no real treatment for measles – only recommended supportive care for those ill: Rest, hydration, fever control, and Vitamin A supplementation. Antibiotics can be given to handle bacterial complications.
3. Measles outbreaks in the United States are rare, limited, and occur in pockets of un- and undervaccinated groups. Initial infections originate outside the United States and arrive with immigrants or travelers.
4. Vaccination, with two doses of the MMR or MMRV vaccine, gives 97% immunity. Not perfect for individuals, but more than adequate from a public health viewpoint.
5. Vaccination against measles is clearly generally safe and effective. That said, nothing is perfectly safe.
# # # # #
Author’s Comment:
My father was a leading pediatrician in Los Angeles County, California for the forty years between 1950 and 1990. He administered thousands of vaccinations to the baby boomer babies and then to their children. When my wife and I faced the vaccination question for our children, starting in 1977, we asked The Doc (as everyone called my father). He advised us to avoid the then-current MMR vaccine and instead opt for a single-antigen measles vaccine with the other two vaccines separate. In his opinion, and at that time, he felt the measles component in the MMR was “rather crude, a bit harsh”. All four of my kids got the single-antigen measles vaccine, though it was at times hard and not in conformance with current standards of care. In the present, the single-antigen measles vaccine is not available in the United States – simply because it makes tracking and counting vaccination status more complicated for public health officials and agencies (yes, really).
Disease prevention through vaccination has been one of the greatest health advances in human medical history and continues to be so.
Thanks for reading.
# # # # #
Late Note: Sorry, didn’t realize that this was publishing so quickly, just getting to comments now! Noon 24 Mar 2025
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Thanks Kip.
Regarding autism: note date. I recall further studies support this.
Brain Changes Suggest Autism Starts In the womb – NPR Mar 26, 2014
The organization of certain brain cells in children with autism seems already different from that of typical children by the sixth or seventh month of fetal development, a study hints.
John ==> Lots and lots of studies, lots of hints and “suggests that”s and “might be”s.
That how medical science advances. Even stuff that we were pretty certain about ten years ago is being found “not so sure anymore”.
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will study whether vaccines cause autism, despite numerous existing studies already showing there is no link.”
They don’t show there is no link, they didn’t identify a link.
There are 3000 studies showing there is no link between glyphosate and cancer in humans and one that does. Links are often obscure and boil down to attribution, not proof. Mature decisions require investigation and consultation. Make your best choices.
“Disease prevention through vaccination has been one of the greatest health advances in human medical history and continues to be so.”
Yes!
There is zero evidence supporting vaccination.
Get real.
Why you do you think that you don’t see kids crippled with polio any more (Salk), or adults catching TB (BCG)?
I am in my 88th year and have seen the benefits that multiple vaccines have brought to humanity
Presumably the poster was born long after vaccination eradicated the major childhood diseases, so didn’t get to see his classmates crippled and killed by the likes of polio, measles, whooping cough, etc, or for that matter his parents ravaged by smallpox, or wasting away thanks to TB.
Unfortunately, as time passes and memory of these diseases disappears into the distance, the younger generations start to believe that they were minor annoyances rather than major risks, and fixate on disproven or highly rare risks instead.
What relationship do you make up between vaccination, and eradicated diseases? Which diseases? When? Where?
Measles, diphtheria, whooping cough, smallpox, polio. Want more?
Polio, as I have learned, was a product of lead arsenate sprayed on fruit trees in late summer to control pests. Later DDT was used. Either would end up in the large intestines of children, very close to base of spine, and gravitate there. Adults, fully formed, did not experience problems. Imagine the lawsuits if it ever got out that polio was an industrial disease! The virus literally saved billions in lawsuits against them. That is but one purpose of viruses, to protect industry from lawsuits.
German virologist Dr. Stefan Lanka offered a €100,000 prize to anyone who could prove the existence of the measles virus. Predictably people rolled out the John Franklin Enders 1954 Nobel Prize on the matter, but Lanka had a grander objective, to have the case go before the Bundesgerichtshof, the high court that is subjected to rigorous scientific standards. The court rule (2017 I think) that indeed, there is no proof of existence of the measles virus. Lanka kept his money. Predictably, news media covered only the lower court rulings against Lanka, and virtually smothered the Bundesgerichtshof outcome.
My comments routinely disappear from here, by the way. Many opinions are tolerable, some not.
So polio epidemics, which sadly were common, were caused by the cumulative effects of spraying fruit trees not because the virus was infectious.
Put your brain in gear before you post man.
I’ve known about this phenomenon for years now, but you know, to get it across to someone whose brain is not “in gear” is rather difficult.
“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
weird how most polio occured..in the summer, innit. hmmm…wonder why that was?
Yours is not
In answer to your question: better hygiene, better sanitation, better nutrition, better housing. Statistics for England and Wales going back over two centuries, show significant decline in all common diseases prior to introduction of vaccination programmes.
As for TB – antibiotics. The UK Abandoned BCG in the 1990s as being of little use.
In the mid-19th Century an outbreak of Smallpox in northern towns was followed by compulsorily vaccination resulting in an increase in deaths. People rioted and compulsory vaccination was stopped amid dire warnings of catastrophe from the usual bunch of “experts”.
The epidemic quickly creased after the vaccinations were stopped.
In my childhood years 1950s – 1960s, Measles, German Measles, Mumps, Chicken Pox, Whooping Cough, Jaundice (hepatitis) were perennial. Nobody died or were hospitalised, it was part of life. Smallpox was unknown despite no innoculation programme.
In my class, 1962, there was a boy who had suffered poliomyelitis. Polio is a virus of the gut – therefore spread by poor hygiene which is why better hygiene was effective in the absence of vaccination programmes – and is only problematic if it escapes into the blood stream via the gut wall. Only about 25% of people infected develop poliomyelitis, mostly mild and recover with no long term ill-effects. Death is rare.
The continued hysteria is based on incidence of these diseases in poor Countries with poor hygiene, poor nutrition, poor sanitation and poor medical care.
By vaccinating to prevent diseases, this prevents the acquired immunity that protects whole societies. No vaccine is 100% effective; new strains of viruses and bacteria do emerge against which vaccine induced immunisation is ineffective, and natural acquired immunity is not present.
The only vaccine I received as a small child was Polio. Other vaccines were not available. I had most of the usual childhood disease as did my brother and sister, classmates and friends.
Polio is caused by the polio virus, which infects the nervous system and can cause paralysis. The vaccine was a major medical advancement that saved millions of children.
What evidence do you have they had “polio”? What is “polio” anyway?
It is still around, more prominent in India, named changed to acute flaccid paralysis.
exactly! Odd how polio got relabeled too back when they needed to “prove” the vaccine eradicated it. Keep fightin the good fight, my man.
The vaxxers simply aren’t to our level of knowledge. We were ALL pro-vax at one point, and then something changed where we started educating ourselves to the truth.
These people aren’t there and many of ’em won’t be. The younger folks, though, they see it.
It sounds as if you have no knowledge. Of anything.
RIIIIGHHT, it was the vaccine that saved the day from polio, eh? Man, you don’t read much for an 88 year old.
There is a graph in this article that shows the decline in measles in the USA.
This is evidence supporting vaccination.
We have a known mechanism to prevent infection (the immune response from vaccination).
We have a century long, nationwide test of that mechanism.
And the infection rates dropped to the point where the disease was effectively eradicated.
It’s OK to question things. Actually, it’s good to question things.
But saying things that are obviously untrue like “There is zero evidence supporting vaccination” is just dishonest.
You may not like the evidence but it is there. You need to man up and deal with it.
Evidence. This graphic might interest you.
Thanks for the graph, I was to dig out the same but in German. The curve of small poxx is similar.. lost unfortunately the article about the fight of a british town against the mandatory vaccine in the 19th century..I think it was of “the daily sceptic”..might have been Liverpool
Minor detail: that chart is depicting mortality rates from diseases, not infection rates, therefore it is irrelevant to the claim that the diseases themselves were declining; it only shows that death from the diseases was declining.
Your chart shows the measles vaccine being introduced in 1963, but it likely wasn’t in widespread use for a while after that.
As I stated in another comment, I was a child during the late ’60’s and early ’70’s and I remember myself, all my siblings and most of my peers getting the measles (and mumps, and chicken pox) at some point during childhood. It was basically a right of passage: expected and accepted that it was going to happen at some point. But your chart shows measles as almost nonexistent at the time…am I a liar? No. Measles wasn’t non-existent, pretty much every kid got it at some point. It was death from measles that had been reduced to a negligible risk due to better treatments and better overall health.
The vaccine changed it from “everyone gets it but almost no one dies” to “almost no one gets it”.
Just because we didn’t die from it doesn’t mean it was fun. If it can be avoided, I’d recommend doing so.
But, hey, it’s a supposedly free country so you can believe any fantasies you want and make all the poor decisions your heart desires. Have fun with that.
The vaccine changed it from “everyone gets it but almost no one dies” to “almost no one gets it”. – do you have any evidence to show this causal link?
If it can be avoided, I’d recommend doing so. – are you taking into account the benefits of acquiring natural infection?
Yes. And the moon landing was fake, and the earth is flat.
You left out the /s annotation.
It was clear to me, but I’m familiar with Bruce’s serious comments.
Of course, we occasionally need a reminder that that no matter how ridiculous a comment may be, it needs at least a smiley. And even then….
See: Poe’s Law
Just please read this: https://www.who.int/news-room/spotlight/history-of-vaccination/history-of-smallpox-vaccination
You have 224 years of research to catch up on.
I have 224 years of lie to catch up on.
Even WHO admits the provaxxers slowed down smallpox eradication.
niceguy ==> You might have added a /snarc tag if that was mean to be sarcastic….
a /snarc tag
Typo perhaps? But I definitely have to remember that one 🙂
Pasteur was a complete fraud. And that’s where the whole thing started. Such a good book, Pasteur vs. Bechamp
https://amzn.to/4iGoqL6
Those of us old enough to have lived through the polio epidemic, lucky enough not to have suffered from that horrible disease, and lucky enough to have received the polio vaccine when it was first offered, know that “niceguy12345” is horrendously wrong.
He thinks he is being clever. he is not he is spreading utter garbage. And, he should be ashamed of himself.
One of the things that prompted me to get the Covid vaccine was a pediatrician on Twitter commenting on how vaccinations have changed pediatrics. He was very emphatic about getting vaccinated as soon as the vaccines were available.
The Covid shot is safe and effective for some.
Are you a big lockdown fan?
Without the vaccine we’d have been in lockdown far, far longer than we actually were.
Absolute BS.
The lockdown was a violation of our rights and never should have happened.
It was hyped from the get go. Within two weeks we knew that it could be problematic for old and/or infirm citizens. For everyone else, it was an inconvenience like the flue or the cold.
The low information sheeple were led by the nose to comply.
The COVID shots are not a vaccine. They do not stop transmission to others and they do not prevent you catching the disease. They allegedly reduce symptoms, but that can be achieved with chicken soup, or a good dose of vitamin d and a magnesium/zinc complex. Meanwhile, there is growing evidence of serious injuries from these mRNA treatments that far outweighs the effects of covid, which at the end of the day was a mild respiratory infection for almost everyone. Lumping them in with conventional vaccines gives cover to conspiracy theorists who believe none of them work.
“Meanwhile, there is growing evidence of serious injuries from these mRNA treatments “
Well let’s see it? I call BS till you front up. All the evidence I have seen says the covid vaccines were successful in reducing the number of deaths that would have otherwise happened.
“The Covid shot is safe and effective for some.”
I’m not going to downvote that comment because you may have forgotten the /sarc tag or you believe the “for some” part of the comment has some redeeming quality.
I believe the full ramifications of the Covid shots have not fully been realized. I believe there will be severe medical complications that have not yet risen to general knowledge.
I certainly hope that RFK jr. has some investigations to expose the clusterf**k of the shots rollout and possible negative outcomes.
you’re joking, right?
So, as DOGE is running around trying to save money CDC is going to waste it trying to link Autism to vaccines? WTF?
Don’t be scared of science.
bo ==> Sans politics, it is important to find out “What Exactly Is Causing Autism to Spike?”
The NY Times carried a piece by a “self-proclaimed autistic scientist” (who discovered he was autistic three years ago at age 53), in which he states emphatically that autism rates are rising simply from increased diagnosis and broadened definitions.
There’s a former Microsoft engineer who was diagnosed with autism in his 50’s, he has a YouTube channel Dave’s garage. If memory serves, the first set of criteria for autism diagnosis wasn’t published until the late 1970’s. This was modified in the following decades, with the last update in the mid 2010’s. Each modification increased the diagnostic criteria.
Kip, while I am sure that the rates have increased due to increased diagnoses (increased awareness – see Temple Grandin’s story), and absolutely due to broadened definitions (if you include more in the diagnoses, obviously you’ll find more), I am not so certain those account for ALL of the increase.
I would be very interested to see what else such research, if done objectively, might turn up.
“What Exactly Is Causing Autism to Spike?”
when did the spike begin? what changed, before/after? is the spike so readily apparent in African countries? does everyone react the same way to large doses of Folic Acid? …
But first, what is Autism (now). What was Autism 40 years ago?
I was told as I kid that I had German measles twice. Apparently there are two kinds, and I don’t know what the other kind is called. I barely remember the first time with the red spots and suspect I really remember being told about it later rather than remember the case itself. Late 50s, I am sure (born 1951). The second time, all I remember is feeling sick at school in the morning, the school nurse called my mother, and I got the rest of the day off, right as rain within a few hours and went to the grocery store with her in the afternoon, enjoying a free day. No doctor this second time, just the nurse, so of course now I suspect it was just … something. I do remember she was positive it was the German measles even though I said I had already had it, and her firm answer that I had it again even though that wasn’t supposed to be possible. Don’t remember any measles vaccine. The only childhood vaccine I do remember is the polio sugar cubes, and I think that happened twice but sure can’t swear to it.
Googled for it. Yes, German measles can only be caught once. German measles is less serious and creates a rash, not red spots. It’s also called rubella, and is the R in M(umps)M(easles)R(ubella). The other measles is just measles. I was hoping the English would have called it French measles.
German measles (rubella) may be less serious for most people but if a pregnant woman develops rubella early in pregnancy, it can have significant deleterious effects on the developing foetus. Easy to vaccinate against, have it done in childhood.
Easier to let it spread and wait until every child gets it.
As was done before the mass brainwashing of vaccine pseudo science (as bogus as ionising radiation/cancer science and climate science)
Correct. My cousin was born with tremendous damage to his brain and body because his mother had Rubella during pregnancy. He needed lifelong 24/7 care.
Both rougeole (measles) and rubéole (rubella) are BENIGN DISEASE.
Not to populations that had not experienced it and other diseases Europeans brought with them. measles, along with other diseases brought by Europeans, caused devastating epidemics among Native American populations who lacked immunity, resulting in high mortality rates.
That’s true but he’s also correct that the old remedy of deliberately having measles and chicken pox parties (rubella for girls) gave Western developed societies a similar protection benefit. The question is will the long term alternative of vaccinating offer the same strength general protection? That we don’t know but we certainly got it wrong over-reacting to Covid re the cost/benefit equation.
Measles parties never happened in the U.K. as far as I’m aware. Chickenpox parties, possibly happened.
I was taken to a mumps party in autumn 1959 or early 1960. It worked! [I had already had measles – almost a whole summer off school. The UK’s best summer before 1976].
Europeans who had been exposed to these infections for 50+ generations had some resistance to these diseases through natural selection. However to protect vulnerable members of the population then removing the diseases from circulation through vaccination does that job.
People have to make up their own minds which risk is most likely to cause problems lifelong vulnerability to a disease, until the day you die or vulnerability to the side effects of inoculation.
Measles has an R of between 15 and 20, i.e. that’s how many people one person can infect.
The incubation period is around 14 days, time between infection and first symptoms.
Child becomes lethargic and unwell some 48 hours before the rash appears, until that rash appears there is no clear diagnosis of measles. However, the child is infectious from that point until 4-5 days after the rash appears there is.
Measles can cause encephalitis and other problems including death.
However, it’s more insidious in that it can cause the immune system to “forget” previous infections that it encountered, including vaccinations, for up to two years post acute phase. In these cases the child is vulnerable to other infections that could be seriously debilitating.
Finally, there’s a condition that can develop that is invariably fatal some 7-10 YEARS post acute disease.
To show how prevalent the measles virus is, I had measles as an infant, when I started as a nurse some 50 years later I had measurable measles antibodies, which meant either I’d had a massive viral load or, more likely, I’d been infected multiple times. The half life of antibodies is 21 days, in 50 years there are 50*365/21 periods of 21 days. If my residual antibody count was due to the initial viral load then that viral load would need to be at least 2**(50*365/21), hence my assumption that I’d been infected multiple times.
My final point is that febrile convulsions are frightening when they’re first encountered, but they’re usually benign and can follow any infection. We had experience of these with our youngest when he was a child. If he had an ear infection then he’d have a febrile convulsion, this happened until he grew out of them aged 8.
Measles can cause encephalitis and other problems including death.
That’s true too but it had to be weighed against the inevitable bad reactions to the vaccines. There was some debate over that in the past which can be likened to the climate change debate. Conquering diseases like smallpox polio and diptheria with vaccines naturally led to a crusading belief that we could vaccinate the world for anything and everything while some were more skeptical of the long term consequences.
In fact with a relatively benign disease like measles for healthy well nourished Westerners it was really about ‘our’ obligation to expunge measles completely for the third world.
Measles is not relatively benign, that’s the problem.
But by the same token John investigating the incidence of reactions and bad outcomes from vaccine injections is a very bad career move with the vaccinate or perish crusaders nowadays. Heresy and excommunication awaits any who dare go there on their own dime as they’ll never get funded.
In that regard the resurgence of Pertussis with a change of vaccine type and the discovery of vitamin k injection problems for newborns and a subsequent switch to oral should be a warning about that stance.
niceguy ==> You are, simply put, entirely wrong. History is the reference.
What the hell are you babbling about?
What is what? Draw a table!
Hey, thanks for that. I should have googled. I always thought Rubella was the other name for Scarlet Fever. I didn’t know it was another strain of measles. Learn something new every day.
As a child in the 1950s I was ill and taken to the doctor. The conversation between the doctor (d) and my mother (m) went something like: D – He has measles. M – But he already had measles. How can that be? D – The doctor must have been wrong. M – But you were the doctor.
I guess it is rare but happens. I have a weird immune system anyway. I never caught chicken pox nor mumps, despite being deliberately exposed to both. There were chicken pox and mumps ‘parties’ in the 1950s to expose young children to the illnesses and avoid the more serious outcomes older children were susceptible of having. Titers drawn about ten years ago confirmed I have no blood antibodies for either. No one can explain why I was not routinely getting ill from the diseases in the 1950s through the 1980s without having the antibodies. The immune system is very complex, and I suspect still not well understood.
The lack of antibodies in a blood titre doesn’t indicate that you were never infected. There are two arms of the immune system the innate and adaptive. If you become infected then the innate system is the first to react, it is this reaction that causes a rise in temperature, feeling lethargic, reduced appetite and swollen lymph nodes. The place where infection of the causative pathogens for the diseases you mention is most likely to occur is the upper respiratory tract, this becomes significant if the innate immune system cannot clear the pathogen. If this happens then the adaptive immune system will become important. Although the adaptive immune system is treated as a single entity, it’s not. If the pathogen is in the upper respiratory tract then the primary adaptive response will be antibodies of type IgA, which are associated with the mucosal surfaces. However, if the pathogen manages to infect the lower respiratory tract then the response will be antibodies of type IgG, which are found primarily in the bloodstream.
Therefore, it’s feasible that a person develops mild symptoms, may produce IgA antibodies locally but the pathogen is cleared before IgG antibodies develop in significantly high numbers thus not detectable in a blood titre several decades later.
If you had the oral polio vaccine then you probably predate the measles vaccine (introduced in 1963 USA, 1968 U.K.).
One can get into a complex question issue with vaccines and indeed, most health care. Flu vaccines are rather hit or miss, and my health was never bad enough to take one. But I very much like that I am presumably immune to smallpox, due to a vaccine.
It is which vaccine. The several vaccines for Covid 19 were not all that effective in preventing spread, but were effective on people with fragile health. Public Health has a long history of treating its audience as mushrooms.
But that does not mean I do not regard Andrew Wakefield as a quack and a fraud, and that Robert F. Kennedy jr is not a fool for believing him. It is never that simple.
There is as much evidence supporting vaccines as there is for climate science
Nah you mightn’t believe that filling the joint with windmills and solar panels will change the weather but you don’t want the local urban park turned into hi-rise and no controls on cutting down trees everywhere for UHI effect. You still want to be able to mow your lawn
though.
Tom ==> As I mention in my Author’s Comment, the question is often “Which vaccine?”
All vaccines are not created equal, some are good, some are great, some are rather primitive in their early iterations.
ALL have side effects — most f them have population-wide tolerable side effects — far better than rampant epidemics of the disease they help prevent.
The reason COVID vaccines cannot prevent the spread of infection is because of the incubation period of the disease process and the response time of the innate system. The innate system always takes a few days to respond to a pathogen, with SARS-CoV-2 this is approximately the same as the incubation period, during which there’s significant viral replication and hence viral load. Therefore, an infected person can be shedding active virus for 24 hours before symptoms appear. This is regardless of vaccination status. Don’t forget that the purpose of all vaccines is to reduce the risk of severe illness, hospitalisation or death for the vaccinated individual. If 95% of a population are vaccinated against measles then that will stop the spread, but that’s not intrinsic to the vaccine but is a function of the virus’s replication rate. This is why the “let it rip” approach for COVID19 could not have been successful.
Covid 19 vaccines were apparently effective in reducing the death rate among elderly obese diabetics. But the mass vaccination effort had the same drawbacks as the Swine Flu vaccine program, of showing rare side effects in otherwise healthy subjects.
The question is just how bad either Swine Flu or Covid would have been less the vaccines.
Just to highlight that 7% of all admissions to Paediatric Intensive Care Units in the U.K. were covid cases. My daughter-in-law was an ITU nurse in 2020 and her patients were of various ages.
Why do you regard Andrew Wakefield as a “quack”?
A quack is offering fraudulent “medical” treatment, and Wakefield cherry picked his study to promote his alternative vaccine. His departure from good practice on the study was deliberate, and was intended as a sales tool.
Which Wakefield study are you referring to?
The study later withdrawn that was published by The Lancet. On autism and combination vaccines.
Are you referring to this paper: “Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children”?
Can you tell me which part of this study Wakefield used to push his “fraudulent medical treatment”?
Which data did he cherry pick in this study to promote his alternative vaccine?
Well Tom, any response to my question?
As you are clearly trolling, Wakefield is still a quack.
I had a professor at San Jose State, who was also a quack on autism. Exploiting vulnerable relatives is reprehensible.
Oh please, is that all you have? Accusing me of trolling because you’re unable to answer the very simple questions I asked of you? How scientific of you. Have you even actually read that particular study? I’m betting you haven’t.
You know what’s also reprehensible? Doubling down on unsubstantiated statements even when you are unable to support them.
Well Tom, which Wakefield study are you referring to?
“The disease was described by the Persian physician Rhazes in the 10th century as ‘more to be dreaded than smallpox.”
I was quite surprised by that quote.
I believe the fatality rate in the U.S. was between 1-2 per thousand cases in the U.S. prior to the vaccine being available.
I always thought small pox was much more deadly than measles.
Was the (relatively) low U.S. fatality rate due to the modern (pre-1963) availability of antibiotics and fever-busting medications like acetaminophen?
Somewhat related: The Spanish Flu (1918) was quite deadly to young healthy people that had immune systems capable of producing fevers up to 108F to fight off the virus.
If we had acetaminophen in 1918, would that have significantly reduced the world death toll just by virtue of reducing peak fever temperatures?
Measles is benign and your numbers are either for populations in very bad shape or fear mongering by Big Medical Care.
Nonsense. If you have no immunity to measles it has a fatality rate of over 90%. That was seen when the Europeans first landed in the Americas. However thanks to evolution most people have some immunity and so the fatality rate is a lot lower. But it is not benign by any means.
Where is that immunity stored?
During a swine flu epidemic (2008?) I read a book on the 1918 flu, I think it’s “The Great Influenza,” at https://www.amazon.com/Great-Influenza-Deadliest-Pandemic-History/dp/0143036491/ref=sr_1_1 . The thing that made that flu so tough on young adults was that their immune system mounted a cytokine storm that destroyed the victim’s lungs. “Normally” squelae includes lower resistance to thing like pneumonia causing bacteria which warrants antibiotics. This flu didn’t wait. I think today’s treatments would be steroids to reduce the excessive immune response and antivirals.
One thing in the book that blew me away were references to the impact in eastern Massachusetts, both in research in Boston, and the deaths at Ft Devens, close to where I was working at the time. The US was fae more impacted than I gathered from Alistaire Cooke’s comments after the relevant episode of Upstairs, Downstairs.
Asprin was prescribed in 1918 in very high doses. It may have increased the death rate. Or not.
See https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ten-myths-about-1918-flu-pandemic-180967810/ too.
A pathogen that kills it’s host kills itself, and a pathogen that spreads only with great difficulty is probably doomed, therefore, pathogens that survive over time must have evolved as they go from less ineffective and more deadly to more infective but less deadly….We saw that with CoViD which is why it’s been so difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of the unfortunately “leaky” vax they came up with…..We also saw it with the influenza outbreak of 1918 mollifying itself over the he course of a century..
NiceGuy– your ignorance shows. A viral infection is only “benign” in retrospect–IF the victim survived unscathed. While the death or complication rate may be X per 1000 for the population, it’s either 0% or 100% for the individual….Each vaccine must be evaluated on a risk vs benefit basis. For the usual childhood vaccines, the benefits far outweigh the risks…..Have you ever heard of an Iron Lung or seen a deaf & blind kid who was exposed to Rubella in utero?…Is it time for your 8 o:clock slap yet?
I am not saying anything is “benign”. Medical textbooks do.
You have nothing.
pillage ==> In primitive cultures with widespread malnutrition, measles epidemics could have horrific consequences on their first introduction as they did in the Americas.
In a country like the United States, on which we have modern data, death rates and serious consequences were far smaller due to improved healthcare and generally higher states of nutrition.
“1. Measles is a serious and highly contagious disease, though less dangerous in developed countries with general good health and adequate nutrition.”
Indeed. So for a malnourished child in a developing country with a poor public health infrastructure, measles can be a very serious threat.
But how about for our well nourished children in developed countries with good public health systems?
As a child, I had measles, as did everyone in my class at school. It was unpleasant and uncomfortable for several days. But no one was ever worried that there may have been a serious threat, it was just a rite of passage for kids, everyone got it, and recovered. Nobody was frightened of measles. It was unpleasant, but not fearsom
I grew up is a town to 25,000 to 30,000 with several schools. A small enough t\own that only one or two questions would be enough to establish knowledge of mutual connections.
So measles came every couple of years and over the course of my childhood, several thousand kids in my town would have had measles, yet I never heard of anyone dying or being crippled by measles.
Given my experience, I am actually quite skeptical that there is a genuine serious threat from measles in developed countries though I do get why people want to protect children from its unpleasantness.
On the other had, my sister got scarlet fever and that scared my parents.
And I DID know a couple of kids my age and only that had had polio, but none younger, were were all vaccinated.
Yeah it’s a modern hoax. Back then, measles was the butt of a joke in comedy TV shows. Nobody was terrified by it esp. in France. It’s a modern invention that only because of vaccines people don’t fear contagious diseases. It’s Pravda under Stalin level of information.
Search for Roald Dahl daughter who died aged 7 following measles.
Measles is a notifiable disease in the U.K. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/measles-deaths-by-age-group-from-1980-to-2013-ons-data/measles-notifications-and-deaths-in-england-and-wales-1940-to-2013
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/measles-confirmed-cases/confirmed-cases-of-measles-mumps-and-rubella-in-england-and-wales-2012-to-2013
You already made your point. Now please bogoff.
The point is that no case can be made for vaccine that doesn’t rely on anecdotes and myths the likes of “satellites are changing the weather”.
My eyes were damaged by measles and I had to have a corrective operation.
“that had had polio,”
How did they determine they had polio?
Iron lung, maybe? Wheelchair? Take your dumb and go away.
What about the US in 2019? Remember that year, polio fear mongering Big Vaccine apologist?
Smartass. I assume their doctors diagnosed it. I wasn’t there.
However, the boy in my class in 1st grade that had had it was crippled by it with deformed limbs.
You ass ume.
What testing was done?
Nice anecdote. When you were young enough to believe in Santa Claus you were also told not to worry about all the measles going round.
Sweet.
But here is a graph that shows the Death Rate in the USA.
Rate of measles cases and deaths in the United States, 1919 to 2024
The grown-ups would have been, or should have been, more worried.
MCourtney ==> The death rate charts are misleading, in that they seldom show who and how many died of measles. Grownups of otherwise healthy, well nourished, American kids were worried — ask me about how much sleep my pediatrician father got during a local measles outbreak. There was just nothing the parents could do about it. If measles was going around, every kid (almost 100%) caught it if they had not had it before.
This was terrifying for 1945-1960 families, with stair-step aged kids, always a new baby in the house.
Thus the massive public health push to develop and deploy a measles vaccine.
You are mixing time periods.
Measles was feared, then not, then mass vaccination happened.
Kid sister had the “red” measles, whatever that was, and has eye and dentition issues from it. Older sister had scarlett fever…both girls scared the Hell out of my parents. I got away with just spots. Had a classmate with polio. Vaccines are a gift from God, even if a wee bit risky. If you go out of the country to somewhere that has an outbreak of something bad, and you don’t have proof of a vac. for that bug, good luck getting back home. True, at least, in1974. Don’t know now.
When I was a kid back in the ’60s, just about everyone it seemed caught measles, but the typical period of isolation was about 14 days – that’s a lot of days to miss school. In those days most kids had stay at home moms – today most families have both parents working so a kid staying home from school for 14 days is a much bigger deal today than then. We all saw how that worked in the COVID pandemic, which was not very well.
The thing about comparing different eras is that expectations can vary a lot.
When I was a kid few cars even had seat belts or padded dashboards or crash-zone car bodies or protective side beams, let alone air bags. The death rate on the highways was vastly higher than it is today. Yet at that time we more or less just accepted that as the price of modernity. Kids rode in the backs of pickup beds with no restraints – which would get you arrested today.
14 days – that’s a lot of days to miss school
In some US cities that, now, is a low number. I don’t remember missing school, but my older sister thinks we might have missed a couple of days during our 12 years.
Duane ==> In Los Angeles, there was always the question of whether or not to keep the measles kids home if they were feeling well enough to go to school, despite still being infectious. Every kids in the school had ALREADY been exposed — so what did it matter?
My father supported sending well-enough kids back to school — they could do no further harm
Sort of my experience as well growing up in the 1940s. It was pretty much assumed that we’d all catch and survive measles(rubeola), chicken pox(varicella), and probably mumps(orthorubulavirus) in our early years. On the other hand, scarlet fever(scarlatina), whooping cough(pertussis), and especially poliomyelitus were much feared. In one of her books (The Lacuna I think) Barbara Kingsolver describes a citywide early 20th century polio lockdown in Western North Carolina quite similar to the modern Covid lockdowns.
I do wonder whether perhaps the strains of measles circulating in North America in the mid-twentieth century might have been milder and less lethal than those of colonial times.
don k ==> “measles circulating in North America in the mid-twentieth century might have been milder and less lethal than those of colonial times.” Probably not, but general levels of health are now much higher, and nutrition is better — very few with clinical Vit A or D deficiencies, for instance. Kids that get very sick are now hospitalized and with antibiotics for co-infection and IVs for hydration, oxygen for pneumonia, etc, far fewer die.
Almost my exact experience too (including town size). Measles was more of a right of passage than a disease that was taken seriously. Parents were not running around worried every time one of their friends kids came down with measles. What they did was ask when a case started so they could count up the days since the kids last saw each other so they knew if they possibly passed it on to each other.
mikeq ==> Measles was dangerous for the babies in the families of the kids you went to school with. My father was a baby Boomer Era pediatrician — measles swept through our LA subdivisions on a regular basis every few as new, unexposed kindergartners entered the school. When it did, my father was beleaguered with panicked mothers of newborns…and most of the newborns contracted measles were sent to the hospital to received life-saving care.
“Measles was dangerous for the babies”
That’s why France should never have went full ret… full vaxxer.
Before mass vaccination, pretty much every child got measle (not all, I personally know an exception), and was fully immunized. And so they would not transmit the disease later to babies.
(Also, less people should visit recent mothers and their newborn. It’s annoying and serves so purpose.)
When you go full vax, you stop the natural protection and as we saw in America, you can get epidemies among vaccinated people. And the measles issue is much more serious now in France, thanks to vaxxism.
niceguy ==> Your information painting vaccination as a “bad thing” opposed to a “good thing” is spurious and not evidence based.
It is true that pre-vaccination, almost every child got the measles and thus were immunized against future infection. But, not all people were children at the same time — thus there were waves and waves of measles outbreaks in every population — and always new babies at risk.
In the 1950s, by year 15, almost every person was considered immune to measles due to prior infection. This was not perfect, not 100%. Some adults thus were infected with measles later on.
In every major population, even in developed countries, some children died from measles, and others lost hearing or suffered he consequences of encephalitis.
We do not see epidemics of measles among vaccinate d populations. We do see the occasional outbreaks, meaning a handful of cases, among the unvaccinated and those who have lessened immunity over the years since their initial vaccination or infection.
Why does official health authorities of uber pro vax anti freedom France says 30 death per year then? Do you agree 30 is so small, there is preventive care like a vaccine that can be measured to produce less harmful SE (side effect) over a generation of French babies? If we had an effective safe vaccine, we wouldn’t be able to know it’s safe, like we are not able to know how much greenhouse exists, because it’s minuscule.
Personal knowledge of serious complications is not an adequate way to assess risk. I, for example knew a boy who died of measles encephalitis. Yes it is rare, but it is a real risk. The question is whether the risk from the vaccine is greater or smaller.
Do I trust vaccine advocate publications: NO. Do I trust antivacination publications: NO.
RFK’s proposal to examine the issue is sensible.
According to the uber pro vaccine French health authorities: per year, around 30 children died from measles when mass vaccination was not a thing.
That’s benign (one death per 30,000 cases).
And often those who died were in bad shape to begin with. Not saying they deserved to die, it’s just a medical context. It’s relevant.
We don’t sacrifice the healthy children to have a chance (probably small or minuscule) to save the ill ones. That’s anti survival of our specy.
(Not that anti survival of our specy policies are unpopular now, they are very popular.)
In 2019 there were several news stories and other reports that measles impacted or destroyed the immune system’s “library” of antibodies to past diseases you had and are, umm, were immune to.
Several of these reports are at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/search/research-news/7353/
Here’s a reasonably succinct Abstract from one paper:
I had a bad case of measles in the 1960s, bad enough I spent daytimes in my parent’s bed so Mom could keep an eye on me. Our cat stuck with me, enjoying my fever. My siblings were given doses of an early vaccine that was still in testing. I suggest avoiding it, especially if you have a hard-earned library of antibodies for past diseases you survived.
First world countries actually lived with measles for all (like they lived in a 350 world) and know that children post measles were NOT like AIDS people.
Measles is a benign disease for healthy children according the medical science.
Vaccination was a crazy scientist type experiment.
How many times do you feel the need to spread that nonsense? I count four times. Isn’t that enough?
According the medical reference books, measles is benign (for healthy children).
You have NOTHING.
You are not the only one who confuses measles and chickenpox. It’s called ignorance, an affliction rather rampant in you.
You made that up.
Benign childhood diseases are benign, period.
Oh, see above comment from me-I forgot to mention leg braces and canes.
You forgot to mention evidence poliovirus infestation.
Why am I not surprised?
Another example about how public health in the US has plenty of room for improvement. Two examples from Covid was the initial lockdowns that discouraged people from going outside and the lack of push to encourage taking of vitamin D supplements. The latter might have saved just 5-10% of the people who died from Covid, but that still would be 10’s of thousands of people.
With Covid, it also would have helped if China was more open and honest with what was going on in December 2019 and January 2020.
Interesting essay Kip. I recall getting the measles in the early 60’s. There
was no vaccine and I had a very high fever/rash for several days but fully recovered.
My mom filled the bath tub with cold water and set me in it to bring down my
temperature which was around 106*.
Later I drew a low draft number at 18 and got a lot of vaccines in boot camp but somehow my medical records didn’t follow me to my duty assignment and I had to get them all over again. It didn’t seem to have any effect but it wasn’t fun.
Back around 2012 I got a bad case of West Nile which was new to this area and to me.
It seemed to come in with a large number of ECD doves, an invasive host species. I lost a horse that had been vaccinated twice that summer but he got it in August when the doves showed up. I was told if you’re 50 or under you likely don’t know you have it but older than that it’s can be very serious which I can attest to. I haven’t seen any large flocks of ECD’s since but I now use a lot of bug repellant and hot fog/spray around the property in August as a precaution. The birds
seem to be spreading it around the country.
ECD doves (Eurasian Collared-Dove) These doves appeared in my locality (central WA State) about 10 years ago. I had not heard of the connection to West Nile.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4213033/
Range Expansion and Population Dynamics of . . . The Eurasian Collared-Dove
The West Nile Encephalitis in horses started in the US in late 90’s.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0749073917300871
The incident I referred to in the above comment there was a 125 acre stand of malt
barley next to my property waiting for the moisture to drop and be combined when a rogue hail storm came thru and trashed a good 50%+ of the crop. That’s when the ECD’s arrived by the thousands. I’ve never seen anything like that ever. The 1/2 mile fence line , irrigation lines and shelter belts had birds side by side in the thousands…I haven’t
built any traps but if they return like before who knows.
Mr Ed and John H ==> “WNV is primarily maintained in an enzootic transmission cycle between Culex species mosquitoes and birds as the vertebrate hosts. Epidemic (and epizootic) transmission occurs when the virus escapes the bird-to-bird enzootic cycle to infect other vertebrates, including humans. In the US, WNV is enzootic in all 48 contiguous United States and evidence of transmission in the form of infected humans, mosquitoes, birds, horses, or other mammals has been reported from 96% of U.S. counties.” [ source – CDC ]
When I was a kid, everyone in school god the measles – both varieties, Never heard of anyone dying from it, What is going on?
I remember to have heard from “measles parties”…
You are not the only one who confuses measles with chickenpox.
You are wrong, Masern Party (measles party) in German is not Windpocken Party (chickenpox party) I never heard from.
Measles I had with 7, Windpocken (chickenpox) I had aged 42.
The Measles party in Germany dates from around 2000, after the autism scare. The chicken pox party of my youth is much older. The measles party arose because of the fact that in 2000 hardly anybody knew anymore what measles looked like, because of its rarity, and then young parents confused measles with chickenpox and thought a similar party would be an alternative for vaccination. It probably was, except for the 5% of children who are damaged by the virus, through encephalitis or pneumonia, and the 1 in 500 who are killed by the infection.
I never heard about confusig chicken pox with measles, you are the very first talking about.
In cotrast to measles chicken pox seem to be harmless
Krishna Gans ==> This seems like a Germany-centric conversation. In the US, we did have measles parties, for the regular measles, parents could then lump all their sick kids into one house for care while the other parents went to work. This was in the days when there was no way to prevent your school aged kids from getting the measles if t was going around in the local school.
Vaccination, the two sided blade. For those who have slept through the past 5 years, vaccination requires trust in the “bodies” promoting it. That trust has gone, or better said eroded over the years prior to 2020.
Looking at my old yellow vaccination card from 1971, the amount of vaccines was modest, mumps and measles I got in Spain and Germany at the age of less than 3, against TBC, smallpox, polio and tetanus I got jabbed. All individually and thus managable in terms of side effects. My sister got jabbed significantly less, due to a severe alergical reaction to the first vaccination the doctor strongly advised against further jabs.
Well long gone the good old days of trust in white coats.
Mumps and measles are what they call(ed) in Germany “Kinderkrankheiten”, childhood deseases…best to suffer them at an early age. My father caught mumps the same time as me and went through a couple really bad days, his comment afterwards was: “it’s better to get it as a child”.
So far part of my family’s story, I’ll shorten it: we all survived just fine. Even an unvaccintated cousin of mine who caught TBC (his bad time was due to a surgeon cutting open a lymphiatic knot, classic treatment error), none of his unvaccinated parents or brothers caught TBC.
Statistics reveal that by the time of introduction of the measles and smallpox vaccine the mortality rate had significantly gone down, near to levels of being irrelevant. In times of “zero”-ism the term irrelevant is being widely ignored, or seen with two tiers, sadly.
Vaccine side effects cannot be ignored, arguing that they are for the greater good, so therefore take one for the team is idiocy at best.
So those who choose to jab themselves and those who don’t shall be granted the exact same amount of freedom of choice without any repercussion. Personally I take a stand against mandatory measles vaccination, especially since you get it nowadays in a three in one combo (MMR).
Naturally aquired immunity always has and always will trump any vaccine, that’s what an immume system is for. The rest is mainly up to good food and improved sanitary conditions.
There, a survivor has spoken.
When I went through boot camp in 84, I think they were still separate. They actually tested for susceptibility and if you were immune (usually due to having contracted it) you were able to skip the vaccines.
When I went through boot camp in ’88 everyone got the same jab, there was no testing for immunity. We were treated like cattle, everyone got in line to be jabbed one after another. Same thing when heading over seas, everyone got the exact same jab.
Pretty much the same for me, except for that I got to pass a couple. All the testing was done during the pre-boot-camp exams. But I’m not surprised if they changed it.
I would call it more of a “squirt” than a jab though 🙂 – we had needleless injectors, and I don’t remember seeing them so much as wipe it between uses. Assembly-line vaccination…
Fever management: Use over-the-counter medications like acetaminophen or ibuprofen to reduce fever.
As I was a child and had measles, the med. said to my parents to pay attention not to reduce fever, in contrast, to try to encrease it and to look not to pass over the limit of 41°C.
Sounds like they consulted a homeopath, aka quack. They believe that things will get worse before they the get better, which is precisely what happens if their prescription does do nothing.
No, absolutely wrong, he was also doctor for the police. For children he prescribed Vitamine D and/or sunlamp treatment for a month or longer on a regular base.
Fever isn’t an illnes but part of the healing process. And heat may kill pathogens.
Increasing the fever was a good thing to do? Really?
Yes, it was an effective medical advice.
And still is, within the obvious limits. See https://health.clevelandclinic.org/whats-happening-in-my-body-when-i-have-a-fever
If I’m not mistaken, a fever would need to reach over 105*F before the fever itself starts to damage the body.
A fever is annoying and uncomfortable but it is part of what our bodies do to heal itself.
Krishna ==> Treatment of fevers has always been a tricky medical issue. Very high fevers are very dangerous and can results in brain damage or death, as you know.
My father, the pediatrician, was constantly reassuring parents that their baby’s 102 F fever was nothing to worry about — just check every few hours.
From the telling of my parents I knew, the Dr. came twice a day to have a look for three days.
He recommanded wet poultices at my calfs if my fever incrased to much.
I was six weeks out of any action.
Krishna ==> The treatment for fever is designed to keep the fever from spiking dangerously high — in almost all cases, it involves physical cooling of the body. In hospitals, they have special cooling blankets and even ice baths. Sounds like you have a rough case. Glad you survived.
It took over 20 years before CDC and WHO admitted that the second required measles shot is a booster shot and not just correcting primary failure. Recently CDC confirmed this with a massive study. IgG avidity method let us for the first time reliably separate primary and secondary vaccine failures. I knew that waning immunity was the reason behind the laste resurgence of measles around 1990 already around 1995. It took us years to have our results published as there was firm belief amongst experts that one succesful measles shot gives life-long immunity, but this is not the case for many. https://www.oikeamedia.com/o1-222000 When I wrote this review IgG avidity to distinguish secondary from primary measles vaccination failures: prospects for a more effective global measles elimination strategy – PubMed WHO and CDC tried vehemently to censor it.
Dr. Paunio ==> Thank you for weighing in here today. I hope I remembered to mention that measles vaccines provide an immunity that may fade over one’s lifetime — it is certainly true.
READERS: Dr. Pauino is a Finish doctor and has written at least three important papers on measles and vaccination.
I noticed that you entioned waning immunity, which was a curse word for decades 🙂
I was born in 1950 and my mother in 1911 and grandparents in the 19th century. Some of my childhood memories are of parental and grandparents fear of the killer diseases of their childhoods like diphtheria, whooping cough and polio amongst others.
In 1953/4 I spent a long time in an Isolation Hospital (also known as a Fever Hospital) when I had Scarlet Fever. This left me susceptible to ear and throat infections. About 10 years ago a doctor in France sent me to have various checks on my heart when he found out. These days antibiotics mean it is no longer a serious infection.
Thanks to mass inoculation all these diseases have been kept under control in developed countries and people can choose not to have their children vaccinated without having to weigh up the risks. That is until a big enough proportion of the population is unvaccinated and an outbreak occurs in the population. Fortunately smallpox has been eliminated, the only disease so far?
Historically, about 3 out of every 10 people who contracted smallpox died.
My grandparents born 1898, 1901-both dead now of course, but absolutely terrified of the old dread diseases as both had lost siblings to those diseases. When I was in grade school-1950’s-they would line us kids up in the gym and administer vacs. for free whenever a new one came out. I remember-I think-diptheria shots one very young year. Just one of those facts of life-vacs. were lifesavers and everybody got one, come Hell or high water!
I had measles as a child with a dangerously high temperature, I can still remember the hellish and creepy crawly hallucinations, in-between periods of unconsciousness. I remember the repeated home visits from Dr Watson (yes really!) with his little brown leather bag that didn’t seem to contain much except a stethoscope. And the whispered voices of concern, the only suggestions being lots of wet cold towels. I escaped serious harm but I was told I was far less outgoing after. I was off school more than six weeks. At one point my mum tried to get me to sip a bit of orange squash and I threw up. The smell of orange squash makes me wretch to this day.
I can confirm what you say, these fever hallucinations I had too with my measles at the age of seven.
I always was pushed in front of a metro, but could fly away before I was hurt.
Later, when having this or a comparable dream and told to my parents they knew I had a fever.
That correlation ended when I was about 13/14.
Surprising to find on this website the unquestioning support for any and all vaccines based on “science “. Maybe just bots, or paid pharma shills. What damage the vaccines may have caused is of no concern. These closet collectivists sure have a singular response to this hot button issue.
Pretty sorry individualist who doesn’t differentiate voluntary and mandatory.
Jimbobla ==> That’s a funny reading of the essay I wrote — perhaps read it again?
We should start a drinking game. Every time you spot a logical fallacy in a statement, you have to drink.
We’d all be hammered after finishing the reading of those four sentences. It’s pretty amazing how many logical fallacies can be crammed into a single paragraph if you try really, really hard.
Thanks Kip. I remember, when I was about six, my worried out of their mind parents taking turns during the night operating some steaming device to humidify and support the breathing of my youngest brother who had come down with measles and ran a fever over 40C for several days.
Anybody claiming that measles is ‘benign’ is an ignorant who doesn’t know the difference between measles and chickenpox and probably never saw a serious case of measles.
My mum told me that I had measles on the boat coming from the UK, when I was 4 years-old.
Had to spend all my time in near solitary confinement so I didn’t spread it to all the other kids on boards.
I remember nothing about the trip.
That is a lot of words to say “illegal aliens” caused an outbreak of a disease that has been eradicated in US for decades. Funny, flooding a country with illegal aliens who had ZERO medical screening seems to have a negative effect on a country.
2hotel9 ==> Your bias is showing — nothing in my essay is about “aliens”, legal or illegal.
Measles is endemic in every country where it has not been essentially eliminated through massive vaccinations programs.
The measles rate in Latin America is not substantially different than in the US and Canada.
That said, ANY foreign travel is dis-advised for unvaccinated persons.
And yet this outbreak is rooted in exposure to illegals who had no medical screening. “Authorities” can try to pin it on Mennonites or people refusing vaxes, in the end this started in areas where illegals were in large numbers interspersed among American citizens. Have several friends in Springfield, Ohio area and they tell us their area medical systems are swamped with illnesses they have never had to deal with before 70,000 Haitians were dumped in the area, none having had medical screening. Actions have consequences, and all of America is now dealing with the actions of the Biden Admin.
Good to see the anti vax cult show up.
The writer’s bias is understandable given his connection with a healthcare provider.
Erroneous hyperbole spread by those with vested financial interests is more infectious than Measles. It fuels vast acceptance of health-damaging vaccines that are wholly unnecessary as well as having unproven efficacy. Adverts used in the late 50s pointed out that Measles, among others, are not serious illnesses, and where parents were told to keep their children quiet for a few days, and to have “happy measles, merry mumps, and cheery chicken pox.”
My experience of Measles was just that, and despite forced incarceration with my sister, she was unable to catch it. That experience was mirrored by many. So much for ‘highly contagious’.
Comments by one reader about Polio is another seriously misleading claim. Polio vaccines were administered long after Polio had largely died out following the recognition it was caused by lead accumulation in bone marrow.
The mass over-use of vaccines coincides with serious declines in health, and exponential rise in autism. That possible link needs fast independent investigation, or by 2050 it is estimated that 1:3 children will be autistic.
I stopped reading your comment after the ad hominem at the beginning.
Anti-science palaver.
jchr12 ==> Am I to assume that you had no connection to any healthcare provider? No have doctor? No pediatrician? Your parents were not taking you to the doctor as a child?
In the 1950s, public health officials did not believe that scaring the pants off of parents was a part of their jobs, unlike today. They tried to provide well-reasoned truthful information. Many childhood diseases were not reasons to panic – measles among them – but parents were given the signs to look for that would indicate a serious threatening case and to call their doctor or take the child to an ER. None of that means that measles was not a serious public health risk and that it did not kill and maim (hearing loss, seizures, etc) some children.
I recommend attending your local continuing education college and taking a few courses in human physiology, basic health and nutrition, and biology in general. If they offer Critical Thinking as a topic, go for it,
By the way, I have provided a link to a a recent piece in the NY Times, in which a scientists gives his view of he rise of autism.
My Dad was pediatrician. Started his practice in 1951 and worked in it till he died in 2001.
In the early ’60’s my brothers and sisters and I all had measles, mumps and chickenpox so didn’t get vaccines for them. (But my sisters that came later did.) But we did get smallpox and polio vaccines. I don’t remember how old I was, less than 4 for sure.
(I remember Dad lining us up and putting a purple drop or two on a sugar cube for the polio vaccine.)
But speaking of polio, here a picture of me at 18 months feeding a polio victim. I have another picture of me feeding her with a number of iron lungs in the background but couldn’t find it quickly.
PS I wasn’t in the hospital for polio. I was in for tubercular meningitis. This would have been around 1955.
Gunga ==> Great picture = priceless. Thanks for sharing it.
“ Polio had largely died out following the recognition it was caused by lead accumulation in bone marrow.”
I googled this because it sounded outrageous. Got nothing. Do you have a reference?
After reading “Turtles all the way down.”My opinion on the entire vaccine narrative has changed. As a PH professional for over 35 years it was a given vaccines were beneficial and the benefits outweighed the risks. After the COVID fiasco, “safe and effective” and “it stops transmission,” the lack of informed consent and the faulty clinical trials, I view the childhood vaccine schedule much more skeptically. Too many in a short time period intuitively suggests IMHO more harm than good. Hence, this has not been adequately studied, nor does a parent have any idea how their child might react to these vaccines. It’s a toss of the dice. My daughter, a healthcare worker was administered the MMR mistakenly while pregnant and our granddaughter is autistic. The question is what explains the rise in autism (1 in 36) in children nowadays? When I was child in the early 60’s, being sent over to a neighbors to get exposed was not uncommon. Hence, we received fewer vaccines and presumably a different formulation than kids receive nowadays.
Rise in autism: I’m convinced that the rise in autism is a direct function of diagnosis by the mental health establishment intent on increasing its relevance, its role in society, and its ability to generate gainful employment for its members.
I’m also convinced that I was autistic (somewhere between mildly and moderately) as a child in the 1950s and early 60s, but I wasn’t diagnosed because it didn’t “exist” as a recognised condition. I look at my 10-year old grandson who is “on the spectrum” and I see a replica of myself at that age. He is getting therapy sessions which his parents have to pay for. I, on the other hand, self-medicated with cannabis in the late 1960s — I have no idea if it changed my mental health condition, but it did lead to me no longer caring that I was a bit different from other folks. Which was the same thing, really.
Same thing with ADHD. In my primary school, kids who would now be diagnosed with ADHD, were “difficult” and were segregated (along with the real slow learners) in a special class called “the remove”. We’ve definitely progressed from that approach, thankfully.
Yep the increase is simply a result of people diagnosing it because the disease is a thing now. It wasn’t 30 years ago. The kid was just “different.”
If I remember correctly Autism was first included as a diagnosis in the late 70’s early 80’s in one publication. It was then added to the ICD in the mid to late 80’s. Subsequent issues of the ICD have refined and added to the definition of autism, the latest, I believe, was 10 years ago. This has led to adults being diagnosed as being on the spectrum as well as more children being diagnosed.
is simply a result of people diagnosing it
Subsequent issues of the ICD have refined and added to the definition of autism
Diagnosis of autism has definitely changed. The latest change I know of was between DSM 4 and DSM 5, where they removed Asperger’s as a separate syndrome and included it under Autism.
As I said elsewhere, greater awareness certainly accounts for part of the increase in diagnoses. (Temple Grandin was a pretty big contributor to that) Changing definitions are also part of the increase. But I am not convinced that those account for all of the increase. As for possible reasons I can’t say, but I don’t think vaccinations are likely causative.
(I will note that I have up close personal experience with autism, as my daughter was diagnosed quite some time ago.)
George ==> It is a common logic error to think “vaccine == vaccine == vaccine”. Not all “vaccines” are even the same thing — they just have a common purpose and are based on a common principle of acquired immunity.
It is a medical error to give a pregnant woman MMR vaccine. On the other hand, it is important to give an unvaccinated woman who might become pregnant the MMR vaccine.
The misinformation given out by Public Health (as an uber-entity) during the Covid panic has damaged the trust of the general public to a great extent — much to our loss. It is possible that it was a major crime.
The mistake made in giving his pregnant daughter the MMR aside, I’ll throw this in.
Be honest and truthful with your Doctor.
One of the Doctors that joined Dad’s practice lost a malpractice suit.
What happened was, a Mom brought her daughter for the 2 part MMR series. He told the Mom to pay attention to her and watch out for certain signs of an adverse reaction.
When she brought her in for the second shot, the Doctor asked her if she’d noticed any of the signs. The Mom said, “No” to each one.
But the kid had shown signs. She ended up blind.
With her in the courtroom and the Doctor being perceived as “rich”, the jury ruled against him.
Be honest and truthful with your Doctor.
Gunga ==> Malpractice is a difficult thing, and drives up medical costs for everyone. If the malpractice laws were tightened up to include and allow only suits fir real MALpractice, it would get better. Juries often decide in favor of the injured, without regard to facts about how risky medical practice is even when perfectly executed.
The OB that delivered our daughter was a great guy. He specialized in high risk deliveries.
Friends of ours also went to him.
A nurse had flushed the IV system.
He called for pentosane. (It can gently enhance contractions during labor.)
The nurse had left the IV system in flush mode.
The baby was there right now!
I don’t know what damages Mom or the baby suffered but they had a malpractice suit waiting to happen.
The Doctor had had issues with this particular nurse before.
He went before the hospital board and demanded that all the cost for the parents be written off AND that the nurse be fired or, if they did sue, he’d testify on their behalf.
No suit was filed.
He was a great man and a great doctor.
Gunga ==> A great example of a case handled properly.
A cardiologist that saved my life when I had a heart attack made an error during the installation of 3 stents. He came immediately afterwards to show my wife and I images of what went wrong, and explain what the results might be. In the middle of the following night, he rushed to the hospital to save my life again — necessary due to the error. I wrote him a letter of support to prevent him from losing his staff privileges at the hospital. It started with “Thank you for saving my life twice!”
This article should be titled “Safe and Effective” but we know it’s really not true. Most people born in the 1950s contracted all the childhood diseases and lived. The CDC almost never reveals any contrary data issues with vaccines. What is actually in the shots? Look it up.
I refused the Covid shots because I did not want my body producing a protein it was not designed to produce. We now know that “spike protein” production continues in people for 6 months to 2 years (long covid).
Since Covid I have become an antivaxxer. There is much data to prove me correct.
Herd immunity can only be reached when enough of the population contract and recover from a disease.
Vaccines are never better than natural immunity.
To make my point more specific I have included some information from Sharyl Attkisson site.
(STUDY) 3 children died within 24 hours of routine vaccines; Japanese researchers raise alarm
https://sharylattkisson.com/2025/03/study-3-children-died-within-24-hours-of-routine-vaccines-japanese-researchers-raise-alarm/
Vaccine Risk vs. Disease Risk: The Vaccine Math Nobody Added Up—Until Now
https://sharylattkisson.com/2025/03/vaccine-risk-vs-disease-risk-the-vaccine-math-nobody-added-up-until-now/
One Quote from this article
“Measles deaths fell over 98% from 1900 to 1963—before the vaccine—thanks to better food, cleaner water, and doctors.”
Though MMR was widely given in the 1970s, the 1980s saw measles, mumps, and rubella outbreaks among many vaccinated children and young adults.
For example, in 1985: 69 measles cases at an Illinois high school with a 99.7% vaccination rate. Ultimately, the CDC recommended all children get a second dose of MMR.
(no herd immunity here)
MMR Whistleblower
https://sharylattkisson.com/2025/03/mmr-whistleblower-watch/
“(STUDY) 3 children died within 24 hours of routine vaccines; Japanese researchers raise alarm
“In 2001, Krahling notified the FDA that: “data was being destroyed” and Merck was “instituting a policy to fraudulently” make the MMR vaccine look more effective.”
Also search for William Thompson on autism. The CDC was destroying the data.
Now there are a lot of provax articles about this but what is said was true.
Andrew Wakefield association with MMR” There was a retracted paper but you should search for yourself.
Are we being lied to? You must decide for yourselves. As for me, I am now an evil antivaxxer.
I was not before 2021 but I am now.
Please become informed and not believe the Pharma industry or so called new agencies,
Federal and State agencies are filled with Pharma people.
Look it up!
For a final thought, most Pediatricians receive bonuses for vaccinations but they must have a very high percentage of there patients vaccinated. It would difficult for them to stay in business without these payments.This does not make them evil.
There is so much nonsense in this post it is an embarrassment to be printed here.
The data is easy to find you just have look.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) whistleblower Dr. William Thompson released his August 27, 2014 public statement regarding internal studies confirming a link between the MMR vaccine and the development of autism. Dr. Thompson’s statement reads, in part:
“I regret that my coauthors and I omitted statistically significant information in our 2004 article published in the journal Pediatrics. The omitted data suggested that African American males who received the MMR vaccine before age 36 months were at increased risk for autism. Decisions were made regarding which findings to report after the data were collected, and I believe that the final study protocol was not followed.”
https://theiowastandard.com/chd-marks-10th-anniversary-of-cdc-whistleblower-disclosure-of-mmr-vaccine-autism-link/
What dangerous nonsense you spread.
chrome-extension://oemmndcbldboiebfnladdacbdfmadadm/https://vaccinateyourfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Whistleblower_QA012017_updatedSept2020.pdf
I wrote a peer reviewed report https://www.academia.edu/56245169/Environmental_health_and_child_survival_epidemiology_economics_experiences in the World Bank with an Indian economist Anjali Acharya. We proved that the hypothesis of the Harvard nutritionists (1968 classic WHO monograph) that infections especially diarrhea before the first birthday is the root cause of under nutrition. Under nutrition is an acquired immunodeficiency. In our report we could explain that improved hygienic practices lead to substantial decrease of <5 year old deaths unrelated to poor hygiene e.g. measles. Towards the end of 19th century two sanitary engineers were puzzled why water supply and sanitation decreased <5 year old deaths unrelated to poor hygiene. This was called Mills Reincke enigma for more than 100 years. Mills Reincke enigma can now be explained by the aforementioned phenomenon. WHO “canonized” this interpretation around 2017 https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/diarrhoeal-disease as even more convincing cohort studies had been published since our report was published in 2008. “Diarrhoea is a leading cause of malnutrition in children under 5 years old.”
This admission by the WHO in 2017 has not had any impact on current development policy dictated by the climate change imperative, which tells that the Global South must not develop water supply to guarantee that everybody is able to consume water 250 liters per day. Thus Sustainable Development Goal number six has discarded H from WSH holy trinity i.e. the poor are excluded the public health miracle which made us in the rich countries one head taller and cognitively more advanced.
I have studied measles for over 20 years before I became a cabinet officer here in Finland. Measles causes significant morbidity even in well nourished populations and occasional is fatal and it is very dangerous to pregnant women and their fetuses as pregnancy is immunosuppressive. Furthermore small babies without passive immunity from their mothers are also in great danger. As measles is extremely contagious https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9850133/ there is a great need to keep up herd immunity with high vaccination coverage. Our research group was the first to debunk this preposterous MMR vaccine and autism claim. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9643797/
Thank you.
Here is more detailed analyses why current neomalthusian worldview and current sustainable development policies pose great danger to the poor in the Global South. https://www.acsh.org/news/2017/10/30/sustainability-threatens-public-health-developing-world-12055
From article:” Initial infections originate outside the United States and arrive with immigrants or travelers.”
All of the reporting from my local CBS station usually just says that the people with measles have no record or are unvaccinated.
If most of the cases were among Mennonites, Amish, or home schooled that would have been noted but the lack of information raises my suspicion.
For several years we allowed millions of illegals in with no checks on vaccine status. That we haven’t had more breakouts of diseases is a wonder. Or are humans more resistant than we are lead to believe.
mkelly ==> The measles virus doesn’t care about anyone’s U.S. immigration status.
The Mennonites of South Plains region of Texas are know to be somewhat vaccine hesitant and the child that dies was unvaccinated.
But, that said, the measles virus was carried into the region by someone — it did not pop up out of the Earth like a pixie. That someone most likely cam from some country other than the United States. It could have been a visiting Mennonite from Germany for all we know.
We don’t have more outbreaks of diseases because mostly US citizens are well and thoroughly vaccinated. We do have occasional cases – even of malaria, typhoid, etc. which are traced to travelers.